/pic7393092.jpg)
In June 1520, at Balinghem, there met the young and glorious Kings of England and of France in a grand and splendid celebration of their mutual friendship and admiration. There were great feasts and opulent amusements, conspicuous expressions of deepest and sincerest piety, and fierce tournaments. Each King outshone the other in turn, so that the world might be astounded at the wealth and power of each kingdom. So many tents and raiments were made of precious cloth of gold, that the field is so named.
This game was created to commemorate the five hundredth anniversary of the world’s most famous three-week party, in which King Henry VIII of England, and Francis I of France, spent ridiculous amounts of money and resources to peacock at each other. Through smiles made of gritted teeth, the game’s two players will express friendship: each action they take will give their opponent a tile that they might use to score. Scoring usually entails removing the tile from the game, so each player must take care to maximize their scoring opportunities while either denying them to their rival, or forcing their rival to score before they’re ready. Once the game is underway, players are generally given only two options, and both of those options are usually painful - even and sometimes especially when they score you points.
A sort of subversion of the point salad paradigm, The Field of the Cloth of Gold harkens back to the feel of the classic German games of the 1990s: simple, elegant, austere, and politely vicious.
The second edition of the game, dubbed the "503rd anniversary edition", includes a new jewel tile type.
—description from the publisher
- Two-player only game with strategic blocking and incremental gains
- Endgame scoring adds tension with cloth of gold tokens
- Thematic setting of lavish royal party is engaging
- royal court competition and gift exchange
- lavish field of gold tents in France where the kings of England and France hosted a grand party 501 years ago
- instructional playthrough with live commentary
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Banquets and Feasts — Gift colored tiles to the opponent via specific action spots, with scoring determined by the tiles transferred.
- Cloth of Gold action — Reveal all gold tiles in hand to your court, compare with opponent, gain points for having the majority, and keep the tiles.
- Court and tile revelation — Tiles gifted to an opponent go into that opponent's court and may be revealed under certain actions.
- Darkness drawing — Draw tiles from the darkness based on your victory point track; drawn tiles go into your hand and later into play.
- Dragon token — A dragon token can be placed on an action spot, preventing that action from being performed.
- End conditions — The game ends when the last darkness tile is taken or a player reaches 30 points.
- Endgame scoring for cloth of gold — At game end, each cloth of gold tile in front of you scores 1–3 points depending on your final scoring row.
- Move and gift — On your turn, place an action pawn on an empty spot and gift the tile underneath to your opponent.
- Set collection and collections scoring — Some actions score points for sets of four different colored tiles in your court.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- The setting for this game is one of the most lavish and splendid parties to ever have been held that happened 501 years ago in france
- on your turn you're going to move one of your pawns onto a location and then you are going to gift the tile underneath that location to your opponent
- the game ends once all of these tiles are gone or once any player reaches 30 points
- this is a two player only game