Viticulture: Bordeaux Review: Four Seasons in One Play

[music] [music] Hey everybody, I'm Tom Vassel. >> And I'm Chris Yay. >> Today we're taking a look at a game called Bordeaux. Uh well, this is not a game. This is an expansion for a very, very popular game called Vitty Culture. This is an expansion that surprised me when it came out. Not because the game I think, you know, Vidy Culture already has a bunch of expansions.

In fact, Vidy Culture is a little bit confusing. The Vid Culture came out. Then they came out with a very big modular expansion called Tuskanyany. Then they came out with the Essential Vid Culture, which took some of the stuff from Tuscanyany and put it into base game. Then they came out with Essential Tuskanyany where they cut out all the stuff no one ever played with.

And so now Essential Vid Culture is pretty much the only Vid Culture you can buy. >> I think I think we've gotten past the point where it's confusing because people just go into the store now go Vidic Culture Essential Edition. Sweet. Oh, Tuscan Essential Edition. Those are the only two like basic products out the Vidiculture World.

>> Vidult Culture World, which turns it into a cooperative game. >> And now this one. >> So this one surprised me though because this one they're like the board is four seasons. And I was like, well >> I thought so was Tuskany. Yeah, >> Tuskanyany already did that. But not a lot of people have bought Tuskanyany and that's not in the base game.

But this is also a very different board. Let me show you. Players will now take their turn order. And you'll notice there's seven different ones. Although if you take the seventh one, then that's the only way to get up into this first slot. But when you go through the seasons, you are either going to place a worker or pass.

When you pass, you're going to get a bonus. And so some of the bonus are pretty easy. Hey, take an extra coin or take another card. You get an extra worker that's that's only available for this year. Um, you get to move forward one of your grapes or you get to age all of your grapes. Age one of your wines or age all of your wines.

Pull one of your workers back from the fall that you can use again in the winter. Refresh all the green and purple cards. And these help everybody. They're going to give everyone money. age grapes for everyone and age wines for everybody. But hey, you get to go first. When someone passes in the winter, you'll come down here and just follow this from right to left.

Retrieve your workers age, everything, discard down to seven cards, collect residual payments, and choose wake up position. Speaking of that, this game starts slightly different. You'll notice the residuals payments go up to seven. When you are playing the Bordeaux version here, you are going to start with some changes to the game.

Everyone's going to start with besides the mama and the papa's cards. You'll start with three euros. You'll start with a two value grape, a one value wine token. You'll start with two structure cards as it shows here in the book. I mean, two of the two of your vineyards sold. So, you'll have to be able to buy those back if you want to use them more.

And you'll notice residual level one. So, everyone's going to start with a residual level one. So, you'll start making money every round. And when you pass residual from 2 to three, four to five, and six to seven, you will get a point. Now, there are a lot of spaces on the board here, and there are many different things to do, and you're going to have to figure out what to do in each of the seasons.

Now, you might be wondering if you've played Tuskanyany, the expansion before this. This board is different than that board. So, I brought them in to kind of show them off. This is the original board. The original board had an area control map type situation here, and I gave you bonuses. That is completely gone.

You also notice that the wake up bonuses here or the the passing bonuses from seasons is remarkably different, but the spaces themselves are also quite different. So, focusing here, there's a lot more bonuses, especially on the two-player dots. Almost all of them have a bonus that you can get. There's also been some changes to the trade action.

Um, which you'll notice over here. Whenever you make a trade, you are going to trade one of these things. pay either two cards, three coins, a point, or a grape and get one of these, which includes residuals or aging, you know, are getting wines or grapes. But when you do that, you're going to put a token there so that trade can't be made again for the rest of the game.

Well, probably. See, there's a new action here called hire an expert. And the game comes with cubes for each of the players for this particular action. When you hire an expert, you are going to put a cube on any of the expert spaces on the board. So, for example, if I go up here to this first action, which is draw a green card, I can do so.

But if I have the expert here, I get a bonus action. And on this one here, I can pay money to get that to get a grape of that level. When I go to the give a tour, I will, you know, get your two coins here plus possible bonuses. Plus, if I have the expert worker, I get an extra worker here. And these bonuses are going to be different all throughout the board.

One of my favorites here is the training. When you train someone, you can place the worker immediately in the spring or the summer right now. Or when you sell, you'll get extra points or money depending if you have a medium or a large seller. And this one here just gives you an extra space to fill orders at the end of the round.

Uh or just take any action, which is by the way is a new action for this board where you can pay a coin to take any action um on the board. And this lets you refresh the different order cards. A couple other things to note on this board. There are now more places to harvest. Here you can buy um or you can harvest one field.

Here you can harvest up to two fields. So this is a big change allowing more harvesting to happen. I've already mentioned to take any action here. Um the winter is pretty close to the the same. And then the other things are like I said very similar except you're not selling properties. You just have more spots to plant um building structures and making trades.

Some of these things have also changed from season to season. So that's pretty much what the game includes. There is reference cards so you know what all the experts do in each of the seasons. And then [snorts] there's also, as always with the Stonemire game, Altama. So if you want to play solo, there's a whole section of rules about that.

[music] [music] I honestly thought when I saw this, I'm like, "Oh yeah, sure. I'll try an alternate board for Tuskany because with the four seasons for me is the only way I'll play Vettic Culture. I love it so much. I'm not even opposed to the two season. It's like I just I like the four seasons so much more.

I like the idea of putting a worker out and then waiting, but I also like the idea of advancing >> and getting a bonus sometimes and the turn order is so much more interesting to me in that board. So, the fact that this came out, I was like, "Oh, it's a different board." And once we went over the rules, I thought, "This is really different." >> I I agree.

It's And to me, it's it's nice that it doesn't just feel like a slightly alternate board. Feels very different when you look at that turn order tracker that you mentioned, right? The original Vidiculture, you pick a you pick a turn order and you get one bonus. And then in Tuscany, they had this whole like spreadsheet where you would kind of advance each season and you get some extra bonus.

Yeah. Sometimes a bonus along the way. Uh, and the way that this one does it, there's there's something in every single spot. >> Yeah, no kidding. Which is so fun. >> It's very giving. It feels good as a player. Even though if you go first, you're not really getting a bonus. You're doing some kind of neutral board game, you know, board cleanup or giving everyone a bonus.

And so that's a funny feeling where, you know, I I love games where you can choose your turn order on the track. And in this one, you're like, I could go first, but I'm really going to weigh the positives and b and negatives of that actually. >> Well, Chris mentioned giving, and this game definitely does that.

It starts you out with a little bit extra money. It starts you out with income, which has never been before. It gives points when you move around the little income circle. It gives you um more ways. There's two places now, the harvest fields. There's more bonuses on on on the spots that are out there.

there's just more stuff. And to that end, if you're someone who's good at at video culture, this is going to actually speed the game up for you because there's you're just getting stuff faster. >> Although, I can see some diehard fans of video culture. I don't mean as an insult at all. Uh, but I can see some people might miss some of the tension because there's everything's a little easier.

There's now two face up cards, so I'm not stuck with whatever I get. I can pick the card. Hopefully that helps me best. There are now more bonuses. There's more money in the game. So, just a little easier to play. This is something I love. But I do understand it won't be everyone's cup of tea. >> I some people like this game because of that tension like, "Oh, I just, you know, I only have three workers across especially four seasons.

You know, where do I where do I place them out and everything?" Uh, and then, you know, do I harvest my fields this round? Do I wait until next round to plant more crops and then harvest? And I think that it retains, for my tastes, enough of those tense moments, right? I agree. >> But it just it gives you a little bit of engine building.

This is something that in some cool ways that have not been in Vida culture before. Going to that spot where you upgrade a location for yourself. I mean, this is this whole expansion is solo cards, some cubes, and that board. And I think that with just that difference, they made it they made it feel very different.

I love upgrading a worker placement spot just for me. And you better believe I'm going to do that a lot. Even if it's strategically a little bit like suboptimal, I just want to do that. >> Oh, those expert workers are so fun. If you think about it, you're like, I might only use that four times over the course of the game.

Maybe four or five. It depends. >> But like that, for example, the one I I showed you, those trades can only be done one time. Well, if I have the expert for that, I can pull that a token off before I make a trade. So, I can do a trade multiple times. That just feels cool that and it feels good you're doing something no one else does.

You'll be jealous of everyone else's >> but also fiercely protective of your own like this is a really great bonus >> to the point where that going to that spot you're going to end up putting your grad worker there sometimes because you're like I really want an expert because it it helps you out the rest of the game.

>> I agree and it's fun and it's it's not so loose in my opinion that now like well that's the only action I'll do. No, there definitely comes a point in the game where you're like, well, do I actually need any more, you know, expert spots? Not really. Now I can focus on like churning out my engine or I can focus on uh using the the summer and winter guests to or visitors to get, you know, those special points that I need to just cross that threshold.

It still retains that feeling of racing to 25 points. It just makes the the starting experience a little bit smoother. I think it was you who said it it kind of feels like a Terraforming Mars Prelude type of expansion, >> but without making it so obvious, like you get these cards, start with these extra things, now go.

It's kind of baked into the game in a few more subtle touches, >> but I'm okay with a lot of these bigger Euro style games having a way to speed up those initial turns. This kind of >> again replaces that very first turn of the game. I don't need to worry about getting income. It also makes some other strategies very viable.

The strategy of just selling a single wine >> is now a very if you get the expert worker there. >> Oh yeah, >> that's a very strong strategy. Um besides filling the orders, but that doesn't it doesn't discount the orders. >> Mhm. >> There's just a lot of cool things that can be done. Um this is really neat.

Uh, if you don't own Tuscanyany and you just own Vidic Culture, I would say you could skip it and get just this. This is cheaper. Anyway, there are some cool things in Tuscanyany. There's buildings and there are special workers, but I dare say most people would not miss those. This is the main feature of Tuskanyany for me.

Um, in fact, I won't play Tuskanyany again. I'm going to play just video culture with this. This would be my and I it's fewer rules to teach people and I would teach this to people even if they had never played video culture before. >> I think you could. Yeah, I I agree with that. Um I still like I know you said you'll never play it again.

I still like the two season board, but >> Sure. And I'm not trying to discount that. I'm just saying for me it's But also this has a two season board with those two cards. Although to be fair, any human being could just flip over two cards. >> I'm going to do that. >> I want to speak to that really quick.

I like that. This is a nice kind of like a compromise rule of having a few cards face up, but not the visitors, which I think is a great touch because that would lead to slowing down the game. I agree. >> But a little more choice in the contracts, a little more choice in the grape vines that you can grow.

Um, I I like this. I used to actually house rule vidiculture all the time. The Matthew Jude house rule where every time you draw cards, you draw one extra uh and choose between them and discard one of them. I think this kind of replaces that for me a little bit. Um, so if I'm playing with this, this is kind of my preferred market system for that.

>> What would you give it? >> I'm g this one a nine. I like viticulture a lot. I think that this is I think that this has more parts of it that hit for me and easier than the Tuskany expansion kind of like you mentioned. Uh, but if you want Vida Culture to be a crunchier game, Tuskan is still great because I love the special workers.

I love the special buildings. But this is kind of a cleaner way to really step up viticulture >> and you could do both. So you could have that those special workers and buildings work with this. So that's not a problem. >> Yeah. I and I appreciate that it's cross-co compatible. But this is the shiny new thing.

I know I'm very focused on it. But I think that the good news is I don't have to pick between the two. And uh I recommend both. And so I recommend this one just as much as I recommend Tuscanyany. Even though it kind of gives less whisbang flashy modules. I think that the ones that are provided on here and kind of just baked into the board are excellent.

>> Once again, Stonemire Games seems to constantly fiddle with their games so they get the perfect thing at the end. It's just something they do. >> Like it or don't like it that the end result, but with that in mind, I'm giving it a 10. For me, this is this is this is what I want. This is the expansion.

I always play with it, which I don't say about almost any expansion really, but I'll always play with this. I like I said, I'll teach it to new players. It's so fun and it doesn't add a lot of overhead and it also adds so much asymmetry between the players. Still leaving you with a lot of choices. Do you want to buy the It takes away some of the stuff I thought was in the base game.

I thought initially selling your fields seems like almost an auto first move. >> Yes. >> Um so just so you have some cash. Now you're you start with two fields already sold. So you did it. It's over. And that's that's such a big deal whether the games Twilight Imperium, Ark Nova, Terraforming Mars, Bordeaux, I mean Vidic Culture, any game that lets you skip some of the first turns of a game to get to the really good turns.

>> They kind of wrote Yeah. wrote first actions. Yeah. >> So there you go. That is Bordeaux, the expansion for Vidy Culture. I'm Tom Bassel >> and I'm Chris Ye. >> Bye. Hey everybody, thanks for watching this [music] video. If you like this review or whatever you just watched, wasn't it amazing? Uh, check out our channel, Dice Tower.

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