The light green farm tiles have different groupings of animals on them, and they have the biggest point potential, since each time you play one of them you score points equal to the total count of that type of animal in that region. It is not a viscous game but opponent's plans can be thwarted and nobody stays out in first place for long. This piece of advice is particularly important in 2 player games, where every point denied to your opponent is effectively one point gained.

You are never left with nothing meaningful to do in Castles of Burgundy and the effect isn’t to dilute the game but to intensify the quality of the decision space within the game. I wouldn’t say that the complexity was too high or the strategy and planning was too much, so maybe “lighter” isn’t necessarily what we are looking for (although this is the heaviest game we have tried on the BGG complexity scale). Unfortunately, that means that the brunt of the pain is borne by those likely least willing to forgive its idiosyncrasies.Terrible, but if you have a couple of workers you can spend them to get the die face you actually needed. The meticulous mechanics themselves are what make Burgundy a fat, canny puzzle that you want to master, but it’s the fact that you’re developing a region that gives the game “glue”, if you will. The dice will give you a few options and you need to figure out your turn from that continually shifting decision space.

Ship tiles are more important in two player games, and the person who is ahead for the bulk of the game has a large advantage. Ignoring those special knowledge tiles in the center for a bit, let’s talk about the selection you’ll find in the main area. I couldn’t quite believe it when I found out that I haven’t actually reviewed Castles of Burgundy before. It can be quite easy To forget, but the makers have left little prompts on the game board and player mats to help remind you. However, whenever pursuing a high-point farm, you must be aware of the opportunity costs of doing so.I’ve played a few other Feld games since but none of them have been so precise, pleasant, and accessible as this one. Here are some of our more lighthearted things to show we're not all about the Serious Business of games. Non obvious is subjective, the choice made was to display only tiles that can be placed and possible estate / duchy destinations for the Place tile action, and tiles that can be taken for free from the main board, with a church, market or carpenter. If you are still following this, there are additional bonus points for filling a whole contiguous coloured group on your player board that are dependent on the size of the group and on the round that you score it.

Using the same math, it results in 182 potential points on the board–30 points greater than board 1. While the core game loop is deeply satisfying you still need to know what all the different knowledge and building tiles do before you make your choices.That’s really the magic of Burgundy – you’re always in a position to do something fun even though the dice are absolutely not on your side. Five times during the game a seductive assortment of fresh hexes is dumped onto six areas on the central board, corresponding to six sides on a die. Boats let you scoop up trade goods off the central board, trade goods we’re not even going to cover in the review because we’re running the risk of writing out the sodding manual. There’s not a huge amount of player interaction and therefore has minimal conflict – aside from perhaps getting a tad peeved that another player nabbed your sought after tile.

If you’re trying to complete a 6 size town region but find that you would have to pass up a great opportunity elsewhere, or find that it’s going to depend on a lot of luck in the last round, take a deep breath and analyze your scoring opportunities only from that point forward. Unless some other opportunity presents itself to me, my main strategy regarding knowledge tiles is to complete all of them, and to have 4 at an absolute minimum give me victory points. Some give you points for having certain kinds of tiles already placed, others give you an instant bailout of cash or serfs. It really is like a puzzle, but where you have specific aims – to complete a region, gain bonuses, finish your estate first and of course score points. I did feel that having all of the original cardboard components included felt a bit wasteful as we deliberately bought the special edition for the longevity and durability of the components included.Partially, this could be down to a touch of nostalgia, as it was one of the first modern board games I played. The Castles of Burgundy (special edition) has been designed with a level of care and attention to detail that is second-to-none. You roll dice and then try to roll with the dice, until finally you can’t take it any more and reach into your wallet. There are a lot of reasons I’d caution someone to avoid Castles of Burgundy and pick up something more instantly approachable. It’s like a fun puzzle than gives something back, and is a rather smooth cruise into dice assignment, set collection and territory building.