by Omahavice
Went over to a friend's house last night for some gaming. We didn't really have a plan as what we were going to play so he asked if I would mind playing The Castles of Burgundy which he had not had a chance to play yet. I have never played it either so I asked him if he had read the rules. He said he had read them but it was a few weeks ago. We figured we could muddle through the game so we decided to give it a try.We opened the box and luckily he had already sorted and bagged all the different chits, dice, and pieces. We each took a number 1 player board and began following the set-up instructions. We finally got it set up and went over the different actions you can take which is printed right on your player board. By time we got to Phase A, Round 1, we both had that "oh oh" look like we had bit off more than we could chew.
He rolled and won First Player and off we went. He bought a ship with his first die, placed it with his second, took a Good and then it was my turn. I grabbed a ship and a building that gives you 4 workers when you place it and we were off and running. We had to check the Rule Book several times to see what the diffeerent Tech/Knowledge tiles do but overall the game flowed very nice. Tracy built a few mines early which give you Silverlings (money) and I built mostly buildings and raised animals in the early going.
Around Phase C we were both like "wow, this is a fun little game". We also both laughed about the fact that toward the end of setting it up, we both were considereing asking to play another game instead. We battled back and forth until the end of Phase E and even though he had a pretty good lead, I thought I would catch him as I had some Tech/Knowledge tiles that were giving me bonus points for several of my buildings. I had 16 bonus points but it wasn't enough as he had a tile that gave him 1 bonus point at the end for every Good he had sold throughout the game. He had sold 13 Goods. Tracy won the game 159-152 but we both agreed that it was a fun game and one we will certainly play again.
If this game is on your radar or someone you know has a copy, give it a spin, it is a very good game with lots of potential.
