by DoomTurtle
The Castles of Burgundy has made quite a splash since it was first introduced. It was lauded for its unique use of dice, and mitigating the randomness that often comes along with them. I first played it at a convention last summer and really enjoyed it, and placed it on my next game order. Not only was it fun to play, but it was relatively inexpensive! I knew it would be a game my wife would love, and I was right, since it was a pretty meaty game, but you weren't actively destroying each other. Although you might think otherwise sometimes if you heard us when we take a tile the other one wants...Over the past year and two months, I have gotten 20 plays, which includes using the extra tiles in the 2nd Expansion, and a few games using the New Player Boards or the Germany Championship Board.
The Premise:
Everyone is trying to fill in their sprawling Burgundy estate with farms, buildings, and castles while opening shipping lanes for goods and mining for silver. The player who has the most prestigious land as determined by victory points is the winner.
The Components:
The cardboard components are a little flimsy and thin, which probably helped keep the cost of the game down, but care must be taken. Dozens of tiles are included which represent the different farms, buildings, castles, mines, bonuses, trade goods, workers, silver, etc. Six different double-sided player boards represent the estates of the players. A main game board will keep track of score, game turn, and what tiles are available. Two wooden pawns in each of the four player colors are used to keep track of score and turn order, and two 6-sided dice in each player color as well as one in white will determine the actions available and where the goods belong.
The Gameplay:
Each player will get a player board, one silver, three goods, and 1-4 workers which depends on whether they are going first, second, third, or fourth. They will also get a castle tile to place on their player board. The main section of the game board has six sections to it, numbered 1-6. Each of these sections has hexagonal estate tiles that will be placed on them, and a small box for goods tiles. The game is divided into five rounds (A-E), and each round has 5 turns. On each turn, all players will roll their two colored dice. Then in player order, each player will perform two actions, one with each die.
There are four actions possible that can be done with a die. The number rolled often determines the extent of that action. The first action is to take a hexagonal estate tile from the game board. The number on the die determines which section they are allowed to take a tile from. The tile is placed on their player sheet, in one of the three holding spaces. If these spaces are full, they must discard a tile from one in order to add another.
The second action is to place a hexagonal estate tile onto their estate. The entire estate on a player's game board is split up into 37 colored hexagons each with a number on it, one of which will have a player's starting castle on it. In order to place a tile onto the estate, there are several rules that must be adhered to. First of all, the tile being added must be placed to a tile already on the estate. Second, the tile color (type) must match the color of the hexagon it is to be placed on. And last, the number of the space being added to match the number on the die being used for this action. When a tile is placed, depending on the type, there is often a bonus action or event that will immediately happen, which I will explain later.
The third action a player may do with a die is to sell goods. Each player may have only three different types of goods, but there is no limit to the quantity of each of those three goods they can have. Each good is numbered 1-6. The die you are using this action for must match the number of the good type you are selling. When selling goods you will get 2-4 points per good (points equal to the number of players) and 1 silver (no matter how many goods are sold).
The final action you can do with a die is use it to collect two workers. Workers are extremely helpful when you don't roll what you want on a turn. Anytime you take an action with a die, you can turn in one or more workers to alter the die you rolled. So if you rolled a 4, you can turn it into a 3 or 5 by discarding one worker. Discard two workers to make it a 2 or 6. Discard three to make it a 1. This is very useful when you have a certain tile you really want, or want to place, or have some goods to sell. One thing to note is that the number values wrap around, so if you rolled a 6, you only need one worker to turn it into a 1.
In addition to your two dice actions each turn, you can also take an additional optional action. On the game board, there is a section of tiles in the center with black backs. These tiles can only be taken with this action. To do so, you must discard two silver. This can only be done once per turn, no matter how much silver you may have, and can be done before or after any of your dice actions.
The main way to earn points (other than selling goods as noted above) is to place tiles on your estate. Like-colored hexagons that are adjacent to each other on the estate are considered a section. When a section is completely covered with tiles, than you will earn points for it. A section of only one, will earn you 1 point. A section of two will earn you 3 points, a section of three will earn you 6, and so on. The larger the section, the more points you get. On top of that, the round you're on (A-E) when you complete a section will also earn you points. Completing sections earlier in the game will get you more points than completing them later. A section finished on phase A earns you 10 more points, while in phase E, it's only two more points. And then on top of that, if the section you just completed is the final section of that type, you get even more points. For example, you may have four different brown sections on your estate. Once all four are completed, you earn even more bonus points.
So the goal is to add as many tiles as you can and complete as many sections as you can as quickly as you can. This can be tough with only 25 turns in total, but there are bonus actions or events that happen when you place certain tiles.
The dark green tiles are the castles. When you place one, you immediately get a free dice action. For this dice action, you can assume it is any number you want it to be. So you can effectively place any tile, choose any tile in a numbered area on the game board, or sell any good type.
The blue tiles are the ships. When you place a ship, you move forward on the turn order track, and get some free goods. Each turn, a good is added into the storage box at a number as rolled on the white die. When a ship is placed, that player can choose all the goods from a single storage location and add them to their board.
The grey tiles are the mines. At the end of each round, for each mine you have on your estate, you will get one silver, which will allow you to buy extra tiles as mentioned above.
The brown tiles are buildings. There are eight different building types, with each type giving a different bonus when placed. One gives you 4 extra points, one gives 2 silver, one gives 4 workers, one lets you immediately sell a goods type, one lets you immediately place another tile on your estate, and the last three let's you immediately take a tile from the game board (building determines the type of tile you can take). Within each brown section on your estate, you are not allowed to have more than one of the same type of building.
The light green tiles are farms. Farm tiles will have 2-4 animals on them, and they will be either chickens, cows, sheep, or pigs. When a farm tile is placed, you immediately get points equal to the number of animals on that tile. If that tile is being added to a farm section that already has one or more tiles showing the same animal, you also get a point for each matching animal in that section. So place a four pig tile, you will get 4 points. Later on, place a three pig tile in the same section, you will get 3 points from that tile, plus 4 points from the previous tile since the animals are the same. Place another three pig tile later, you will get 3 points plus 7 more from the two previous tiles. If you later on add a tile with 2 chickens, then you will only get 2 points, since the other tiles are all pigs and do not match.
The final tile type are yellow bonus tiles. There are 26 different yellow tiles, and none are duplicated. Some give you points at the end of the game, for having sold different goods types, having certain buildings on your estate, etc. Other tiles give in-game benefits. One tile will let you take 4 workers instead of 2 when you use a die for workers. One bonus tile will let you add +/- 1 for free when placing a brown building tile. There are a wide variety of effects you can get.
At the end of the game, the highest score wins. Other than the points earned throughout the game, each player will get points for any relevant yellow bonus tiles, leftover workers, silver, and unsold goods.
Final Thoughts:
This game is one of my favorites. Despite dice being used, there are plenty of ways to mitigate unlucky rolls, which can be done through using workers, or bonus actions from the tiles. What also helps is that the numbers on the die have no inherent value, i.e. rolling fives and sixes is not any better than rolling ones or twos. It all depends on what is available at the time, and what you need.
In that end, the game is more of a tactical game. You can definitely have an over-arching strategy, trying to finish certain sections or grab certain bonus tiles. But if the dice or other players aren't cooperating with your plans, you will need a backup on the fly.
This game works pretty well at all player counts. The number of tiles available are all relative to the number of players. So a four player round will have 32 tiles available, and if you cut that player count in half, you also cut the available tiles in half. Although there is one consequence to playing with less than four players, which some may see as a negative, and make the game even more tactical. With a four player game, you will see every tile come out at some point. With less players, some tiles will not be used. This can be a bummer when you get a bonus tile towards the beginning of the game, and the tiles to support that bonus don't show up, or you start a pig farm, and no more pig tiles come around. It is slightly harder to make plans, but not such a problem that I would ever consider not playing with less than four. In fact, I've played more 2 player games than not.
Alternate player boards can be fun, and force you to adapt different strategies. It's always best to start off with the same Board #1 with everyone. But after a few plays, having different estate layouts than what you are used to, as well as from each other can make for an interesting time. Just beware of Board #8, that one is set up to earn a lot of points, and is very difficult to overcome. For a better challenge, try out the New Player Boards, especially with the new rule that says you can't expand into a different section, unless that section is next to a castle. You will definitely be using lots of worker with them. And the 2nd Expansion tiles are fun to throw in as well.
The last thing to mention about this game is the downtime. It is very minimal with experienced players. But playing this with someone new can cause a lot of AP with all the different tile effects available. And you can try to plan your move out while it's not your turn, but if a player ahead of you takes what you wanted, you have to rethink out your turn. So expect a longer game with newer players, but the playing time can definitely be trimmed as you gain experience.
Being one of my favorites, I will rate this game a 9.5 following the BGG guidelines. I haven't played too many of Feld's games, but of the ones I have, I find this to be one of the better ones, and just one of the better games overall.
Thanks for reading my review. If you want to read more, just go to A Year With My Games.
