review

The colossos of Carcassonne

Die Baumeister des Colosseum

Kafkaesk construction of the Colosseum

The story of the success of „Carcassonne“, Spiel des Jahres 2001, among other awards, meanwhile is not only timeless, but also boundless. In the series of “around the world” be had the chance to visit The South Seas and the Amazonas river - but, so far, not yet the Easter Islands in the geographic middle of those two destinations. This location was taken care of by the designer with many entertaining hours coming from “Rapa Nui” - on the recommendation list of Spiel des Jahres 2012. A few of the game elements used in Rapa Nui are appearing again here - maybe, because church bells fly to Rome and back at Easter?

Theme of the game is, of course, the construction of the Colosseum in Rome. Basis for it is a board that must be placed into the box, of course after removing all the other game components. 17 slots are arranged in the shape of an Easter egg, or an oval, and during the game, the same number of construction parts, that is, the corresponding tiles or some rather impressive “panels” must be placed into those slots. At the end of the game we have a complete Colosseum in very attractive 3D design.

In the process of achieving this you need building materials to construct those panels. We acquire them - in the guise of cards - from real estate that we own, which is in turn represented by tiles. In addition to a starting capital of landscape tiles, varying a bit from player to player, landscape tiles are stacked around the board in four rows of four tiles each. The nice idea about this: If I take a new landscape tile from the display to open up an additional potential source of income for myself, the tile behind it is not only scored for me, but also for all other players, that is, the respective building materials are handed out. If I take, say, a grain field tile and behind this grain field tile is a quarry, all players receive one stone card for each of their quarries. Therefore, of course, you preferably want to increase your own property in a way that allows the other player the least profit from participating.

This mechanism - which we are already know from “Rapa Nui” - on the one hand provides interaction and on the other hand sees to it, that players are always involved in the action of the currently active player. In “Rapa Nui”, however, you always had access to all four rows - contrary to that, the selection of a certain row is governed by a joint pawn for all, which is moved along the seven, again egg-shaped, cases of the game board; it moves at least one step, for additional steps you need to acquire Stable tiles. IF you don’t have them or if your own have already been used, you can and must spend one victory point for each additional step. Normally, however, you would try, understandably, to avoid this option, even if this reluctance might be unnecessary or even awkward as regards to game play; in any case, this mechanism gives one the feeling of “being played” or at least to be even more dependent on chance as you would be in “Rapa Nui”.

Because, the ideal case - the one free step is all I need to access the desired selection - will rarely happen, despite the fact that the previous player will often not have considered the consequence of his turn for the following player. In a somewhat more tactical way to play you will try to “hassle” the next player when placing the pawn, but usually your own advantage will be dearer to your heart than aggravating the next player. In addition to the four distinct types of landscape tiles and the stable tiles there is, a a sixth and last type of tile, the type of storage barn tiles, which allow their owners a higher limit of cards in hand.

Another option of action is to construct a Colosseum panel: If you discard the necessary building material cards you are immediately rewarded with victory points - so, for instance, a combination of a black, a green and a yellow card can give you four victory points. This is the rather uninspired part of the game mechanisms, because something like his - using certain color combinations to meet demands - has appeared rather frequently in games in recent years. Therefore, it is a pity, too, that “Rapa Nui” has not been re-published, because in this game the transformation of resources cards into victory points was much more cleverly resolved, accompanied by much more thrilling uncertainty.

I have already mentioned that the currently available selection options are governed by one joint pawn for all players. In order to be independent of the randomness of one free step, you should take care in time to collect a few stable tiles to have the necessary extra steps at your command whenever you might need them. Those stable tiles, however, must be recharged again and again - by triggering of scorings - which of course is done at the expense of building resources cards and building actions. If your memory is up to it, you might try to remember which colors are collected by which player, so that you can before them in the one or other building action. This is especially important in the end game phase, as you should avoid being left with a full hand of cards, which would only yield a meagre few additional “consolation” points. Furthermore, the construction of the final three Colosseum panels is rewarded with a few extra points.

In the beginning, the option to be involved in a scoring, is often misunderstood as a consolation price too, as you score one point for this. Because, if you would receive even only one resource card, the ratio of 1 point for 1 card would be rather lucrative - or, if you already have a nearly full hand of cards, a forfeiting of scoring might be reasonable, because otherwise you would have simply to discard the newly acquired games. At the end of the game, you will score important points for the respective majority in each of the six types of tiles; therefore, also from this point of view, you should not neglect to keep an eye on the displays of your fellow players.

As to the flair of play, I have sadly und unfortunately missed an evolving thrill; basically, during the whole game, you are busy with the always very similar acquiring of cards and their transformation into victory points, In the first third of the game, the focus will rather be on the acquisition of landscape tiles and storage barn tiles, also due to the fact that later Colosseum panels need more work than those at the start of the game. At least, one is confronted with the dilemma of hoping for the unknown future or scoring a few easily acquired points now, but usually the game only gets a bit hectic and thrilling towards the end. Unfortunately, there is not much variety for future game; at the start of the game, you can only re-define the function of one out of seven cases on the board

Again, as regards to the flair of the game, it seems funny that in addition to the game play veteran resources of wood and stone you also use water and grain for two additional resources; that they might only serve to provide food and drink for the workers, is not depicted in the illustrations, besides it being funny that in constructions of other Colosseum panels, workers might be forced to go hungry and thirsty. The direction of building, too - not from bottom to top, as one would expect, but from left to right, which would also allow a “chaotic insertion of the 17 tiles without any problem for the gameplay - would rather fit the Great Wall of China than the construction of the Colosseum (at least in the way that is described in the novel of the same name by Franz Kafka - a rewarding read which can be found at http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/buch/franz-kafka-kleinere-werke-167/1 or at - https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Beim_Bau_der_Chinesischen_Mauer_(1931)) or you could even dare to use a more recent topic, the announced construction of the infamous wall at the Mexican border.

Harald Schatzl

Players: 2-4

Age: 10+

Time: 45+

Designer: Klaus-Jürgen Wrede

Artist: Michael Menzel

Price: ca. 24 Euro

Publisher: Schmidt Spiele 2016

Web: www.schmidtspiele.de

Genre: Collect, build

Users: For families

Version: de

Rules: de

In-game text: no

Comments:

Quick gameplay

Nice mix of tactic and luck

Very good for inexperienced players

Nice components

3D appearance of the completed game

Clever designed box inlay

Compares to:

Rapa Nui, Catan (without negotiations)

Other editions:

Currently none

My rating: 5

Statements:

„Die Baumeister des Colosseum“ is a quick, light, easy-going tactical collecting and building game with minor variation in game play, for families and casual gamers in which the collecting of building materials comes across as more creative than their conversion to victory points. The high randomness factor can cause frustration about the game for those who - albeit subjectively - are left behind. The components are in general beautiful at first glance, but the board can cause confusion. A comparison with the much more elegant predecessor game of „Rapa Nui“ clearly favors the card game.

Chance (pink): 2

Tactic (turquoise): 2

Strategy (blue): 1

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 1

Communication (red): 1

Interaction (brown): 2

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0