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Diamonds Club
Author: Rüdiger Dorn
Publisher: Ravensburger
Year: 2008


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To be rich, it is a heavy burden. The point is: you are rich, but a lot of other people are rich too and that really is a deuce, because you simply want to distinguish yourself from the rest of the club. Nobility obliges isn’t it, so one sends an exploration annex expedition army into the heart of Africa, whilst another sets himself up as benefactor for a young painter - organising chatty soirees as a result of it, to discuss the use of the artists colours, painting or art in general, the principles of the modernistic socialism, or just about the scabrous dress of the young countess Effi - not to mention her bold look!
Yes, you’ll have to be inventive, to distinguish yourself at the Diamonds Club, and frivolity rules, so in a contest we cast pearls before swine in the adjoining parc of our family manor. In advance those pearls have been exchanged at the local garden centre for fabulous fountains, romantic rose-beds or airy arbors and in the story we are given a year, but in real time about an hour playing time to show our skills in this field. Gems are the stakes and the pay out is done in points, a rather considerable disinvestment, we think.




Each player is dealt a map of his parc during the course of the game on which he can place the various beautifications, ten coins, four different coloured gems, and the pawns in his colour with which he later on indicates having bought an item. But first, work has to be done to acquire the gems, or better, well, we manage the process; labour, I mean: just fancy!
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To get these gems, a set of three different symbols have to be handed over that represent digging rights, mining a specific coloured gem and shipping.
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On the central board on each of these fields a coin can be placed, after which the corresponding chit may be taken from the supply. The numbers on the chits indicate how many of a gem may be taken, where the lowest number in a set is the maximum amount of gems allowed to take. When a field already is taken by having a coin on it, the underlying symbol is not available anymore; it also increases the price for adjoining orthogonal fields by the sum of coins already placed. This can become quite expensive, but generally more than three coins are not paid for a single field having another reason: at the end of a round the player who has the most money left may take a free diamond, and diamonds function as wild cards in the game.
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There are some other fields that can be attractive and deal with progress in three sections: the value of trees, technical improvements through which more gems can be excavated, and investments, giving more money to spend in the following rounds.
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The instant acquirement of trout ponds, deer or aviaries also is done on this central board; these are directly placed in a players parc. For the other beautifications the transition by gems in the building phase first has to be made, and this is done in a turn order that can be changed through the placement of coins on high hat fields.
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In the building phase, a player puts his pawn next to an item of his choice, pays the necessary gems for it and places it somewhere in his parc – exactly where is of no importance. An other player wishing the same item has to pay more, just like claiming a chit in the previous phase, but now it costs an additional gem of his choice. It is clear a player will choose a cheaper item first, one that still has the three gems price tag on it, before he turns to the more expensive ones.
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This buying and placing continues until each player has passed. Now the new turn order is marked, all players take their money back from the central board, and a new round starts. This continues until a player has completed his parc. There is a final score where the beautifications all count as 4 points, each three different animals in a set 10 points, and trees as much as a player has progressed on the corresponding track. Bonuses are given for improvements in the three sections, and for a combination of different or the same beautifications.
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‘Diamonds Club’ comes with a lot of components that have to be sorted out. Therefore it takes a while before a game can start. The replacement of an inlay for all the components with plastic bags is a step backwards in the otherwise well-groomed line of games from Ravensburger; when opening the box we now look into a gaping hole with a tangle of little bags. The lack of a scoring pad that we according to the rules have to download, is less evidence of a miscalculation in the production than it testifies to a game that already is loaded with components; and yes, in this form they all are needed. But it is the same as with an exquisite sauce: you may have put an overflow of ingredients in it, but for the finest result the sauce consequently must be concentrated and boiled down!
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Each player tries to get the higest profit from his investment, a praiseworthy ambition, but we cannot go broke, it is a friendly game. All players have a different parc that show different preprinted beautifications that are mandatory to qualify for scoring, but it isn’t that difficult after all, so it remains what it is: a futile condition.
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The main problem of the game seems to be that it is the intention to get the items rose-beds, fountains, et cetera by means of the mechanism set of chits-trading in for gems-trading in for items, but that an other strategy turns out to be winning each and every time: plant trees, and maximise their value on the ‘eco list’. This is by far the cheapest way in the game to score points, because trees are at least one third cheaper than the other items, costing only two gems, so a player still can be satisfied having less gems acquired on the central board in a round where other players have fought for the highest chits - he even could qualify for the free diamond if he spends his money well, i.e. less than the others! With these cheap trees, he can improve his ‘eco-list’ to the maximum of six points, where all other items only score four points - five with a bonus card. Foiling this strategy is not really possible, unless a player also goes all out for the trees - and if this was not clear beforehand he now surely knows he has a determined competitor. To obstruct a player who goes ‘for trees’ only once in a while is not enough; all players should do it tacitly, but apart from the fact if this is doable: this simply it is not the kind of game for it.
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So each time we see this or that player win with a minimal margin, thereby invalidating that the game would deal with diamonds; it is as if the eco-terrorists of Greenpeace have come alongside with a boat and hijacked the game!

Not that this is the only obstacle of the game, no: each round each player is doing more or less the same, without much interaction, without too much tension - there are games that put you hanging on the edge of your seat, but this game does not qualify. Thematically a lot of hurdles are also taken, as the central board where the commercial activities take place is called ‘market’ and for the actions we pay with coins, but when we really have to buy something in the shops, or market, or whoever supplies us with the beautifications, the rules merely state it as ‘buying phase’ and instead of coins gems are used to trade, not to buy, because that’s what it actually is.
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‘But where are they now?’ the grandma of a friend would ask, when in the famous television series ‘Dallas’ the camera would zoom in on a window and the next scene would start from the interior behind it. The poor old women still was used to series and movies in which elaborate knocking on doors was a rule, opening them, giving cards, taking coats, and so on, and did not understand the symbol of the window. Explaining everything to the infinite is the other side of the spectrum, but cracking of ludicrousness the theme surely does. The dull charisma of the box having an 1980’s look finally gives ‘Diamonds Club’ or better ‘The Foresters Guild’ the death blow.
© 2008 Richard van Vugt

Diamonds Club, Rüdiger Dorn, Ravensburger, 2008 - 2 to 4 players, 10 years and up, no time indication (approx. 60 minutes)


Too bad about the winning tree- strategy
Nothing special but plays nice, especially the market
Swift but repetitive gameplay
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