xxxx xxxx

Die Baumeister von Arkadia
Author: Rüdiger Dorn
Publisher: Ravensburger
Year: 2006


review by

x
Pick up your cement tub, because it's building time once again! This time our journey leads us to Arkadia, with its gentle slopes and fertile valleys. It is here that a city must be erected, with a massive castle as its central master piece. At the same time this palace plays a role in the payment of the surrounding buildings, and who of the two to four players has gathered most of it by game end wins.

At the start of the game each player is dealt four building cards, on which buildings of varying size and colour are depicted, one on each card. They also get three workers in their player colour that they put behind their player screen.

x

In a turn, a player decides wether to play a card or to place one or more workers adjacent to any single building. The buildings must be placed either adjacent to the building site of the castle, or adjacent to an already placed building or worker. When placing the building tile a seal in the same colour of the played card goes on top of it. It doesn't get any tougher than this.

x
The scarce own workers can be replenished with neutral workers that can be obtained by building over a preprinted camp of tents, one for each camp.

When a building is completely surrounded by other buildings and/or workers, it gets scored and every player that has a worker in his colour next to it, gets a seal per worker in the same colour of the seal already on the building. The player that triggered the scoring gets the seal on the building as a bonus. After this he has to place a palace piece; during the first phase of the game he is only allowed build at level one, during the second phase he builds at the second level, and in the last phase each player could build a palace piece on the third level. Depicted atop each of the palace pieces is one of the four possible seals; a player has a choice of which piece to place and where, thereby covering an other seal. The extent of visibility of a seal is important when scoring takes place.
x
After having executed one of his mandatory actions (playing a card and replenishing his hand, or placing workers), a player can take an extra action by handing in one of the four streamers that he got at game start. What’s more, he may cash for his collected seals against the daily rate: the number of seals visible on the roofs of the castle, multiplied by the collected seals of that colour.
x
Each of the first two phases of the game has ended when there are only two palace pieces left for that phase; these two pieces are transferred to the stock of the third phase. In this last phase, each player takes one final turn, and if he manages to surround one of the building on the board he could possibly build a third level palace piece. Subsequently all collected seals by the players are traded in for money against their current value.
x

A player has only so much workers, and he has to deal with these scarce resources carefully. At times it is better to enclose buildings with buildings, and to collect less seals, than to commit valuable workers. Another consideration could be to commit neutral workers; they don’t collect seals by themselves, but by claiming a building this way it takes away at least the one central seal from an opponent.

Placing a palace piece with a colour that favours the own seal supply and simultaneously covering a colour of which is suspected another player has a handsome amount of, is no exception and in fact a regular performed action. With this in mind, it is difficult to estimate when it is best to trade in the seals. But a player is not obliged to trade in all his seals; he can keep any amount behind and hope for a better exchange rate in a future rating.

x

‘Die Baumeister von Arkadia’ has simple rules, and there are enough tactical decisions to make. Regarding these two almost excluding components, the game already is a succces! It plays fluently, and looks really appealing; the physical building of the palace is a nice component of the game. The atmosphere is nice, especially the streamers that are hung from the players tents / screens are a nice addition. Ravensburger has managed to produce a really nice family game for us, spoiled gamers once again. And you know what? It feels good!
© 2007 Richard van Vugt

Die Baumeister von Arkadia, Rüdiger Dorn, Ravensburger, 2006 - 2 to 4 players, 10 years and up, 45 to 60 minutes

x
x
x