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Québec
Authors: Philippe Beaudoin & Pierre-Poissant-Marquis
Publisher: Asmodee / Ystari
Year: 2011


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Being a wealthy family in Québec and contribute to the construction of the city during four centuries in four categories: religion, politics, economy and culture may all be true, but for simplicity’s sake: the game lasts four rounds, players try to complete buildings that are all adjacent to each other and also try to get as many cubes in each of the four colours, all this scoring points, and, as it usually gawns: the player with the most points wins.
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The game board shows the blueprint of what Québec should be. Well, blue, there are some other colours involved too: yellow, purple and red. The building sites are circular shaped and come in clusters of two or three. At the start of the game, the building sites are randomly covered with individual discs of the same colour, carrying the numbers one to four, and this way each game the building discs form a different constellation. In round one only the discs with number ‘1’ are used, in round two the discs with ‘2’, and so on.

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Players start with an initial supply of three cubes and a pawn representing the architect. At the start of the game, this architect can be placed on one of the ‘1’ discs to indicate that the building site is active. At the same time, each time when placing or replacing the architect at a new building, that player receives three cubes in his colour in his personal supply. Another possible and important action in a turn could be placing one to three cubes on any one building. How many cubes are to be placed is indicated in a little grey circle on the coloured central circle: one, two or three.
When a player contributes to the construction of another player, he may perform an extra action that is also indicated on the central coloured circle. This covers a wide range of possible actions: take a cube in your personal supply, place up to three cubes at another building, score for the amount of cubes in the personal suplly, and more. Three construction actions -placing cubes- can be made per building.
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The hassle with cubes is the score motor of the game; each time when a player takes away his architect from a building it counts as completed, whether there was only one cube placement or the full three times. The disc is turned to its completed side, a score chit in the player’s colour is placed according to the number of construction actions that were taken at this building, and all cubes from that building are transferred to one of the corners of the board, according to the colour of the completed building. These cubes score at the end of a round, when all building discs of that round have been claimed -so not necessarily completed. But the player with the majority of cubes in an area scores additional. In round one the first area to be scored is the purple one, then the red, yellow and blue area. The player with the majority in an area may transfer up to half, rounded down, with a maximum of five, to the next area! There he scores again for those cubes, and maybe the player again is the one with a (new gained) majority, again transferring up to half of his cubes!
This sliding of cubes is what all players aim for and this often determines their choice of actions, as many actions deal with placing additional cubes in any of the four colour areas.
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Another consideration for scoring is trying to form an uninterrupted chain of score chits in the player’s colour, as at the end of the game any player scores the number on these chits for his longest chain, whereas other chits only score the number of stars.
These score chits are placed on a completed buildings: when it only had one construction action, a one-star chit is placed, but when there were the full three construction actions for this building, a three-star chit is placed that may score a possible 6 points.
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These two ways to score already make for a fascinating game, but apparently the authors thought otherwise: there are also event and leader cards. Each round there is an event; this could be abonus for the first player to complete two buildings in three of the four colours, or a bonus for the player with the longest completed chain at the end of the game. Through these various events each game has a different focus; players will try to find the most advantageous condition to score.
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At the start of a round the leader cards are open for every player; a player may decide to take a leader card instead of taking an other action. The purple leader enables a player to take the extra action, even if he contributed to a building of his own, and the yellow leader in fact is an extra leader that a player may place on another building; the other leader cards have similar benefits.
After the fourth round and the scoring of all four colour areas, the colour chits are scored, after which the player with the most points wins.
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The discrepancy between box illustration and board could not have been greater: on the outside we see the game classic pose of builders that overlook their initiated activities, and after opening the box a colorful game board comes out that would make good cheer on the wall of a kindergarten. It is a pity that the socalled Eurogames have so little relationship with their theme; in this respect they are outweighed by American games that usually have less depth, but are faithful to their theme.
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Those games do exist in Europe, such as Airlines (although designed by an American author), Fresko, and, to a lesser extend Die Tore der Welt/World without End, but these are rather exceptions. The pasted-on theme in Québec therefore immediately can be released; the game deals with cubes, majorities and chains. In some aspects a comparison with El Grande would not go amiss; Québec is a good match, with the exception of the game board. Underneath the multicoloured surface lies a cunning game that captures its whole game length.
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It is true, contributing to another player’s building earns the extra action, but it also increases the value of the owner’s building. Achieving a majority at the start of the colour cycle through which there is a multiple score for cubes, is another consideration where many but probably all players compete for. Completing buildings, even before the full three construction actions at it have been made, is another attractive option in forming long chains.
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As a footnote: often the quality of a good printer is underestimated; he can make or break a product through the delivered quality. The uninitiated ones -printers and clients alike- often get seduced to print on a linen structure; this would be more impressive and suggest ‘class’. But in fact it gives a rather flat and dull effect; the print lacks power. Québec has such flat linen print; but the illustration itself also lacks black and thus power.

Because it is all about majorities, players have to keep an eye on each other’s possibilities. How many active cubes does a player have, and what can he do with it; is there still time (and actions to be made) before the round ends; all this has to be taken into account to keep the fragile balance of a majority.
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In a two player game, the initial majorities in one or more of the colour areas can be brutally broken through the sliding of cubes to an subsequent area, and this has a rather one-sided effect on the score, with a runaway leader and very little chance for the other player to catch up. The game is better suited for four or even five players, where the unavoidable grief -hey, I had a majority there!- can be distributed over more players, and many players may claim a majority somewhere as no player would be able to place that many cubes and have a majority in all four areas.
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Disregarding the execution and appearance of the game, Québec is a surprisingly fresh and fast playing game whose Canadian authors have proved that the conception of a good Eurogame is not exclusively reserved for their European colleagues.
© 2012 Richard van Vugt

Québec, Philippe Beaudoin & Pierre Poissant-Marquis, Asmodee/Ystari, 2011, 2 to 5 players, 13 years and up, 60-90 minutes



Sufficient originality, and nice and difficult decisions
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