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REVIEW Pioneers
One Stage Coach Fits It All
The Italian designer Emanuele Ornella, who almost 15 years ago self-published Oltre Mare and Il Principe with his own company Mind the Move, no longer needs to do this kind of pioneering work. Nowadays he is quite established in the scene. Amigo has taken on many of his games and he is also emerging inter- nationally, with the Finnish publishers Lautapelit as well as Ystari in France.
T his is why his most recent creation Pioneers landed directly at Queen Games. For me, I would like to
mention upfront, Ornella’s game was the biggest surprise of SPIEL ’17. Without any noticeable hype beforehand, this coach ride into the American West managed to follow successful forerunners such as Thurn and Taxis and Ticket to Ride.
Queen Games did a great job here. The rulebook with its clear phrasing and intuitive iconography is easy to grasp. Using only the player boards and the
few remarks on the
margins of the main board, Pioneers can be
taught in just three minutes. For Ornella, the New World is a gigantic job center. All cities from west to east are looking for staff to employ in trade, banks, hotels, catering and street surveillance. Additionally, adventurous gold diggers and, most of all, farmers are in high demand. The pioneers set off from Buffalo in a stagecoach that seems to have an unlimited supply of seats; irre- spective of player numbers, all of them find a place on the coach, whose desti- nation can be re-determined by each passenger. To exactly match the job profiles of the individual cities, personalized coaches announce the qualifications of their pas- sengers. They all start with a crew capable of five different
professions.
The active player decides on a desti- nation for the stagecoach, receives three dollars and in a second action phase can apply capital. One choice would be the road building action that grants free movement for the wooden vehicle. With- out it, every step along a public or private road means paying one dollar to the bank or its owner. Creating a personal network is paramount for the overall development and the final scoring in this game.
I Strict work regulations Apart from road building, players are advised to obtain additional coaches early in the game, because they contain more occupations and also transport the highly sought-after farmers. Four differ- ent vehicle categories, for 1 to 4 dollars, are available. One thing quickly becomes obvious: Money is tight, and the income in each round strictly limited, which is also why the third phase is so important. It centers around the pioneers finding employment. Even without a national employment agency there are strict regu- lations in place. It is not pos-
sible to skip any of
the available open positions. Movement is initially limited to one or two locations and the workplaces available there. But soon these numbers increase and players can often choose between a dozen offers and up to five destinations.
Selecting a location depends on the abilities that the jobs provide. Bankers are popular because they increase income at the beginning of the turn. The trade also has long-term advantages, for it gives more purchasing opportunities in the second phase, meaning that, all of a sudden, buying coaches and roads in one swoop becomes a possibility.
All other professions come with one- off special advantages. The hotel indus- try, for example, immediately generates money, and the gold miner digs up victory points for the final scoring. The so-called sergeant is responsible for extending the network, and with his assistance players can either open a new track or build a parallel line.
With each new job the private coaches are
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