Page 39 - spielbox_0717_EN

thing other than goods,
namely money or victory points at a later visit to the farm.
Once per round, players perform their personal farm action. It includes fully loading up one of your own ships and steering it into the harbor, generating
points, but at
the worst rate imaginable. It is, there- fore, recommended that you visit the temple before the end, where you can exchange unlimited amounts of money at
a far more favorable rate, even if you
ity is a
pleasing contrast to the many
other modern economic games. Now, it might be the case that all this is going to change with the recently published expansion The Colossus that was not available to us at the time of writing. For the price of some extra effort, it offers entirely new actions on a separate board.
L. U. Dikus/cs
either money or victory point
are the
s se
from the winnings by the l
fin
s (apart
ts
la
and-
the fi
e s
econd donor there. But in
nal round, you will use this
scape tiles), while simultane
pp
e- ously lowering the prices
o
portunity only if the harbor does get you more victory points below the line, as this action now, for once, becomes avail-
op
for goods on the ships ahead via the pier mecha- nism. Additionally, many
functions on the developmen
a
le to everyone who has
the landscapes, these are a
for purchase in the town hall and grant you greater flexibility.
I Avoiding a bad closing rate For example, the Greek trader converts one warehouse good into another one, the Wagon transports one good directly from the farm to the warehouse (which normally costs a prohibitive amount of money), and the Abundance generates one good of your choice, with all of them also generating one income. Poseidon and Demeter, for their part, will delight you with victory points. During produc- tion, the Irrigation increases income and the Storage barn the capacity of the land-
scape tiles.
At the end of the game, when
practically all assignments have been fulfilled, any leftover capital can be converted into victory
th
nt
bl
t like
ai
il
la
ab
bl
le
ab
tiles now come into play. Just
not y
et performed it.
ye
av
va
e W
he small number of 12 assignments, the end game, at least with four or five players, always comes too soon to make an investment worthwhile into more than one development tile. This is the reason why you should not sort out three of the assignments (as advised by the publishers on their website). After all, this enlarges your range of actions by 25 percent. At a good pace, the playing time can then still be kept within limits. With full player counts, there is far too much downtime anyway, and you wait a long
time for your next turn.
The appeal of this game is also less-
ened by the effort it takes to get acquainted with the rules from the cur- rent version of the book. This is unfortu-
nate, because Rhodes, with its attractive compo- nents, knows how to entertain, and its simplic-
Wi
it
th
h t
Title: Publisher: Designer: Artist: Players: Age: Duration: Price:
Rhodes
The Game Master Pieter Boots Julien Delval
2–5 (for two: ➙) about 10+ years about 90 minutes about 32 €
Reviewer Playing appeal
L. U. Dikus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Stefan Ducksch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Matthias Hardel* . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
* Particularly with three players, the game plays uncharacteristically fast, is still simple – but not trivial – and shaped by an unusual rhythm. The rule book, or what the publishers take for it, did its utmost to prevent me from appre- ciating gameplay. It actually managed to spoil the entire appeal of the game for me, but thanks to the FAQs, I have now made peace with it.
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