Page 39 - spielbox 03/21 - English

That is pretty highbrow stuff. The calcula­ tion process from a single turn to possible effects on the final score is long. There are many appealing decisions: certain bo­ nuses or spaces that your messenger has crossed might allow you to daisy chain actions – and of course, everybody wants to do that.
The starting point is always to choose the dice cleverly. You may take up to three dice with the same number from the pool and use them. But this pool also contains dice in your color that are reserved for you alone. Dice with a “6“ are jokers, but you can take only one of them on your turn. For me, this is the strongest element in Monasterium; the box text announcing an “innovative dice mechanism“ hasn‘t over­promised.
The special knack is the way the dice get into the pool: at the beginning of a round, all players, in turn, roll their own dice and a certain number of neutral ones. Each player chooses one of the numbers he has rolled and puts all dice with that number on the corresponding Dice space. After that, players may reroll their dice once, until all dice have been placed. What numbers will you need in the upcoming round? And will you have a chance to get them at all, if the starting player is sitting to your left? I like that, but not everybody is fond of this element. That‘s because the extremely important placement of the novices is pretty weak if there haven‘t been enough “1“s rolled.
If you are the starting player and want to finally score but have hardly any options to do so, you‘ll be powerless and disap­ pointed. This is a hardship you have to accept when you play Monasterium.
The bottom line is that Monasterium is an appealing game – with some lim­ itations. The first game is purely for be­ coming acquainted with it, and you need to get through it in order to comprehend what‘s going on in the monasteries. And there actually are a few too many details in the game to keep all of them in mind if you haven‘t played the game for a few months.
To keep the thinking time shorter, it is worthwhile to play the first game with three players. Only experienced deans of a cathedral school should venture into a game with the maximum number of players. And they need good eyesight: the iconography of the positions in the monasteries didn‘t turn out well; you constantly have problems differentiating between a placement in a building or one in the cloister. This particularly refers to the Mission cards, so that you often make mistakes when you try to fulfill them. My advice is to simply leave them out in the first games.
I like the visual appearance of Mon- asterium – even down to one detail, the Three­Hare window from the cathedral in Paderborn, here designed in green and available to be built into a player‘s per­
sonal cathedral.
(swb)
S
S
S
S
S
S
S
S
S
S
S
Se
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
ey
y
y
y
y
y
y
y y
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
u
u
u
u
u
u
u
u
u
u
u
u
u
u
u
u
a a
a
a
a
a
a
a
at
t
t
t
t
t
t
t
t t
t
t
t t
t
t t
t
t
th
h
h
h
h
h
h
h
h
h
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
e W
W W
W
W
W
W
W W
W W
i
i
i
i
i
i
i
i
it
t
t
t
t
t
t
t
t
c
c
c
c
c
c
c
c
c
ch
h
h
h
h
h
h
h
h
h
s
s
s
s
s
s
s
s
s
s
t
t
t
t
t
t
t
t
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
n
n
n
n
n
n
n
n
n
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
e
e!
!
!
!
Once every 100 years, witches and wizards convene at the hallowed Witchstone to help regenerate its power.
In „Witchstone“, players place double hex tiles in their cauldron to trigger chain reactions around the Witchstone.
spielbox 37
Title: Designer: Illustration: Publisher: Players: Age: Duration: Price:
Monasterium Arve D. Fühler Dennis Lohausen dlp games
2 – 4
about 12+ years
about 90 – 120 minutes about 50 Euros
Reviewer
Stefan Ducksch
Udo Bartsch
Playing appeal
7
6
The instructions make it hard to get into the game.
Andreas Becker 7
Properly constructed Eurogame with many optimization constraints, and the risk of pondering towards the end.
Wieland Herold 7
A classic mixture with many paths to victory.
John Humphries 8
Christoph Schlewinski 6
It‘s good for a few games, but then it unfortunately loses some of its appeal, since the loathsome dice thwart your plans too often.