My first review ever on BGG ![]()
! Troyes is one of my all time favorite games and I snatched this up as soon as I could. In fact I picked this up on Day 1 at Essen.
The major components of this expansion are 27 activity cards, 6 event cards, head of the family dice, 16 possible rampart actions, and 3 character cards. The components are modular so you can play with all or just some of them.
The activity and event cards add lots of re-playability. Each play of expansion has been unique and required lots of strategic thought on my part. In one session all players had tons of access to influence and it was never a problem to recruit new citizens or modify final die outcomes. However in another session we were starving for influence and players were rolling very few dice. All players decided to turn over citizens from buildings to the possession event. As crazy as this sounds, the city was rolling the greatest number of dice for a few turns.
The addition of the purple die is a nice touch. It provides extra flexibility knowing that other players can never buy the die from me. The die is wild and a player determines the color upon use.
On to the rampart actions. There was a constant struggle in deciding which die to take this new action. The larger the die value the easier to move along and/or place cubes. The lower the die value, the more likely you will have to spend deniers if you want to have the maximum value worth of movement and cube allocation. A few of the possible abilities are gaining influence whenever someone buys at least one of your dice or the ability to exchange one die with each opponent without changing the die value. These powers were creatively used in each of my plays.
Three character cards are included in the expansion. These ladies provide victory points based on the number of citizens you have allocated to a particular color building and activity cards. I am a bit indifferent to these cards. I struggled to plan out my my activity card combo and satisfy the requirements of the character card whenever I was dealt one of them. At the time I felt like I was being pulled in two completely different directions but I always love a challenge.
Teaching the game with the expansion has become a bit longer than it has been in the past. However the payoff is definitely worth it. Troyes will continue to be a game that I hope to play every game night.
! Troyes is one of my all time favorite games and I snatched this up as soon as I could. In fact I picked this up on Day 1 at Essen.The major components of this expansion are 27 activity cards, 6 event cards, head of the family dice, 16 possible rampart actions, and 3 character cards. The components are modular so you can play with all or just some of them.
The activity and event cards add lots of re-playability. Each play of expansion has been unique and required lots of strategic thought on my part. In one session all players had tons of access to influence and it was never a problem to recruit new citizens or modify final die outcomes. However in another session we were starving for influence and players were rolling very few dice. All players decided to turn over citizens from buildings to the possession event. As crazy as this sounds, the city was rolling the greatest number of dice for a few turns.
The addition of the purple die is a nice touch. It provides extra flexibility knowing that other players can never buy the die from me. The die is wild and a player determines the color upon use.
On to the rampart actions. There was a constant struggle in deciding which die to take this new action. The larger the die value the easier to move along and/or place cubes. The lower the die value, the more likely you will have to spend deniers if you want to have the maximum value worth of movement and cube allocation. A few of the possible abilities are gaining influence whenever someone buys at least one of your dice or the ability to exchange one die with each opponent without changing the die value. These powers were creatively used in each of my plays.
Three character cards are included in the expansion. These ladies provide victory points based on the number of citizens you have allocated to a particular color building and activity cards. I am a bit indifferent to these cards. I struggled to plan out my my activity card combo and satisfy the requirements of the character card whenever I was dealt one of them. At the time I felt like I was being pulled in two completely different directions but I always love a challenge.
Teaching the game with the expansion has become a bit longer than it has been in the past. However the payoff is definitely worth it. Troyes will continue to be a game that I hope to play every game night.
