Elasund - The first city
| Elasund | |
|---|---|
| Game data | |
| author | Klaus Teuber |
| graphic | Tanja Donner |
| publishing company |
Kosmos , Mayfair Games (English), Filosofia (French), Mathiasen (game publisher) Mathiasen (Norwegian), Tactic |
| Publishing year | 2005 |
| Art | Board game, placement game |
| Teammates | 2-4 |
| Duration | 60-75 minutes |
| Age | from 10 years on
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| Awards | |
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Elasund or Elasund - The First City is a board game by Klaus Teuber . The illustrations are by Tanja Donner . The aim of the game is to build a city and be the first to achieve ten victory points .
The game
The game symbolizes the construction and life in the first city on the island of Catan. Little by little houses are built, a city wall and a church are built together. As the game progresses, the other players compete and try to take away and hinder construction projects.
Game preparation
| Game components Elasund - The first city |
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The city gate tiles are placed on the designated areas of the city wall depending on the number of players. Then each player chooses a game color. There are victory point stones and city wall parts belonging to each color as well as 2 workers' huts that are placed on the playing field in advance. Each player also receives five building permits and a marker to mark the trading points. The remaining building tiles and the church tiles are placed in their respective places on the game board. The power cards are shuffled and placed face down; the gold cards are placed face up again. The starting capital of each player is one power card and three gold cards.
Course of the game
The player with the highest die roll starts his turn. A turn consists of several actions:
- 1. Roll the dice. The ship is placed on a row of the grid-like game board according to the number of pips. If a player in this row owns a building, he receives a gold or power card depending on the type of building. If a seven is rolled, the pirates come into play. You can lose gold and power, but you can also win.
- 2. Build. The player whose turn it is may now build. You can build a building, part of the church or part of the city wall, provided you have gold and, if necessary, a building permit (building permit).
- 3. Insert building permit. These are placed in the row determined by the ship. This creates the prerequisite for being able to build buildings in later rounds. With the use of power cards, the building permits can also be used in a tactically favorable place. Depending on the size of the building, one to three building letters are required, whereby building letters of the other players may also be used if your own are of higher value. The use of building permits costs 0 to 4 gold, the amount determines the value. If you do not use a building permit, you receive 2 gold.
- 4. Play power cards. This gives you the opportunity to receive additional gold, upgrade building permits or move them if there is a risk that they will be used by other players.
Erecting buildings gives you game advantages (gold or power cards) and / or victory points. You can also build over smaller buildings with larger buildings. Victory points can also be obtained for building watchtowers, parts of churches and buildings on fields with trading points. The first player to have 10 victory points wins.
Development and reception
Elasund is the second game in the Catan Adventure series after Candamir - The First Settlers . Klaus Teuber has set these games thematically in the context of his classic game The Settlers of Catan . However, they are stand-alone games that focus on tactics and strategy. The structure and process is completely different from the original game Settlers of Catan . The name comes from the name of the city from the settlers of the novel The Settlers of Catan by Rebecca Gablé of Catan broke up. Originally, Klaus Teuber wanted to make the Catan card game playable for 3 and 4 players. In the course of development, however, an independent game emerged, which was then expressed by the differently designed buildings.
The game was published in a German version by Kosmos in 2005 and in the same year by Tactic in a version in Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish and by Mayfair Games in an English version for the American market, followed by an edition by Filosofia Éditions in 2006 French. In addition to the building tiles included with the game, Klaus Teuber has offered 4 other buildings, a castle and a barracks for 2x3 and two warehouses for 3x1 grid squares for download on his homepage. At the same time as it was published, it was also possible to play Elasund in the Catan Online World. When the Catan Online World was redesigned at the beginning of 2007, the buildings in the upper world were designed in the style of the Elasund houses.
The game reached 6th place at the German Games Award in 2016 and was nominated for the Swedish Årets Spill game award as the best family game. Erwin Ruschitzka rated it 9 out of 10 points in the game magazine spielbox and described it as “really round”. At the same time he compared it with Candamir , to whom he attested a "modest success", and certified Teuber for Candamir : "But Germany's most famous game designer can do better"
Web links
- Elasund in the Luding games database
- Elasund in the board game database BoardGameGeek (English)
- Rules of the game (PDF; 2.8 MB)
- Explanation of rules on superfred.de
- Elasund on the Catan GmbH website
Individual evidence
- ↑ Michael Knopf in Spielbox issue 5/2005, p. 10f.
- ↑ Versions of Elasund on BoardGameGeek; accessed on June 30, 2018.
- ^ New buildings for Elasund
- ↑ Erwin Ruschitzka: Elasund. Trade embargo. In: spielbox 6/2006, pp. 28-29.