Strasbourg (game)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Strasbourg
Game data
author Stefan Feld
graphic Alexander Jung
publishing company Pegasus games
Publishing year 2011
Art Placement game
Teammates 3 to 5
Duration about 60 - 75 minutes
Age from 12 years

Awards

Game of the year 2011 nomination list
German Games Prize 2011 place 10

Strasbourg is a board game in the form of a placement game by game designer Stefan Feld . It was published by Pegasus Spiele in 2011 and was nominated as Kennerspiel des Jahres in the same year as part of the Spiel des Jahres award . It reached 10th place in the German Games Prize . The game is suitable for three to five players, ages 12 and up, and lasts around 75 minutes.

In the 15th century, families represented by a player compete for influence in the nobility and church, in the craft guilds and among the merchants and thus in the city council.

Equipment and gameplay

The city ​​council is shown in the center of a large game board with historical illustrations by graphic artist Alexander Jung . The individual seats in the council are filled with wooden pawns in the colors of the players and the families they represent. The rest of the game board is divided into two parts. In the round tables, which control the course of the game, and the city with workshops of the various guilds, which are grouped around places on which public buildings are erected. All playing figures and markers are made of wood in stylized shapes, the processes are influenced by cards. Money and goods are represented by cardboard tiles.

Strasbourg is largely a strategy game with a low proportion of luck. Within each of the five rounds, the influence in the city, limited by the points on the influence cards, must be cleverly distributed over the various individual actions. With a view to the end of the game, the tasks taken on and kept secret at the beginning gain in importance. Each round consists of the same nine actions, the order of which differs between the rounds.

Game flow

At the beginning of the game, each player receives 24 influence cards with different values, which are shuffled and placed face down in front of him. He also draws five task cards from which he can freely choose between one and all of them. In doing so, he undertakes to have completed the respective task by the end of the game. In addition, the five round tables are placed on the game board in random order; they control the specific course of the following rounds.

Each round begins with the influence planning: The players draw one card each from their shuffled and face-down influence cards until they believe they have enough influence points available for the next round. However, the 24 cards must be enough for all five rounds. Then they distribute the drawn cards into several stacks, which usually only contain one card. This planning is carried out by all players simultaneously and face down.

In the first seven actions of each round either the player passes or chooses a pile and uses the influence points of these cards. The players then have their turn according to their claimed influence. In the event of a tie, the seating order counts clockwise from the current starting player . The player with the most influence points always becomes the new starting player for the following action. In the first action, the player with the highest bid for influence points occupies the aristocratic field of the city council, the second the church field. In the following six actions, actions that concern a guild and in which goods can be created alternate with those through which the merchants are active and in which goods are sold. In every guild campaign, the winner is the guild master. He may occupy the city council space of the respective guild, he also takes a commodity corresponding to the guild and he can erect a building in the guild district of the city with the corresponding color. The latter costs the stated price. The runner-up becomes a journeyman , he takes a good and builds in the guild district. The third-placed apprentice takes a good or builds it. If only three players are played, there is no journeyman and only two players per guild can count as masters or apprentices. In the actions of the merchants, the first placed can sell any number of goods from his supply for the price printed on them. In the third, final merchant campaign, he also occupies the corresponding city council space. The eighth action is that of the church. The player, whose family is at the town council seat of the church at this time, builds a chapel at any marked point in the town, which scores points for all neighbors in the final scoring. As the ninth and last action, the current owner of the aristocratic seat in the city council is building a public building in one of the city's squares. These also count in the final scoring for their neighbors.

At the end of each round, each player receives as many points for the final scoring as he currently has seats on the city council. The player with the most city council members, or in the event of a tie, the leaders, also receives a privilege that can be used in the following bidding phases.

The final scoring follows after the fifth round. Each family building in the city is worth one point. Each building adjoining a chapel and direct neighbors of the public buildings receive additional points. Unused privileges also score one point each. Finally, the tasks taken on at the start of the game are evaluated. Completed tasks earn the points indicated and graded according to difficulty. Tasks accepted but not fulfilled result in a deduction of points. Tasks relate to the number and arrangement of your own buildings in the city, the number of council seats or with a lower value for the largest financial assets, the largest stock of goods or the starting player function at the end of the game.

target group

The nomination for Kennerspiel des Jahres within the Spiel des Jahres award shows that Strasbourg is aimed at more experienced players and is not suitable for younger children. The complex bidding process for influence in the respective actions is of central importance for the success of the game, but the highest scores bring the more difficult of the tasks evaluated at the end.

The jury of the Game of the Year emphasized that planning and flexibility are equally important at Strasbourg . In addition, “courage and caution [...] are equally required - be it in the individual allocation of the bid cards or in the selection of orders. The latter often dictate the strategy to be adopted. ” One review calls Strasbourg “ a very exciting game that offers very interesting possibilities ” and “ After one or two games you slowly get a feeling for the rounds in which you have to make your influence as strong as possible . "

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ spiel-des-jahres.com
  2. ↑ Game of the year: Strasbourg
  3. ↑ poeppelkiste.de: Strasbourg