Plays: 6 at player counts: 1 + 2
Appearance
The front of the box shows a rustic town on a waterfront and is quite striking because of the river and flower being very bright compared to the rest of the box. The back of the box shows a 2 player game in progress, describes the theme of the game and lists the games components. The box is packed full of components with most of it taken up by the personal player boards. These are dual layered (by having a folded board stuck together with stickers) and hold the components well during the game and display income and effects. They do, with the exception of the river section, lack artwork however and this is a bit of a missed opportunity in my opinion. The wooden components are nicely shaped and are obvious what they represent with player colours easy to distinguish from one another. The action strips are well laid out and are colourful giving a nice appearance when in the dual layered action selection board. The main board is very colourful and well presented with each of the 4 regions having a different colour to stand out from one another. The tiles look plain with only spaces to place wooden pieces on but look better when placed onto the main board during the game. The coins, levers and vases are good quality thick cardboard components like the rest of the boards. The cards are ok quality and not linen finished, there is a lot of unique artwork (although not all cards are unique artwork even if they have slightly different abilities) with the buildings looking particularly good. The characters are a strange art style often seen with this artist and may not be to everyone’s taste. Overall, good quality components, especially the player boards.
Gameplay
The aim of the game is to have the most victory points after 2 rounds have been completed. A round ends when a players ship gets to the last river space and an interim scoring occurs when a players ship crosses a lock. There are 3 phases that happen on each players turn, choose an action, move your ship and reset the action strips. When you choose an action you simply remove an action strip from the action board and perform all the effects listed on the action strip. The left side offers an effect just for you whereas the right side offers an effect(s) for all players, with one tile not letting the active carry out a specific action. First, you may discard a card of the suit shown for 2 money or play a card with the matching suit. 336
Cards can cost money, resources or vases with money and vase costs paid from your supply. Resources are not spent, instead you must have access to them either from factories you have constructed or from your canoes on your board. Each canoe can supply one resource based on its position on your board, moving the canoe to the right is free but you must pay 2 coins to move it to the left any number of spaces. These cards can offer ongoing benefits such as reductions for actions, movement on the coin and card tracks and offer some end game goals for victory points.
Whenever you would play a card you can instead complete a special project on the main board which have much higher costs but bigger rewards. You can only complete each one of the 4 available during the game once with each one marked by an inhabitant of your colour to say it has been completed. The action strips offer various actions including placing tiles or wooden pieces from your board onto spots on the main board. When you explore you draw a building tile from the stack and place adjacent to a previously placed tile on the main board. earning rewards that you cover including money, inhabitants, cards or factories. When you develop you place one of your inhabitants onto one of the building sites on an available building tile. This may cost money and offer a reward such as card and money track movement or just offer a reward when covered with an inhabitant.
When you upgrade you have 2 options, either to upgrade an inhabitant to a house or a house into a settlement. To upgrade an inhabitant you must pay one inhabitant from your supply and replace one inhabitant on the board with a house from your board. In order to upgrade a house into a settlement there must first be at least 3 presences (wooden pieces) adjacent to the house you wish to upgrade. This costs 2 inhabitants for the first two and costs 3/4 for the final two or 4/8 victory points in addition to the 2 inhabitants. Placing a settlement in an area with another of your settlements also costs 5 victory points. Removing these buildings from your main board will unlock income on your main board during each interim scoring. Placing building tiles, developing and upgrading are present on several of the action strips in different ratios.
When you perform the cattle breeding action you place a cattle pasture adjacent to a building tile. Every player can, in turn order, then choose a cattle pasture with less than 4 cattle and pay inhabitants to place a cattle from their board onto that pasture. The first cattle on a pasture costs one inhabitant, the second two etc. 218