Tasty Minstrel Games TMG02006 Orleans Game

Product Information

So what about the follow-on, Altiplano? Should you skip Orleans and just get that? This is a difficult choice. Altiplano plays very similarly but feels very different. Part of this is the addition of movement. You have to be on the correct 'island' to perform an action as well as assigning the correct resources (followers in Orleans). So which? Orleans narrowly takes it for me, having the expansions and the options within the game. However, I do like the movement and streamlined nature of Altiplano. Maybe get both?! Randomness of the workers. That’s to say, you randomly unveil workers that you then have to distribute in the best way possible. Games like Alien Frontiers.

Want more gold? Recruit boatmen, more resources, farmers. Craftsmen offer technology which can be permanently added to one space on your player board - making it cheaper forever. The trader gets you a choice of extra buildings, which are basically extra action spaces for you. The monks act as a wild follower and I've already mentioned the knights and scholars. New Beneficial Deeds : a new Beneficial Deeds board providing completely new rewards for sending away your Followers For me, the co-operative Invasion scenario is the stand-out in the expansion box. The duel was also great, but I did win it on the first play-through, which gives us less motivation to play it again. It seemed like we were both going to lose it, and if you did, I think you’d be desperate to play again to try and win. We also need to try the additional 1-5 player competitive scenario. Please note: Some of the tiles contained in the game may come with ONLY German names printed. This does not impact gameplay and the names are translated in the rulebook. I love the complexity of the puzzle provided by both the cooperative game and the duel scenario. Both give you a reason to decide to go about an action in a certain way. You might travel round a board in a slightly circuitous route to collect more resources to pay your dues in the duel scenario. Or in the Invasion scenario you might travel to the next location for a fortified town, via a spot you need to go to for your personal objective. The puzzle is all about efficiency (and I love efficiency!). Both the scenarios have resulted in really tight games for us and it really gives us an appetite to play more.

Contributors

Orleans boasts a rich and immersive theme that transports players to the bustling city of Orleans and its surrounding provinces in medieval France. The beautifully illustrated game components and evocative artwork help to create a vivid game world that players can lose themselves in. The various actions, buildings, and follower types are all thematically grounded in the game’s setting, adding to the sense of immersion and world-building. This strong thematic foundation not only makes the game more enjoyable to play but also helps to make the gameplay mechanics more intuitive and accessible for new players. Also, in the base game, the Town Hall Beneficial Deeds board is a bit boring, but it’s the only way to thin your followers from your bag, so you will use it.Player interaction is mid-range with it mainly be racing to get the citizens or build in the nearest areas on the map. Orleans: Trade & Intrigue – This expansion introduces new actions, events, and intrigue cards, adding more depth and variety to the gameplay. The Trade and Intrigue expansion offers a new Beneficial Deeds board that quite frankly, should have been THE board all along. The one in the base game offers up money and is pretty stale. It’s not useless, but unless you have some townsfolk to dump...you probably won’t look to it as a viable strategy.

For those who enjoy the base game, Orleans offers several expansions and variants that can further enhance the gameplay experience. The game takes place in the Loire region in medieval France, with Orleans being at the heart. You’ll aim to move around the area from town to town, whether that’s by canal or by road. Can you build trade houses along the way? (If so, you’ll get rewarded in the form of ye olde victory points!) Orleans is a Euro-style strategy game, so whoever has the most points at the end of 18 rounds wins. Before receiving theInvasionexpansion, we hadn’t played a whole lot of Orléans, but the games we did play were really enjoyable two -player experiences.Orléans Invasionis a big box expansion forOrléans which contains lots of scenarios designed by both the original designer and by Inka and Markus Brand who are also really well renowned designers.Central to the gameplay of Orleans is its innovative bag-building mechanic. Players begin the game with a set of basic followers, represented by tokens that are placed in a draw bag. Each round, players draw a specific number of follower tokens from their bag and place them on their player board. These tokens represent various professions such as farmers journalists, knights, and craftsmen, which are essential for performing different actions throughout the game.

There’s also two new Beneficial Deeds boards. It’s a double-sided board, each providing cool new rewards and bonuses. You send Followers here to go on permanent ‘placement’. (Thinking of Orléans as having worker placement traits to it; you place the Followers here, to gain the stated reward.) There’s new place tiles, where you can send your Followers to partake in new actions. Last of all, there’s some new Event tiles. (34 of them, to be precise.) This differs from the base game. Now you cannot guarantee that a certain quota of Event types will occur during the game. These Events keep you on your toes! The game isn’t necessarily a, “real time” game but drawing from your bag and assigning townsfolk can be done simultaneously to speed up play.These expansions introduce new mechanics, additional components, and alternative ways to play, ensuring that even the most seasoned Orleans players will continue to find new challenges and excitement in the game: So what about the follow-on, Altiplano? Should you skip Orleans and just get that? This is a difficult choice. Altiplano plays very similarly but feels very different. Part of this is the addition of movement. You have to be on the correct ‘island’ to perform an action as well as assigning the correct resources (followers in Orleans).