Castles of Burgundy

The theme in Castles of Burgundy is that of players being aristocrats, developing their princedoms, building castles, mining silver and trading along the river.

Everyone has their own player mat – their princedom – and there is also a central board from which players will be claiming tiles. During a given round, everyone rolls their (two) dice and then, in turn order, players choose how to use them. You can take tiles from the central board from an area that matches a number on a die. Taking tiles means they go into a storage area on your individual mat, but you can also use a die to get a tile from storage into your princedom – your personal board – where it can potentially score points. The tiles going into your princedom must match both the number used to place it and the colour of the space it occupies, and what tiles you take will give you a different type of in-game advantage: Mines, for example, give you money, which can be spent on the ‘black’ tiles in the middle of the board: money is the only way to access them. Buildings give an immediate boost of some kind and Pastures score points for the animals on the tile, as well as any connecting tiles in the pasture area with the same type of animal on them.

Dice can also be used to ship goods or traded in for workers, which allow you to change dice values on subsequent turns. You’ll also score points for completing any area in your princedom – all of a pasture, all of a river and so on – with the bigger areas worth more points, and any area worth more earlier in the game than later. When the fifth round is complete, the player with the most points is the winner.

A first play of Castles of Burgundy is a little trickier than many games, but sticking with it will really reward. It’s a delicate blend of luck and strategy, as players roll dice on their turn – but then make informed decisions as to how to use them – buy tiles from a common supply, place them in their princedom, or ship goods? The game takes one of the traditional game components (dice) and makes something new with them.

What begins as a slightly abstract puzzle emerges into one of the most highly-rated games on the market for older players: this is the barest overview, but the game is far more than get-dice>fill-spaces: there’s subtle nuances here in everything you do, in part to the fact that Castles of Burgundy’s scoring depends highly on where and how much you fill your princedom with tiles – representing, one would assume, the productivity, beauty and inherent value of your domain.