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A Castle For All Seasons Price: £43.99 Board Game; 2-4 Players; Ages 10+ by Rio Grande Games Amidst craggy mountains, the first silhouettes of a monumental castle arise. A line of traders twists its way to the gate; and the hustle and bustle attracts many people in the hope of getting wages and victuals. The area is crammed with market booths; the magnificent castle is being enlarged around them. Each player is a builder who, round for round, is able to use different character cards tactically. The constructing of this castle always culminates in an exciting final scoring. The player to produce the most victory points in the end deserves the protection of the castle and wins the game. GAME REVIEW FROM COUNTER MAGAZINE Eggertspiele 2-4 players, 45-60 minutes designed by Inka and Markus Brand reviewed by Simon Weinberg Wandering through the games on display from the wonderful Eggertspiele is always a highlight of Essen, but this time I was initially left cold by this game: the board depicted a large castle, with lots of small boards placed over segments of the castle and various piles of resources and little meeples here and there. Clearly yet another ``collect resources and build a large mediaeval building\'\' type game, I thought. Wrong! Castle For All Seasons is a wonderful game and Eggert have done it again. What\'s more they have built a game which plays through in less than an hour, is full of tight decisions, has several paths to victory, and provokes plenty of discussion on tactics and an urge to play again, soon. My one fear is that the game will have been overlooked by too many people due to the knee-jerk reaction described above. The game comes in a Cuba-sized box which is nicely designed both as regards artwork and inserts. Inside the box is a large board which is double sided, the main side showing the castle and the other side being identical but showing the castle in winter. The Winter game is an advanced version which I haven\'t played yet but which looks promising. Accompanying the game is an oversized rule book with clear illustrations and examples, but which however lacks the clarity of say, Hamburgum. There is also an example play sheet which is very helpful - but once played through the game is not at all complicated. Players each receive 8 character cards and a set of ``helper\'\' figures in their colour. The board is laid out with the four building resources placed in piles - nicely produced wooden pieces of sand, stone, wood, and brick, plus the desirable chunky silver ingots which may be swapped for any of the other resources. Then the 23 building board cards are placed on top of specific areas of the board. These boards duplicate the board below so the picture of the castle can be seen as well as information on the board. During the game, players will pay resources to build these segments of the castle, and receive the board and the associated benefits in the form of points or money. Beneath the major buildings - keep, tavern, gates, stables, etc - are positions for helpers, and so after building, a player may also pay money to buy a place for his helper on one of these erected buildings, which yields victory points only at the end of the game. The victory points earned in this way are cleverly constructed to relate to tactics on the board: number of towers built, number of buildings left unbuilt at end of the game, resources accumulated, number of silver ingots exchanged at the forge, number of helpers placed or not placed, etc. Players must carefully decide which strategy to go for quite early in the game; there are usually two or sometimes three spots for a helper per erected building, but the later a helper is placed on an erected building spot the more it costs - and money is extremely tight. In addition, resources to build buildings must be carefully hoarded and spent. In another clever mechanism, resources have different values: sand is worth 1 unit, wood 2, brick 4 and stone 5, while silver may be swapped for any resource. A building has a building cost from 10 units for a tower to 30 for the palace. All building costs are even numbers, and the number indicated must be paid for using at least three different resources. So part of the game involves getting and using the right number and range of resources for the job. Each turn begins with the start player receiving a single coin (taler) from the turn track. Then all players must simultaneously reveal a character card from their hand, and like in Citadels, these character cards are evaluated in a fixed order as follows. The cards played remain on the table and cannot be played again until they are returned to the player\'s hand by a Master Builder. Resources: First all Worker cards played receive the resources indicated on their card, but these are not transferred to the owner of the card just yet. Messenger: The player receives 8 taler. Trader: The trader allows one of the player\'s helpers to be placed on an empty resource cart containing one of the four resources mentioned above. If all four spots are already taken, the helper may be placed on the Silver Ingot resource. If all five spots are filled, players may remove the helper of another player. Once all trader cards are resolved, each player\'s helper receives a number of resources which varies depending on the type of resource itself: so 4 sand, 3 wood, 2 brick, 2 stone, or 2 silver ingots. Then each player must donate one of each of the resources they received (they may have helpers on more than one spot) to the building of the Defence Tower. The Defence Tower thus accumulates a pile of varied resources which may be taken by playing a Bricklayer. Bricklayer: The player may take all of one type of resource from the Defence Tower and then erect up to two buildings. However, the victory points from that building are not earnt by the player - instead he earns one taler per resource piece used to construct the building. Thus if he constructs the building mostly of sand and wood he will earn more money for the same building cost than if he makes it out of stone and brick. When you remember that at least three resources must be used to erect a building, and a specific unit cost must be met with exact change, you can appreciate just how subtle this is. Once the bricklayer builds at least one building, the player may pay talers to place helpers in the exposed building helper spots or in the market or forge to wards their end of game VP score. Stonemason: The Stonemason can help himself to one resource from each Worker card at the cost of one taler. This is one of several cards which provokes plenty of interaction as players try to predict when to play their workers without losing one of the three resources they need to the stonemason. Once he has taken his resources, the stonemason may then erect up to two buildings and pay for helpers to be placed; but unlike the bricklayer, here the Stonemason earns the full Victory Points (VP) associated to the building. Worker: Players take the resources left on the worker card and can build and place helpers; however, workers earn half the VPs per building. Master Builder: Sooner or later, players will want to re-use the cards they have already played: for example, they need more talers or resources. The Master builder allows all cards to be taken back into hand: crucially, however, it also awards the player 5 VP for every other building built that round - and since this can be very significant, players must try to time their playing of this card to maximise the points they score from other players on what is otherwise a `dead\' turn. There are only six different sorts of cards, since there are three worker types, but the interaction and choices to be made are tough ones - when to build, for example: should one hoard resources and shoot for a large building with more immediate victory points, or build up talers to pay for a position in one of the high-scoring erected buildings? Can a building be erected and a helper placed on the same turn, to maximise benefits? The choices are difficult and the timing all-important. As the game progresses, the strategies of each player become more obvious, and competition increases to influence the scoring of the helper spots, or to put the helpers in the right places. Plans may be slightly knocked off balance by other players - taking one of your worker\'s resources, stealing the resources you wanted from the Defence Tower, or placing a helper just before you can - but not enough to turn a strategic game into a chaotic one. The game ends after a certain number of turns (12 or 15 depending on the number of players), and certainly within an hour, and then helpers are scored. In our games the end of game scoring has accounted for more than half the total score, but of course the end scoring is always visible to allow it to be monitored during the game, and players must strive to ensure their chosen helper spots score highest. In our games the scores have been tight at the end, with the number of resources available to pay for the last few buildings and helpers becoming absolutely crucial as it becomes more and more important to maximise the effect of every turn. Overall, A Castle For All Seasons is a terrific game which is strategic, clever, and well-designed. Definitely here to stay, and one of the best games to come out of Essen this year. It is a slick combination of a resource collection/worker placement/role selection game with new mechanisms and enough meat to keep anyone happy. And the short playing time is an added bonus. More ...

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