BOARD GAME NEWS

The gang at Downtown comics brought a game in for me this week that looks like it will be a lot of fun. It is called Caylus and is published by Rio Grande and was developed by Ystari. It's been around for a couple of years and I am glad to finally have a copy of this highly acclaimed game.

The game is themed on the village of Caylus, which is in France, not too far from Carcassonne . Players represent master builders, and each master builder employs a team of workers. The master builders have been commissioned by royalty to construct a castle at Caylus. However, Caylus presently cannot cope with such a request. To build the castle, the village infrastructure has to be developed in order to cope with the influx of labour. The player who best exploits the opportunities presented, and converts them into prestige points, will win the game.

I have only gotten as far as peeling the plastic off the box and reading the instructions. Each player gets a pile of houses and cylinders of their colors, and there are a pile of cubes that are used for resources. The most striking part of the game is the tiles that players build, with some pictures that look good against the backdrop of the beautiful board. Everything looks nice, is of high quality, and fits easily in the large box. It's just that the theme, which is the rebuilding of the castle, doesn't really come through the components.

The rulebook is printed in full color and shows many examples and illustrations of how the game works. I have spent about an hour setting up the game and trying to get my head around the rules. It is available on BSW, so I'll observe a few games and learn. I am beginning to think that the best way to learn Caylus is simply to play it, as things become clear as the game goes along. It would be even better to play it with someone who already has a good handle on the rules.

It is a two to five player strategy game that has very little to do with luck. There is no hidden information. It is about anticipating the right move and seizing opportunities.

I am told the game can be long, so the bottleneck again is finding hard core gamers who are willing to commit up to three hours to one game. If you have played the game and have the patience to take me through it let me know.