Viticulture

Stonemaier Games | Worker placement | 2-6 players | 90 minutes | www.stonemaiergames.com

Viticulture is a dynamic “worker placement” game about winemaking, with some tough choices, and many interesting routes to victory. You’ve inherited a vineyard in Italy, and must build it up to become the most prestigious in the region. Each player has a small board showing fields, “crush pads” where harvested grapes are stored, cellars where wines are stored, plus locations for structures which can be built to enable more and better wines to be made.

You start with a few worker pawns to assign to various winemaking activities, and one “Visitor” card – visitors are specialists that can be activated for a one-time benefit, such as extra money, harvesting grapes out of season, or discounts on building. The game turn represents a year, and is divided into four seasons, Spring, where the player order for the rest of that “year” is determined by players choosing a "wake up" time for their workers – if you go later in the turn order, you get a benefit to compensate; Summer, where you plant, build, etc.; Fall, where you acquire extra “visitor” cards; and Winter, where you harvest, make wine, train extra workers, etc.. During each turn, players place workers next to locations on the beautifully-rendered main game board, which depict the actions they want to take: in the fields to plant or harvest vines, in the winery to make wines, and so on.

Wines produced from the vine cards that you “plant” in your vineyard, are then used to fulfil wine order cards, the main way of getting victory points. Once someone gets to 20 points, it’s all over.

Viticulture’s easy to learn, but strategically challenging, and the gameplay is tied rather cleverly to the theme, so as you go through each year, it really does feel like you’re building a winemaking empire!

(Beresford Quimby)

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Finish the game off with a quality, lightweight insert from 

 Compatible with Viticulture Essential Edition®, and the Tuscany Essential Edition®, Moor Visitors®, and Visit from the Rhine Valley® expansions.

13,50 €

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