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Taverns of Tiefenthal

29/1/2020

7th January 2020

It's the first Tuesday of the year and we're NOT at 'The Sovereigns' (Which is closed for refitting.), instead we're at 'The Wheatsheaf' in Woking for board gaming.

Tonight, we're playing Taverns of Tief....err?
Taverns of Tiefe... err?
It's a game where you run a pub!

So this game tries it's best squeeze in as many game mechanics as it can.
Deck building - yep. Card drafting - yep. Dice drafting - yep. Dice placement - yep. Resource management - yep. Hidden Role - y... wait no, that's about the only thing missing!

What's in a game?
So Taverns of Tiefenthal comes with some optional extras or expansions, apparently we used all of them in the game we played. So there's a lot of components.

Monastery board: This is a small central board that serves a couple of purposes. It displays what bonus the players receive in each round. There is also a track that players can move their marker round to get bonuses.
Player tavern board: Each player has their own tavern, therefore each player has their own tavern board. The tavern board looks like a giant misshapen jigsaw puzzle piece. Each tavern board has extra 'bits' that are attached to it, during play they can be upgraded and are flipped to the other side when this is done.
Tavern attachments: These tiles are the 'bits' that are added to each tavern: Tables, beer storage, beer supplier, barrel, host/reputation, safe, dishwasher, waitress, cash box and monk. 10 in all and all double sided. These will be explained below.
Entertainer tiles: Periodically throughout the game, entertainers will arrive in your tavern. If you can give them 'schnapps', they will give you a bonus or ability of some kind. These tiles are double sided, each side confers a different bonus.
Schnapps tokens: Used to ply entertainers.
Guestbook board: This tile is a way to earn bonuses when it is filled with signatures.
Signature tiles: Used to fill your guestbook.
Deck of guest cards: Guest cards are bought with beer! During the game they will be the 'regular' visitors to that player's tavern. When they appear, they can earn the player money.
Deck of staff cards: These are bought with money. Staff gives the player extra or bonus actions.
Dice: Normal 6 sided dice. Lots of white dice and 4 sets of dice in player colours, 1 set for each player.
Beer mats: These little coasters essentially unnecessary, but are used to hold dice.
Beer mug marker: This is the first player marker.

They are the most important components of the game.
Many of the game's components are made of nice and thick card stock, including the beer mats. The artwork is quite nice and colour and there's some nice detail on the tavern board and tiles.

The game's 1st challenge; putting it together!

Player's tavern board.at the game start, with nice art.

Set up and ready to play.

The art is well detailed. As well as the dog, notice that cat by the window.

How's it play?
We begin with setup.

Each player takes a tavern board and the 10 other bits that go with it and attaches them to the board with standard side up.
Each player is given a starting deck of 10 cards, consisting of 7 guests and 3 staff cards, they are shuffled and placed down as a player draw deck.
Each player takes the 4 dice in their colour, a beer mat then also takes and places 4 white dice on the mat.
Take all the guest cards that cost 3 'beer' and place them in a face up stack. The remaining guest cards are shuffled and placed down as the guest deck. Deal 4 cards from this deck and place them face up in a line next to the 3 cost cards. Finally place the stack of 'noble' guests face up at the end of the line.
All staff cards should be sorted into their different types and placed face up in individual stacks in ascending order of cost.

Staff cards on the top row & guest cards below.

Player's board in mid-turn, cards dealt, but dice not yet chosen.

That covers most of the setup.
Now to explain what does what.
Let's start with the tavern board. Many of the abilities on the board are activated by placing dice of a specific value on them.

Tables; when guests are dealt from a player's deck, they are placed on the tables spaces. Players start with 3 table spaces. This can be upgraded to 4.
Beer storage; during their turn a player will most likely generate beer. Any beer that is not spent can be stored on this tile. The beer storage holds 2 beer, this can be upgraded to 5.
Beer supplier; Any dice which are showing a 1 or a 6 can be placed on this tile to generate beer, each die placed here will generate a beer. When upgraded, each die will generate 2 beer.
Barrel; a die showing any number can be placed here to generate 1 beer. Unlike the beer supplier, only 1 dice can be placed here. When upgraded, it will produce 2 beer.
Host/reputation; we used the 'reputation' side of this tile. It has a reputation track, when its marker moves round the track it will earn the player various benefits. When the marker reaches the end of the track, it earns a noble guest card and starts round the track again.
Safe; any unspent money goes here. It stores 2 currency and can be upgraded to store 5.
Dishwasher; the dishwasher tile does nothing until it is upgraded. When upgraded, it provides the player with a permanent dishwasher (See below for an explanation of what a dishwasher does.).
Waitress; this tiles too does nothing until upgraded, upon which it provides the player with a permanent waitress.
Cash box; a single die showing any number can be placed here to earn the player 1 currency, the upgraded version earns 3.
Monk; any dice showing a 5 here will advance the players marker 1 space along the monastery track. The upgraded version moves the marker along 2 spaces per 5 placed here.

Talking of the monastery board. It has several functions.

Turn order; the game is played over 8 rounds and something a little different happens every round, which is all tracked on this board.
Monastery track: as the player's marker moves round here, they will earn various bonuses.
Recruit nobles; this table on the monastery board shows the cost (In beer) to recruit nobles.

Now lets go on to what the cards do. Starting with staff cards.

Beer merchant; when this card is played, it gives the player an extra beer.
Dishwasher; each dishwasher card played gives the player the ability to increase the result on a single die by 1. Multiple dishwashers allow multiple dice to be increased or 1 die to be increased multiple times. Dice cannot be lowered this way.
Waitress; each waitress card that is played allows the player to roll an extra die (From their coloured dice.).
Table; each table card played, grants the player an extra spot to put a guest card.
Beer supplier; these are different to merchant. They are placed next to the beer supplier tile. Each die used with the beer supplier tile provides 1 extra beer per beer supplier card played.

Now on to guest cards.
Guest cards are acquired by spending beer.

Guests; guests are recruited by spending beer! When they are placed on your tables, they become extra spots on to which a die may be placed to earn currency. Generally the die which can be placed on a guest is the same as the currency earned. Thus if a guest requires a die showing a 3, it will earn 3 currency. Guests also earn victory points at the end of the game. Some guests also provide a once-only bonus when recruited.

Noble guests; noble guests always require a 2 to activate and always provide 2 currency. In terms of generating currency, they are amongst the worst guests (I guess it costs so much to please them, players make little profit!), but if more than one noble appears at the same time, then they all go on the same single table and don't take up too much room (They don't like to mingle with the 'rabble' it seems?). The advantage of nobles is that they're worth 10 victory points at the end of the game, which is a lot more than other guests.

So at last, finally, we get to how the game plays.
Each round is player over several phases.

Round set; at the start of each of the 8 rounds, every player will be given a choice of gaining 1 of 2 special actions.
Deal cards; each player deals cards from their own deck. Staff cards go in specific spots around the tavern board. Guest cards go on to the table spaces. Thus if a player has more table spaces, not only can they accommodate more guests, they have a better chance of drawing more staff cards as well. When all the available tables are filled, the player stops dealing cards.
Bonus dice: If a player drew and placed any waitress cards in the previous phase (Or they have upgraded their tavern to have a permanent waitress.), they gain a number of bonus dice (In their colour.) equal to the waitresses (Maximum of 3.). These dice are immediately rolled and placed to one side.
Roll dice; all players roll their 4 white dice and place them on their beer mat. Then in turn order, starting with the current first player, each player removes 1 die and places to to one side. Once all players have removed a die, each player passes the beer mat with the player to their left. Again, starting with the first player, each player removes another die passes the beer mat with the remaining dice to the left. Players continue taking dice and passing beer mats until all dice are gone.
Place dice; now that players have all their dice, in this phase they choose where to place them. As explained above, dice can be placed on various parts of a tavern board or guest cards in order to activate those actions - provided the number match of course.
Resolve actions; in turn order, each player resolves their actions, usually this involves generating beer and currency and using them to buy guest and staff cards. Unlike most deck builder games, when new cards are bought they go on top of the player's deck, so they will be played in the next round. Players can also upgrade their tavern, which costs currency. Every time a tile is upgraded, the player gains a noble - which like with other cards, goes on top off their current deck.
At the end of a turn, all cards that were played (Both guest and staff cards.) are placed into the discard pile and play continues to the next round with a new first player.

That's more or less it for how the game plays.

Endgame
Play continues for 8 rounds.

Victory points are scored from the cards that players bought
Points are tallied, highest score wins.

My final turn completed.

The game end.

Overall
Taverns of Tiefenthal requires a lot of explanation (As you can see above), but in play is actually quite straightforward.
It's more of a game about optimizing strategies than complex rules.

The game gives you a lot of choices and options. Occasionally these will be meaningless decisions because of how the dice fall, but most of the time you'll have to choose between different actions.
A player will nearly always have more options available than actions to perform them.
This is makes a good game in my opinion.

There's nothing particularly unique about the game, other than how it blends certain game mechanics together to emulate it's subject quite well. The game's presentation is also very good with well made components and colourful and well produced art.

The game's only drawback is its setup time, there's quite a lot to do. But I think the payoff is worth it as I enjoyed it.

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