3 Spellcasters and a Dwarf
  • Home
  • Special Effect
    • Special Effect
    • The Final Return of The Indiana Jones Charity Globe Trot
    • The Warlock of Firetop Mountain Challenge
    • Return of The Indiana Jones Charity Globe Trot
    • Bard's Tale Challenge
    • Fighting Fantasy Challenge
    • The Indiana Jones Charity Globe Trot
    • Mirkwood Charity Walk
    • Middle-earth Charity Walk
    • Dungeon Daze
  • RPGs
    • The One Ring
    • The Evils of Illmire
    • Beach Patrol
    • The Surrendered Lands
  • Game Blogs
    • RPG Blog
    • Gaming Blog
  • Painting Blog
  • Contact

Gaming Blog

Splendor

16/7/2019

0 Comments

 
23rd April 2019.

Gaming night at 'The Sovs' in Woking continues with the second game of the night; 'Splendor'.

Splendor is a engine building card game. Hang on! Just earlier this very tonight we played 'Race for the Galaxy' another engine building card game.

This is quite interesting, because they are 2 similar but different games. So without further preamble, here we go.

What's in a game?

The set up for Splendor is pretty simple.

There are 3 decks of 'Development Cards' (decks 1, 2 & 3) that you shuffle and place in a column in ascending order..
Then, from each deck you deal a row of 4 cards. So now you have 12 cards in total from the 3 decks displayed face up.

Then you place the 'Noble' tiles, you always put out one more noble tile than the number of players.

Finally you place out the tokens: These come in 6 colours, 5 normal colours and gold (which is wild).

That's it for set up.
Picture
How's it play?
 
Players can perform only one of three possible actions in their turn.
Picture
The tokens are actually reskinned poker chips. A nice little addition to the game.
  • ​Take tokens: A player can take 3 tokens of 3 different colours or they can take 2 tokens of a single colour, (Provided they leave at least 2 tokens of that colour available to other players, i.e. you can't take 2 tokens just to try and empty the supply.). The maximum tokens a player can have is 10. Additionally, this action does not allow a player to take a gold token.
  • Reserve a development card: As their action a player can reserve any development card on display (Regardless of which row they are in.). When selecting this action, the player takes the chosen card into their hand so no one can see what they've got and they take a gold token, (This is the only to gain gold tokens.). A player's maximum hand size is 3.
  • Buy a development card: All development cards have a cost (In tokens.). If the player has the relevant tokens, then those tokens can be spent to acquire the development card. A player may buy a card from the face up display or buy the card they've got in their hand.
Development Cards
All development cards have a cost (In Tokens.), this might be 2 white and 2 black, or 1 white, 1 black, 1 red & 1 blue, etc. The cost increases according to the row they are in.

What does buying a development card get you? They give you 1 or 2 things.
Every development will give you a 'bonus' token in one of the 5 colours. This bonus is permanently available to you. Thus; if you have bought a card that gives you 1 'white bonus' and want to buy a card which costs 2 white and 2 black, you would only need to have 1 white and 2 black tokens - the bonus on the development card counts as 1 white token. The more cards acquired, the easier it gets to buy other cards. Eventually you'll reach a point where you be able to buy lesser development cards 'for free'.

The other thing that you get from development cards are victory points.
Level 1 cards will sometimes give you a victory point.
Level 2 cards tend to give you 1-2 victory points.
Level 3 cards will give you up to 5 victory points.

Noble Tiles
Noble tiles provide extra points to the player that manages to acquire them.
Like development cards, noble cards have a cost.
This might be 4 red & 4 blue or 3 green, 3 black & white etc.
However, unlike development cards, tokens cannot be used to buy noble tiles. Only the bonuses accumulated from development cards can be used to do so.
Additionally; acquiring a noble tile does not count as an action and it can bought immediately after a development card has been bought.

Endgame
When a player has accumulated at least 15 points, then endgame is triggered.
The endgame is simple, all players who have not acted in the turn get their turns, so everybody has had an equal number of turns.

Overall
Splendor seems like a simpler engine building game than the mechanically deeper Race for the Galaxy. But there's hidden depth that emerges with higher level play.

Splendor requires all players to have their cards, tiles and openly displayed for all to see. Only cards that you reserved are hidden in your hand.

And in Splendor, you need to spend time looking at what your opponents are doing and trying to gauge which cards or nobles they are trying to buy. This stops you from trying to build an engine to try and get card that they're going to get first. Or gives you a target to try and get before them.
Hidden reserve cards can prove important too, because they allow you to spring surprises on your opponents.

I like Splendor, it's quick to set up and teach and quick to play - well unless your players suffer from analysis paralysis!
Overall: a worthy engine building game.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    I play, I paint.
    ​This is where I talk about what I play.

    Archives

    March 2025
    March 2024
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019

    Categories

    All
    2 Player Only
    50 Fathoms
    Abstract
    Annual Quiz
    Area Control
    Asymmetrical Play
    Auctioning
    Black Hack
    Bluffing
    Board Game
    Campaign Play
    Card Game
    Clockwork & Chivalry
    Cooperative
    Cthulhu Hack
    Deck/Bag Builder
    Deduction
    Dice Game
    Drafting
    Engine Builder
    Hand Management
    Hidden Movement
    Hidden Role
    In Darkest Warrens
    Legacy
    Merry Outlaws
    One Vs Many
    Oubliette
    Party Game
    Programming
    Push Your Luck
    Real Time
    Renaissance
    Resource Management
    Roll And Move
    Roll And Write
    Route Builder
    RPG
    Sand Box
    Savage Worlds
    Set Collecting
    Storytelling
    Tableau Builder
    Team Based
    The Month In Gaming
    The Year In Gaming
    Tile Placement
    Trading
    Traitor
    Trick Taking
    Voting
    Wargame
    Wasted Hack
    WFRP
    Wogglecon
    Word Game
    Worker Placement

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • Special Effect
    • Special Effect
    • The Final Return of The Indiana Jones Charity Globe Trot
    • The Warlock of Firetop Mountain Challenge
    • Return of The Indiana Jones Charity Globe Trot
    • Bard's Tale Challenge
    • Fighting Fantasy Challenge
    • The Indiana Jones Charity Globe Trot
    • Mirkwood Charity Walk
    • Middle-earth Charity Walk
    • Dungeon Daze
  • RPGs
    • The One Ring
    • The Evils of Illmire
    • Beach Patrol
    • The Surrendered Lands
  • Game Blogs
    • RPG Blog
    • Gaming Blog
  • Painting Blog
  • Contact