Elasund: The First City
From: Mayfair Games, Kosmos
Reviewed by: Ron McClung
Elasund: The First City is a new Board Game from Mayfair Games, Kosmos.
Elasund: The First City is the one of the Catan Adventure series of games, preceded by Candamir: The First Settlers. Where Candamir is more like a role-playing board game, Elasund is a more competitive building game.
From page #1: “Years after fearless seafarers discovered and settled the island of Catan the population has grown significantly.”
The game board defines the site where a settlement is to be built. The number of players defines the size of the site. This is noted on the board by an innovative way of moving the “city gate” corner markers up and down the board. Few players produce a smaller playing area while more players produce a larger playing area. The playing area is divided up as a grid, with each row corresponding to a number to the far left, where the docks are.
Sequence of play is as follows:
- Roll dice, move trade ship and collect cards.
- Build up to 2 buildings
- Place 1 Building Permit or take 2 Gold
- Take Special Action
Players work together to build up the city of Elasund. Each player’s goal is to build as many buildings in the given space as possible. Play revolves around a Trade Ship that can be moved up and down the left side of the board that represents the ports or docks. Each player rolls two dice and moves the ship to the number rolled. If a 7 is rolled, something special happens called pirate raid.
Each player begins with two starting buildings, which are placed in designated areas. At the start of each turn the dice are rolled and the ship is moved the designated number. The row the ship lands on determines most of the action – what cards one draws for production and where building permits are placed. As mentioned, if a 7 is rolled (a row not displayed on the board), the ship is then a is a pirate ship and the player may place it on any row he chooses. Instead of production, however, any players with Victory Point Cubes in that row are robbed.
After the ship is moved, the player collects cards based on the row the ship is on. There are two types of cards – Influence and Gold. Gold is the money in the game and pays for permits and buildings, compensates other players when you cancel out their permits, and generally makes the world go ’round. Influence Cards allow you to place additional permits, move placed permits, trade in for gold, and even remove buildings based on a certain criteria. You earn Influence by buildings sections of the City Wall. Also on the City Wall, one can build Towers that gain the player more Victory Points.
To construct buildings, you must pay the required gold and place the right number of permits. Permits are numbered 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4 and are based on the size of the building. Building also cost gold to build and if you build on a space with other players’ permits, you must compensate the player(s) for their investment. Buildings include the 4 player buildings (Workers and Shopkeepers) and the neutral buildings – Merchant, Tavern, Market Stands, Well, Trade Office, Count’s Estate and the Town Hall. They range from 1 square to 6 squares for the larger neutral buildings. It is also good to keep in mind when building that larger buildings can be built over smaller buildings. Also, if you have the right combination of influence cards, you can build over buildings of the same size.
From page #1: “Catan needs a central trading site, so the Catanians have decided to build their first city”
Another building option in the game is the Church. The Church comes in 9 tile sections. There is a designated square on the board that is the church foundation. A church tile cost 7 Gold and the firs tile must be placed on that foundation square. All of the other 8 squares must be placed around that square. This can disrupt other buildings and permits without compensation. Building onto the church can be rather upsetting to other players.
Once the building phase is done, the Permits or Gold phases allows players to either place a permit or take gold from the bank. This is the strategy phase of the game that really creates paranoia and anticipation. After this phase is the special action phase. Each player may take one of four special actions.
The point of the game is to build up Victory Points, marked by wooden Victory Point Cubes. The winner is the first player to have 10 Victory Point Cubes on the board. There are two ways to gain these Victory Point Cubes. Successfully constructing neutral buildings is one way. However, because large buildings can be built over smaller ones, Victory Point Cubes can be lost during play.
The other way to gain Victory Point Cubes is through the Trade Point Track. If you place a building on a Trade Point on the board (designated with a windmill symbol), you gain Trade Points and movie up the Trade Point Track. There are Trade Points at the docks, and in a 3 to 4 player game there are Trade Points at the City Gates.
In conclusion, the game itself, like many games like it, has a deliberate set of actions one can take in a specific order. It challenges one’s ability to manage their resources given the situation but also have a strong element of luck and rewards aggressiveness. The game is competitive. The game is probably a little more competitive then Settlers, I think. There is a lot of luck involved also, because you never know where that ship is going to land. I liked the scalability of the game. It is a game that is just as fun with 2 as it is with 4 players.
For more details on Mayfair Games, Kosmos and their new Board Game “Elasund: The First City” check them out at their website http://www.mayfairgames.com, and at all of your local game stores.
Elasund: The First City
From: Mayfair Games, Kosmos
Type of Game: Board Game
Game Design by: Klaus Teuber
Developed by: Tm-Spiele
Cover Art by: Tanja Donner
Number of Pages: 6 page folding rulebook
Game Components Included:
- 1 game rules booklet
1 game board 44 wooden pieces 2 dice 1 trade ship 9 church tiles 36 city wall tiles 37 buildings 90 game cards 2 city gates 4 turn overview cards 20 building permits
Retail Price: $49.00 (US)
Number of Players: 2-4
Player Ages: 10+
Play Time: 20 to 60 minutes
Website: www.mayfairgames.com
Reviewed by: Ron McClung