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Die Paläste von Carrara / The Palaces of Carrara
Authors: Wolfgang Kramer & Michael Kiesling
Publisher: Hans im Glück
Year: 2012


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For over more than 2000 years, the Tuscan city of Carrara is well known for its marble quarries. In 'The Palaces of Carara'/'Die Paläste von Carrara' this marble is sold to build buildings in 6 surrounding cities of this community. These buildings can then be transformed into money and, well, victory points. Even the rules of this game do not try to make anything more out of the thin layer of theme.




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The central game board of Carrara show the 6 cities; varying from the glittering seaside resort Livorno to the grubby port of Lérici. Furthermore there is a market where the marble blocks are bought: this market consists of a wheel divided into six segments. The costs are shown at the edge of the wheel and will vary by turning the wheel. Marble blocks are available in six colours, at the start of the game one block of each colour is placed on the initial wheel segment.

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This determines the initial prices of the marble: white is the most expensive costing six gold, black the cheapest costing only one gold, with the other four colours ranging from two to five. There is a display with room for nine building tiles, randomly selected from the 30 available ones. There are six building types, each type available in a value from 1 to 5. Each building tile also shows a corresponding object, such as a shield, a flag, or a crown. At the start of the game, one object of each type is placed on the game board. These objects are available for sale, but at a price of 10 gold this is something a player will typically do only near the end of the game. as he starts with a mere 20 gold.
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Each player receives a player board where he can keep track of his building and scoring activities, a screen to hide the initial 20 money and the single marble block he starts with. The colour of this block depends on the player’s starting position. To performs scorings, each player receives six tokens in his colour.

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The players take their turn in clockwise order. A turn consists of taking one of three possible actions: buy marble blocks, build buildings, or perform a scoring.

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Buying marble blocks is done in three steps. First the the wheel is rotated clockwise by one section, causing a price decrease of one for all blocks. Next, the number of marble blocks is supplemented to 11, by drawing blocks blindly from the bag. Finally, the player can buy from one segment as many blocks that he wants, by paying the indicated prices. Black marble blocks are almost always free, for the other colours this will take some rotations.

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The building action consists of taking one building tile from the nine available ones, paying the indicated number of marble blocks and placing it near of one the cities on the player’s game board.  With this action it is important to take into account the building regulations of each city: Livorno only accepts buildings consisting of white -expensive- marble blocks, while other cities are less choosy. In Lérici any marble colour can be used to build.

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Eventually the buildings are only built to generate victory points and new money. To make this possible the scoring actions must be taken. This can be done in two different ways: score buildings by type or score a city. When scoring a type of building, the player receives the points and/or money for each personal built building of the selected type. The amount is determined by the value of the building, multiplied with the value of the city where it is built. Each building type can only be scored once by each player. To indicate the scoring a player token is placed on the building type on his player board.

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For a city scoring a player must have two or three buildings in the city. When this condition is met, the player receives the points or money for all buildings in this city. As an example, a scoring of two buildings with value 3 and 4 in Pisa will give in total 21 money, while in Livorno this would score 21 points.
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Each city can only be scored once during the entire game; this is indicated by placing a player token in the city on the central game board. In both cases a number of objects can be taken from the supply, but only if they are still available, as only five are available for each building type. These objects are placed behind the player’s screen.

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To trigger the end of the game, a player must have completed three objectives indicated on the objective card: having performed at least 4 scoring actions, having collected a certain number of objectives, depending on the number of players, and having built buildings with a certain total cost. The qualifying player immediately gets five points for triggering the end. The current round then is played until the end, after which the final scoring is done: all objects score 3 points, the sum of building tile cosst is added as points, and each five money is worth 1 point. The player with the most points is the winner.
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The above description is applicable to the basic game. The game comes with a closed envelop with an expansion that may be opened -à la Risk Legacy- only after the basic game has been played at least twice. The expansion adapts the buying and building actions only slightly: buying is also possible without turning the wheel, thereby tactically not decreasing prices for the other players, and new expensive buildings with a value of 8 are introduced. The main adaption is in the three end conditions: these now can be drawn from a set of cards, and also an additional end scoring card can be drawn. This end scoring card may force players to focus on specific cities, like an additional scoring for Livorno and Lérici, for example. These altered end conditions and scoring can alter the game substantially.

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The rules of 'The Palaces of Carrara'/'Die Paläste von Carrar' are deceptively simple: buy marble with money, transform marble into buildings, and score these cleverly; how difficult can that be? But this turns out to be quite a challenge, a player is placed for tricky tactical and strategic little choices. When to buy what marble, for what price? Wait until the prices drop, or may that be too late? And when building, which type of building is available for future scoring, and where to build it?

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The objects will run out, and a player must keep an eye on his opponents as well, since they will pinch the wanted objects as well, and may even end the game prematurely. Summarizing, Kramer and Kiesling have done a wonderful job in confronting the players with so many choices with such a simple ruleset.


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Carrara is well suited for families that are a bit more experienced; the game plays wonderfully within the hour, providing lots of interaction. Also the -included! - expansion will guarantee a lot of replayablity for players that need more challenge. Compliments also go to Franz Vohwinkel, who has succeeded in providing a clear and nice support of the playing experience with his clear and bright illustrations.

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'Die Paläste von Carrara'/'The Palaces of Carrara' is certainly not an innovative design, and some mechanisms are well-known from other games -like the turning wheel from Vikings. But this is a mere detail, what prevails is the enjoyable gaming experience.
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'Die Paläste von Carrara'/'The Palaces of Carrara' is a pure, solid Eurogame experience, so much is true, and certainly one that belongs in the Eurogame Champions League!
© 2013 Edwin van de Sluis

Die Paläste von Carrara//The Palaces of Carrara, Wolfgang Kramer & Michael Kiesling, Hans im Glück/ZMan Games, 2012 - 2 to 4 players, 10 years and up, 60 minutes


Slim and elegant, that is the characteristic of Kramer & Kiesling. Fine family game that does not need the expansion
An easy to play game with nice considerations
Despite the relative simplicity and short playing time the game offers sufficient challenge
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