xxxx xxxx

Caylus Magna Carta
Author: William Attia
Publisher: Ystari / Huch & friends / Rio Grande Games
Year: 2007


review by

x

For some players a game cannot be complex enough. Games with multilayer mechanisms contained in mostly elaborate rulebooks and a game length of several hours must emphasise the supposed intelligence of the practitioner and underline that he wants to distinguish himself from the ‘ordinary’ player, consequently belonging to the Higher Order of the Real Player. From the by this group almost worshipped ‘Caylus’ a card game has been issued. The ‘Order’ surely wil ban ‘Caylus Magna Carta’...

In this game, all sorts of buildings are built again along the way to the castle. The buildings bring in points, and the points eventually lead to victory. Each player has his own but identical set of building cards from which he takes three blind at game start. On these cards the building costs are depicted, what they produce, once built and activated in a turn, and how many points they are worth. The building costs are a mix of food (pink cube), woord (brown) and brick (grey). For the larger buildings with a blue background that are laid open and available to all players one or more gold is also needed.

x

At the start of the game, dependent on the amount of participating players, two to four general building cards are laid out that form the beginning of the road; during the game the players build further along this road. The supervisor disc is put on the last card. The castle card and the bridge card are put somewhere next to the playing area.

x
Players start with some resources and four dinar, the money in this game, and have four workers to their disposal that they can use to put on one of the buildings to activate these, one per turn with a cost of one dinar per worker. At the beginning of each new round the players get only two dinar, so lack of funds can become a problem!
x
In a turn, besides placing a worker, a player can build a new building by playing one of the bulding cards from his hand a pay the costs for it. The building is placed on the next position of the road. Another action could be to pay a dinar and draw a new building card from his deck and put it in his hand. When he passes, he puts his player disc on the first free position of the bridge card; if he is the first he immediately receives one dinar. When everyone has passed each player, starting with the first player who has passed may move the supervisor disc one to three positions, backwards or forwards along the road, paying one dinar for each position. After this all buildings along the road with a worker are handled, up to and including the position of the supervisor: the owner of the worker gets the revenues of the buolding; mostly this is one or more resources, sometimes the possibility to buy one or more resources, or trade a resourcce for money. Workers that are on buildings beyond the position of the supervisor have bad luck; they go home empty handed.
Now each player, again starting with the player who has passed first, may deliver one or more packages of resources to the castle: wood, food, and brick. For each of the packages he gets a prestige chit. These are taken from one of the highest available value of initially three stacks, worth from 4 to 2 points.
The player who has delivered the most packages, also may take one gold - in case of a tie the player who was the first with his package may take it - another advantage of early passing! When no player wants to deliver a package, two prestige chits are taken from the highest value stack and removed from the game. When there are no more prestige chits, the game ends, after which players score for their buildings, prestige chits, gold and remaining resources and money.
x
The back of the building cards all show the same building against a green background. A player may upgrade one of his buildings along the road by turning it to its green side, and pay a pink cube for it at the lawyer. This lawyer card must have been built earlier in the game by any player, and the ‘upgrading’ player must have put a worker on it to activate its function. Why would a player want to upgrade one of his buildings? Because this is the condition for building any blue prestige building: on top of a green building.
x
But why then would a player want to build such a blue building? Because such buildings earn him fat points! Meanwhile each not overbuilt green building earns one additional dinar at the beginning of each round.
Each building also earns the owner something when another player usues it. In ‘Caylus’ this usually was a vistory point and occasionally a resource; in ‘Caylus Magna Carta’ it almost always is a resource or money; the points have been cancelled. Some of the buildings require that four resources are put on them; this many times one of these goes to the owner of the building when another player makes use of the building. When the resources have depleted, it conveniently can be used for the upgrade to a green building, preparing it as the future site of a blue prestige building.



‘Caylus Magna Carta’, as a direct descendant from ‘Caylus’, clearly has followed a slimming cure; a lot of things have been simplified under the denominator ‘less is more’. This way, the diffuse sliding of the two discs ‘provost’ and ‘bailiff’ have been merged into one clear supervisor disc with the same function. The supply of buildings also have been adjusted: there are two less blue buildings, and some six other buildings have disappeared such as the architect, needed to build a blue building in ‘Caylus’, or the mason needed for building a brown building. In ‘Caylus Magna Carta’ all these conditions have been deleted; if a player wants to build a building, he may do it as an action in his turn, with no further requirements. Also nice: when a player has passed, the other players keep paying just one dinar, as opposed to the increasing costs in ‘Caylus’. Further, at the beginning of each round the starting player card automatically moves to the next player in line.
x
Attention Caylus-initiated! Sit down for a moment! The royal favors from ‘Caylus’ are gone! What is left, is the delivery of packages to the castle against prestige chits, and that is it, period. Nothing more! This all makes the game a lot more intelligible, fluid and faster, where the tension remains the same: will there be an opportunity to occupy this specific building, will it be possible to acuire this specific resource, and will there remain enough money to buy this much needed action?
x

In the beginning of a game a new player might think: ‘Well! These prestige chits with the castle, these run out fast! I must get them too!’ Collecting these chits may be a tactic, but this does not necessarily need to be winning. Placing buildings also earn points, and when other players often make use of these this usually earns additional resources or money that can be used for more buildings, and eventually blue buildings with a high point value.

x
A big advantage is that the game lasts considerably shorter. As opposed to the original, taking two, two and a half hours, ‘Caylus Magna Carta’ plays in a comfortable 75 minutes, with an occasional peak of 90 minutes - but then you have played a long game. Another advantage: because each of the players set of cards is identical, a building can be built more than once, with the result that resources are not as tight, playing with less frustration. As an aside, a players cards have a coloured frame, so they do not need to be marked with a cube to identify ownership as it was needed in ‘Caylus’.
x

We keep on mentioning advantages: because of the own hand of cards players have more overview and what they can build. In ‘Caylus players constantly have to stretch their necks in uncomfortable positions in order to see the many small building chits on the table. Players still need to do this for the blue buildings, but the downloadable overview also makes an end to this discomfort!

‘Caylus Magna Carta’ remains very close to the original and is what ‘Caylus’ had to be in the first place: where ‘Caylus’ is hard labour and is sluggishly and drags, the vividness and pleasure in ‘Caylus Magna Carta’ is back at the table - here we have a good game, instead of a hefty exercise!
© 2007 Richard van Vugt

Caylus Magna Carta, William Attia, Ystari / Huch & Friends / Rio Grande Games, 2007 - 2 to 4 players, 10 years and up, 45 to 75 minutes


x
x
x