Altiplano

Review

Im Reich der Inka

Altiplano

Alpacas and fish

A game by Reiner Stockhausen, by a designer who made a name for himself already with games like „Siberia“, „Böhmische Dörfer“, „Scheffeln“ and most and foremost, „Orléans“ einen Namen gemacht hat. In 2009 he founded „dlp-Verlag“ in Herzogenrath, wherever that may be, in which he - besides his own designs, also published the well-known games „Citrus “, „Yokohama“, “Klongs“ and „Weltausstellung“ by other designers. And now, let’s look at this latest creation.

Altiplano is the tableland between the mountain ranges of Eastern and Western Andes of Southeastern Peru and Bolivia, along the banks of Lake Titicaca. During the period of 13th and 16th century, Altiplano was home to the Incans. Due to the altitude, the climate is harsh and made severe demands on the mainly peasant population to enable them to survive. This situation is mirrored in the game Altiplano. Reiner Stockhausen has perfectly picked up on the general living conditions of the population and integrated them into the game.

We kind of find ourselves at the banks of the which is one of the main touristic highlights in South America besides Machu Picchu and the Falls of Iguazu.

The cover shows a drawing of an Alpaca, which was, besides the Llama, a favorite domestic animal of the then indigenous population. Alpacas are a type of camel and famous for their high-quality wool. There are even a lot of Alpacas in Austria; in nearly every province there are breeders who also rent out their animals for hiking tours. And if you fancy one for a pet, you can buy if for 900 € on “willhaben”.

But back to the cover. The background for the Alpaca shows strips Peruvian knitting patterns; however, it would have been more authentic to use the cubic-like “Tocapu” as used by the Incas. If there is a point for critique in the game, it is the graphics, which are not really inviting and enticing to buy and do not tell you what to expect. It was the name of the designer only that enticed me to buy the game, which is a pity, because if you are not in the know and are not familiar with the name you miss a top game.

The Content. Contrary to the rather stark background setting of proceedings, content of the game is sumptuous. In addition to the seven board parts that take up some space when laid out in a circle, there is an action board and storage board, both about 20x15 cm, for each of the maximum five players. So, you need a suitable table, it is no use to try to play on a coffee shop table, as you need, besides the general stock of food and money tokens, room for the extension strip and the five of 24 possible extensions next to it. There are also chests for goods tiles for all players and seven role cards for woodcutter, fisherman, shepherd, miner, trader, farmer and stonemason. Each role offers another starting situation and thus an individual starting condition.

Then there are 15 wooden cubes symbolizing carts, playing pawns in colors of red, blue, green, yellow and black, plus the corresponding marking tokens. Furthermore, there are 209 goods tiles, comprising 36 tokens for food, 25 for corn, as well 20 each for wood and stone, 15 each for ore, cloth, wool and silver and, finally, 12 each of the rare goods like fish, glass, alpacas and cacao.

We also need to list 36 cards for acquiring houses, boats, orders and missions, 10-10-16 respectively. 20 Mission cards are also included, they represent an expansion for an even more variable and varied game play. 50 coins of values 1, 3 and 10 complete the inventory. Oh, I forgot to mention five cloth bags and one pad of scoring sheets plus a neat and practical summery card of victory points for each player, which comes in very useful for keeping track of the plethora of scoring options. And I have not yet told you about the starting player marker - a 3D Alpaca cardboard figurine as depicted on the cover. The design of that piece is a question of taste, but it helps nicely to get communication going at the start of the game.

After this list, surely everybody can realize that the weight of the box and the sumptuous amount of its content have nothing to do with the stark landscape in which we are supposed to act but do surely justify the price of the game.

Aim of the game is, beginning with the four goods tiles that are assigned to each player at the start of the game, and vary in accordance with the selected role, to acquire, at the end of the game, the most expensive goods and most points from completing missions and orders. How to do this? I will explain this to you

First of all, each player puts his four starting tiles on the pre-assigned cases One to Four out of eight provided cases. That’s all there is at the start of the game. Using the board part “road”, one of seven parts, as you will remember, you can raise the number up to eight tiles per person. This placement is called the planning phase and is done simultaneously by all participants. Then in turn, beginning with the starting player, an action is begun. You decide if you want to go to the Market, the Farm, the Mine, the Forest, into the Village, to the Road or to the Harbor. On the personal board of each player there is an exemplarily good presentation of which gods I must use to acquire an additional good or to do a swap on the market. And, also what I need to advance on the road, which will later enable me to occupy more cases in the planning phase.

When I have made my decision and, most important, do have the necessary goods for the targeted region, I will receive the indicated reward. Normally, you need to starting goods to acquire a third goods. Then you place those starting goods and the goods required with them into your own box. You can see, that in the course of the game, you receive more and more goods, which you then use to draw goods from your bag for the next round, albeit with the restriction of available cases in the planning phase. If the bag is empty - which happens quickly at the start - you empty your own chest into the bag.

This is where the deck building part of the game begins, and the element of chance is introduced. This system stays with my as an unhappy memory from the game „Jenseits von Theben“ by Peter Prinz. When the time came to dig for treasures, I usually only drew garbage. But that is another story altogether.

If nobody can do another action, the current round ends and the next round begins with the next planning phase by drawing from the bag. The decision which region I want to visit is complicated by another element. To be able to collect in a region, I must be present there with my pawn, actually have the pawn on the board tile. At the start of the game, it stands on any location and can - before or after my decision - be moved with a card (the wooden cubes) by one to three cases, which are region tiles, one time. This first move is free. Other moves must be taken into account by using food in the planning phase. But this allows me only one turn. Additional carts - up to a limit of four - which give me more room to move, can be bought in the village. With this, I have arrived at the question of what is available at the individual regions?

The Farm produces Food, Wool and Cloth, the Forest wood and allows the changing of cacao into any other type of goods. In the Mine, you acquire Stone and Silver. The Village provides the cards mentioned above and the option to build a house which scores four points and upgrades a certain goods. At the Harbor, I can build a boat that is worth two victory points; the boat can produce Food and convert two Fishes into Stone. I have already explained the function of the Road. Which leaves the Market. Here I can sell Glass for four moneys and may acquire an extension tile which costs - depending on its position at the strip, up to five moneys in addition to the price on the card. These tiles expand your action options. Furthermore, you can acquire orders at the market, yielding victory points. However, you are only allowed one uncompleted order at a time and get a new one when the current one has been completed. You can also store goods in your own storage facility with the extensions There are five storage rows with three slots and six with four slots in ascending values of 2 to 20. Unfortunately, you must fill the cheap slots first to arrive later at those of higher value. In each row, only one type of goods can be stored. Corn is considered a joker and can be added to any row. The same goods can only be stored, when one row of that kind of goods has previously been completed.

Now to the end of the game: The game ends when all tiles and cards for a region have been used or there is no more Corn (the game starts with 12-25 Corn, in relation to player numbers) or if extension tiles cannot be replenished. You score four victory points for houses and glass, three for Cloth and Silver, two for Boats, Wool and Ore and one point for Wood, Stone and Cacao. Everything else is worthless.

My conclusion: In addition to the sumptuous components I must mention the exemplary rulebook. The design of the region tiles is self-explanatory and allows quick access to the game despite many turn options. The game thrives on the dilemma of a worker placement game, albeit somewhat mitigated by the chance element in drawing tiles. The deck building element can be controlled by the storage facility, but it is necessary to find the optimum balance. Somehow, the game reminds me of „Orléans“, and as I loved that game you need not ask what my opinion is on “Altiplano”. Based on the targeted age group of 12, the game needs to be ranked with the expert group, but I believe that families with gaming experience can play it, too. For me, the game is one of the highlights from 2017 and gets an absolute recommendation for “must buy” from me.

Rudolf Ammer

Players: 2-5

Age: 12+

Time: 120+

Designer: Reiner Stockhausen

Artist: Klemens Franz, Andrea Kattnig

Price: ca. 55 Euro

Publisher: dlp Games 2017

Web: www.dlp-games.de

Genre: Worker placement, bag building

Users: With friends

Version: multi

Rules: de en + es fr it hu nl ru

In-game text: no

Comments:

Sumptuous, high-quality components

Exemplary rule book

Very good mix of mechanisms

Compares to:

Orléans

Other editions:

Arrakis Games (es) Giochix (it), Gaga Games (ru), Pixie Games (fr), Reflexshop (hu), White Gobling Games (nl)

My rating: 6

Rudolf Ammer:

Due to the bag building mechanism the game reminds me of Orléans by the same designer but has additional components to make it independent and stand-alone. Worker placement, bag building and the Rondel mechanism have been combined into an excellent mix.

Chance (pink): 1

Tactic (turquoise): 1

Strategy (blue): 1

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 1

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0