Our Review

Caravans and patriarchs

Kashgar

Traders on the silk road

Kashgar Händler der Seidenstraße is a game in which you are a spice merchant trading with your caravans.

For this purpose you use your caravans to hire additional people, increase your own stock of goods and provide a sufficient amount of mules to make sure that transport is guaranteed.

As regards to game mechanics Kashgar is a card game, but due to the many goods that each player has to administrate and also due to the necessary goods markers for this the card game has become a really felicitous board game.

The cover of the square standard Kosmos box shows a caravan of mules moving along a mountain ridge, the mules obviously carry heavy loads.

When we open the box we find those components: 165 cards, comprising 125 character cards and 40 request cards, 4 player boards, 4 markers for mules, 4 markers for gold and 20 markers for spices, four each in five colors, and, of course, the rule book.

The 125 character cards are made up from 13 patriarchs, 12 start cards, 12 special cards, 12 supplement cards and 76 standard cards.

On the player boards you find seven columns for five types of spices – Cinnamon, Cloves, Ginger, Pepper and Star-Anise, one column for gold and one for the number of mules that a player owns.

Each player receives a player board, a mule marker, a gold marker and one marker each for the five types of spices. Each on those markers is placed onto value 3 in its corresponding column at the start of the game.

Furthermore, you receive three patriarch cards, which you lay out separately, patriarch side up, in three well-defined areas. The backside of a patriarch card always shows a matriarch character.

Then the 12 start cards are shuffled; each player draws three of them and puts one of them behind each of his patriarch cards, staggered, thus forming three caravans.

All start cards show a number for rank, the player who drew the starting card with the lowest rank number is the designated starting player.

All request cards are shuffled, four of them are laid out open-faced, and the rest is stacked for a draw pile.

The supplement cards are not used in the standard version of the game and are set aside; these cards are only used in a variant “Hit and Stab”, which will not be included in this review.

All 76 standard cards and 12 special cards are shuffled separately and stacked as separate draw piles.

All start cards, standard cards and special cards show characters who enable various actions.

Now we have completed the set-up of the game and game-play can begin.

In your turn you can either pass your turn or use an action enabled by the top card in one of your three caravans. Cards can show two different types of action: A Caravan action or a Farewell action.

In case of a Farewell action the text on the card is printed on a pink background.

There are cards that show only a Caravan action and there are cards that offer both types of actions; in this case you decide which option you want to use.

Special cards show the same types of actions as standard cards, but there are some special cards which only enable a Farewell action. Standard cards offer Farewell actions only as a second option besides a Caravan action.

When you choose to implement a Caravan action you do this as stated on the card and when the action has been completed the card is relocated to the end of your caravan.

In case of a Farewell action you implement the action as stated on the card and then you remove the card from the game, it will not be used anymore and is best deposited in the box.

Actions offered on the cards are manifold and varied and mostly increase the number of goods, that is, spices and gold, owned by a player and also to increase the number of a player’s mules; some character cards enable you draw additional cards in your hand.

Newly acquired cards are placed at the end of the caravan from where you took the card action to acquire the card. You first place the card that you used for the action and then behind it as last card(s) the newly acquired card(s).

But there are also character card that cause a different placement of cards in the caravan, this is always mentioned on the respective cards.

So, obviously, the deciding factor in the game is when you use the top card in which of your caravans, especially for completing Request cards by reducing your amount of the respective goods and using the necessary number of mules.

Character cards can also yield victory points directly, but there are also character cards that carry a negative victory point; those cards are often chosen all the same by players, as they usually enable you to meet a request card and completed requests earn you additional victory points.

There are three types of requests; Small Requests earning you 2 or 3 victory points, Large requests for a yield of 4 to 6 victory points and Special Requests.

Special requests are „Grain Field“, „Instant Pepper Proceeds“ and „Instant Gold Proceeds”. Special Requests earn you 1 to 3 victory points. In case of completing “Instant Pepper Proceeds” you increase your stock of Pepper by 6, and in analogy you advance your marker in the gold column by six steps when you complete a Special Request “Instant Gold Proceeds”.

Special Requests “Grain Field” initially do not give you any additional proceeds besides the victory points when you complete them. But for each completed Special Request “Grain Field” each character card “Farmer” that a player has acquired raises in value by one victory point. This can earn a player quite a lot of victory points. For example: You own three character cards “Farmer” and have completed four Special Requests “Grain Field” – this results in 12 victory points. Point of information: Character cards “Farmer” do not yield victory points without a “Grain Field”.

Should any player at the end of his turn, own 25 or more victory points, the current round is completed and then all players add up their victory points and the player with the highest total wins the game. An interesting detail is the rule that, in case of a tie, the game is won by the player who achieved his victory point total the latest.

The game variant „Hauen und Stechen / Hit and Stab“ raises the interaction element in the game and with the additional character cards you can now target fellow players and interfere with their plans.

Kashgar is a fantastic deck building game with quite a lot of tactical but also strategic options. Interaction in the standard version of the game is restricted to the snatching away of Requests by other players just before you want to do them; otherwise there is next to no interaction; only with version “Hit and Stab” interaction increases considerably.

Of course you need a lot of luck when drawing new cards for your caravan, as you have to acquire new character cards blindly. But due to the fact that you always have a choice of the top card in each of your three caravans you can plan very purposefully; even long-term strategies for the expansion of your caravan can be implemented very nicely.

A very important element is the right balance between your action cards and a sufficiently high stock of spices, gold and mules to achieve a certain freedom for your actions.

Visuals of the game, especially the graphical design of the cards is magnificent and provide a very nice flair for the game.

Game designer Gerhard Hecht and Kosmos Verlag have managed to combine a well-known standard mechanism with an interesting topic into an excellent game.

Especially the interplay between characters and the options for actions provided by them provide a varied and new game again and again for each player, despite the fact that the standard version of the game is more or less a solitaire game for more than one player, as interaction is de facto restricted to the completion of requests. Therefore in the evaluation Interaction is marked with “1” only due to the variant of “Hauen und Stechen / Hit and Stab”.

The mechanisms in Kashgar are grasped very quickly, but you need a number of games until you manage to optimize the interplay of various character cards and actions and thus use them even more purposefully.

Due to the perpetually varied game play and the manifold options to combine the character cards Kashgar is always and again fun to play and interesting and thus provides a really good replay value.

At the start of the game the element of chance is rather high as you acquire additional character cards by drawing from the face-down pile. In the later stages of the game you can acquire cards more purposefully and thus find an optimum balance between your character cards and your options for actions.

The rather high number of different character cards and actions offers a multitude of tactical and strategic options, therefore my first recommendation of the game is for experienced players, aka frequent players. That group of uses should like the game very much.

Casual players, families or not so experienced players can access or learn the game, as the basic rules are simple, but due to the complex interplay and interaction the real stimulus of the game will probably be missed by this group of players, as you should achieve suitable card combinations for productive strategies, which might be too difficult for players not that experienced. Players with little game experience therefore should only aim to play the game when they are willing to submit to a somewhat longish learning procedure to develop and achieve suitable strategies for the game. If you are willing to do this you will be rewarded with a game that will provide very good fun for a very long time.

Maria Schranz

Players: 2-4

Age: 12+

Time: 60+

Designer: Gerhard Hecht

Artist: Dennis Lohausen

Price: ca. 30 Euro

Publisher: Kosmos 2013

Web: www.kosmos.de

Genre: Deck building

Users: With friends

Version: de

Rules: de

In-game text: yes

Comments:

Simple Rules

Lots of variation due to the many character cards and options for actions

Good design

Multi-player solitaire game in its standard version

Compares to:

Trains, Dominion

Other editions:

Currently none

My rating: 6

Maria Schranz:

An excellent deck building game with lots of tactical and strategic options which can be unrestrictedly recommended to experienced players and which I categorize as a game „With friends“ due to its simple rules.

Chance (pink): 2

Tactic (turquoise): 3

Strategy (blue): 2

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 1

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0