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Election of the King on the King’s Path

THe Mines of Zavandor

Sapphires move candidates

(Die Minen von Zavandor)

The experts among you will well remember the game „The Scepter of Zavandor“ from Lookout games. This was an extremely good but also very complex game that many of my friends and acquaintances like to play again and again, and so do I.

There I war of course curious about the new Zavandor game from Lookout. What is the topic of the new game? The period of office for the reigning king of Dwarves, Grimmborn, is nearing its end. To find an eligible success the dwarves installed a selection process, the so called Path of the King. Two to four clans can suggest elibible candidates for the succession, these candidates must enter the path and so demonstrate that they are worthy to become the next king and Grimmborn’s successor.

The cover of the brown box shows a dwarf holding a torch who seems to be moving through a dark shaft. When we open the box we find the following components: a game board, 2 display boards for auctioning the expansions cards, 52 expansion cards, 112 gem cards, 4 boards for the players, 4 start dictum scrolls, 10 yellow and 20 grey victory point markers, 70 red upgrading cubes, 4 overview cards, 1 black king marker and 1 yellow starting player marker.

The two display boards and the game board are laid out, the king marker is put on the game board. Each player takes one of the player boards, a game overview card and one of the start dictum scrolls. In the game we have four different kinds of gem stones, rubies, diamonds, emeralds and sapphires. Symbols for those gems are depicted on the back of the upgrading cards, too. These upgrading cards are sorted according to their back sides.

In a game for four players all upgrading cards are shuffled and stacked open-faced on their squares on the display boards. In a game of three you play without ruby cards, in a game for two you play without ruby and diamond cards, so that only 2 or 3 stacks are placed.

The top upgrading card of each stack is placed face up on the auction square received for that variety of gems. Then the now current top cards of each upgrading stack are placed on the squares marked for the next round of the game, so for each variety of gems you always see the upgrading cards for the current round and the upgrading cards for next two rounds of the game.

The game is played in rounds.

The player boards show two different starting set-ups on the front and back sides of the boards. The front side of all player boards is identical and in this version all players start with the same income and the same prerequisites. If you decide to play with the back side set-up, all players would start with different prerequisites and different income.

The 112 gem cards are sorted by their backsides and shuffled separately. The backsides show different trolleys which transport the gems out of the shafts. There are trolleys made from wood, copper, iron or bronze. The wooden trolleys mostly transport sapphires, seldom emeralds and rarely diamonds. That means there are many sapphire cards, a few emerald cards and scarcely any diamond cards in the wooden trolley stack.

In the stack of copper trolleys are many emerald cards, few diamond cards and rarely ruby cards.

In the other two stacks there are diamond or ruby cards only, whereby in the stack of the iron trolleys there are more diamond cards and in the stack of the bronze trolleys there are more ruby cards.

As a starting capital the first and second player in the turn receive 6 gem cards from the wooden trolley stack, the other players get 7 cards from the same stack.

After the starting player has been determined the game starts. A round of the game comprises receiving income, maybe use dictum scroll, then trade with other players or the bank. After this the upgrading cards are auctioned and before the round ends players can do upgrades.

In the game with the front sides of the player boards in the first round all players receive 2 gem cards from the stack of the wooden trolleys Then all players, beginning with the starting player, can use their dictum scrolls. If you use this scroll you can either take 6 cards from the copper trolley stack or 5 cards from the iron trolley stack or 4 cards from the bronze trolley stack, bust must discard the scroll card. You can pass up on using the scroll and keep if or later use to create more income from it due to upgrades.

After the scrolls players can trade their gem cards; either 2:1 with the bank or with other players. These trades very rarely are made in another ration than a 1:1 exchange of cards. Trades 3:2 or 4:3 are very rare and of course nobody will ever trade with another player at a ratio of 2:1.

After the trading phase comes the auctioning of the upgrading cards, with the limitation that these cards can only be won by offering certain minimum bids. Players offer a blind bid of several gem cards, each card in the bid serves only as a bid for the same kind of gem. You can bid for several upgrading cards by bidding cards of several kinds of gems.

When the highest bid in a gem variety is less than 3 the player scores only 1 victory point. If the highest bid for a fem variety was 3 or higher than three the highest bidder can choose whether he takes the upgrading card or only 1 victory point. When the highest bid for rubies is 6 or higher, for diamonds 7 or higher and for sapphires 9 or higher the player can choose whether to take 5 victory points or four victory points plus the upgrading card.

Gems in a bid that are not part of the highest bid can only be used again in the next round, the highest bid for a gem variety must be discarded onto the stack of the respective trolley.

The player who wins the sapphire auction moves the king one step forward along the path and thus many costs for upgrades are determined. This player can nearly always choose between to varieties of gem stones, which must be paid for standard upgrades. This is a very powerful feature in the game. Upgrades are always either made for cards of player’s choice or for values on the player’s board and either result in higher income or more victory points.

When the king has reached the throne, the game ends. The winner is the player with the most victory points.

The Mines of Zavandor is a very nice strategy game. Trading and auction phases are equally important in the game. The blind bidding in the auction phase often results in players bidding higher than would have been necessary. This is often the case when those players that you want to outbid because you deem them to be potential opponents keep their gem cards for the next round to be sure to then get the upgrading card they want.

The version with different player boards creates an even more interesting flow of the game.

The tactical considerations for the auctions concern the number and variety of gem stones to bid and the number and variety to hold back for the upgrades.  In the last phase of a round tactical and strategic planning is very important, how many upgrades can I do? For this you must consider which upgrading cards are auctioned next and how can I use the upgrades I already have to generate enough income or which kinds of upgrading cards bring the most victory points in combination with which upgrades.

The art of the game is excellent, the illustrations and the layout are exemplary and are a perfect support for the players. Furthermore, the art provides the flair of the topic perfectly, too.

Lookout Games manages again and again to publish good, beautiful and challenging games, The Mines of Zavandor perfectly fit this program.

Finally, a little self-promotion for the Austrian Games Museum: The protoype of this game was presented at a Game Designers Workshop in the Austrian Games Museum. Already at that point the game was appreciated by all designers and publisher’s representatives. The artist Klemens Franz liked the game so much that he presented it to Lookout Games, with the author happily agreeing.

I must congratulate designer Alexander Pfister and artist Klemens Franz upon a very beautiful and good game. How nice that Alexander Pfister managed to find the most compatible publisher for the game.

Maria Schranz

Maria.Schranz@spielen.at

Spieler         : 2 - 4

Alter            : ages 10 and up

Dauer           : ca. 45 - 90 min

Autor           : Alexander Pfister

Grafik          : Klemens Franz

Titel            : Die Minen von Zavandor

Preis            : ca. 30,00 Euro

Verlag          : Lookout Games

                     www.lookout-games.de

Genre                    : Trade and auction game

Zielgruppe             : With friends

Mechanismen         : Use, trade and bid for cards

Kommentar:          

Good strategic game

Beautiful Art

Interesting auction mechanism

Vergleichbar:                  

Sechsstädtebund

Meine Bewertung: 5

Maria Schranz:

A very good game offering good fun, extremely well made for friends and family game play. For real experts the duration of the game will be a bit too short, but even they might like it.

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