OUR REVIEW

SETTLERS IN AMERICA

HOMESTEADERS

Settlers do not always settle in Catan

The title of the game, „homesteaders“ has a background in history, 1862 a law was passed in the United States which allowed settlers to claim un-owned land of a total area von 64 ha and to cultivate it within five years. After that period this stretch of land became the lawful property of the farmer. For a payment of 200 $ this period of five years could be shortened to six months. This law was abolished in 1976 and in Alaska it was operative until 1986. This law was intended to propagate colonization which started in 1608, pushed the "frontier", the outer border of settled land, continuously further out West and thus inevitably caused opposition and resistance from the indigenous population, which had a different legal conception of property laws. The consequences were several wars with Native Indian Americans, in which French, British and Dutch forces made themselves hideous with a few massacres and which continued until the end of the 19^th century.

But now from the historical background to todays' game:

„Homesteaders“ is a heavy game, at least weight-wise. Nearly 2 kilos tautly packed in the box, a content that made me break out in applause, especially in comparison to those boxes of Kosmos box format, which are often filled only with yawning emptiness. In Homesteaders they did not stop half-ways. A big thank you to the Quined Company and to designer Alexander Rockwell. I am not aware of any other game of his, so I suppose this is a first design. Quined is renowned for publishing their games in a box adapted to look like a book which looks great on the shelves. The cover of "Homesteaders" features the arrival of a settler's wagon in a settlement, loaded with with household items. In the background the landscape silhouette is emulating Monument Valley. And now from this felicitous introduction to the topic to the content of the box:

The box holds more than 10 sheets of stable and thick cardboard cut-outs, which provide screens, building tiles, auction tiles, debt and trade markers, coins of money and victory point tokens. Those victory point tokens had to be added as there was no room for a Kramer track on the board, due to the need to keep things clearly arranged. Furthermore, there are two dice each in player colors, yellow, red, green and blue, and a total of 100 wooden pieces representing resources.

Resources in the game are wood, copper, gold, food, steel and cattle. On top of this there are nicely design meeples wearing a cowboy hat und bootleggers for workers. The cattle, too, must be mentioned - it was not restricted to a simple wood figurine, no, the cows are white and show black spots (Montafoner breed? Unfortunately, I am no expert for dairy industry). You should see them! For those cows alone the designer should be applauded! He did everything for a flair illustrating the topic!

So, let's take out the parts from the cut-out sheets. In this case, this is taking quite some time and is done with a certain satisfaction and looking forward to the game. All those who cannot resist the temptation to burst the air bubbles in a bubble sleeve will know what I am taking about, but here the result is not a destroyed bubble sleeve but a heap of parts,, each one taking us one step further to our goal, the game itself, and its set-up:

Next to the board that I mentioned you set out resources, debt and trade markers as well as workers. Each player is given a screen, one worker, six coins, one starting building and two dice of his color. There are also two tiles that give an overview over prices and conditions for buying and selling resources and on how to acquire additional workers.

The board shows three columns for placement of auction tiles, as there are ten copies each of three tiles with different markings, the third stack is only used when four are playing. Those tiles are stacked on their respective areas and indicate next to which buildings you can build after a successful auction. Below those columns a railway track with five sections is depicted, more on that later. The auction tiles indicate with a color marking which buildings you can acquire if you are successful in an auction. Those tiles come of four different groups, which are placed in an open-faces display - Settlement, Settlement-Town, Town and City, whereby the latter ones, Town and City, come into play in a later stage of the game. The acquisition must be done immediately after winning an auction. The tiles show the price that must be paid in resources as well as the victory points that they will yield at the end of the game. Furthermore, those tiles earn you different amounts of income during the game, and, in some cases, additional bonuses. Those decisions on your choice are the moments when winning or losing the game is decided; have you made the right decision? Well, now from set-up to auction, in more detail:

Ten rounds are played. First, turn over the top auction tile from each stack, these are now available for auction. For the bidding a track is provided, on which you can advance from 3$ to 21$ in nine steps. If you are too cautious or too closefisted, you are ousted by an opponent from one level and can then either raise your bid or try your luck at one of the other two auction positions. Winning the auction in first place earns you the advantage of starting player for the next round. If there is no possibility to raise the bid any further or if you do not want to raise the bid, your only choice is to pass.

This brings the railway track into play that I have mentioned earlier. You advance with your action cube and receive, depending on its position, a trade marker, workers or resources. On the fifth and last level you might even "scrounge" three victory points. Using trade markers you can sell or buy resources at any time or use them to acquire additional workers. Two small boards serve as aides here and tell you the price for the respective transactions. This is necessary, too, to have the correct mix of prices for a building shown on a tile. If you have not enough funds at your disposal, you can remedy matters by acquiring debt markers for 2$ each. Remitting those debt markers is ruinously expensive, though, you pay 5$. Should you not have been able to remit those debt markers before the end of the game, they cost you victory points in the final scoring, in ascending amounts - the more markers the more victory points per marker.

After acquiring buildings you now assign workers to those buildings. This earns you extra bonuses, depending on the building. This allocation can be renewed in every round if you think that new buildings are more rewarding. The next stage is collecting income and paying your workers, each man earns 1$.

To mention and kinds of buildings and to describe their advantages would over-stretch his review; the tiles are self-explaining and also described in sufficient detail in the rules, which, by the way, are exemplary and even explicitly discuss possible questions in a FAQ section. Which reminds me to mention graphic designer Hans Janssen and praise him for his work!

The winner of the game is - what a surprise - the player with most victory points. Those victory points are collected during the game from acquired buildings and, at the end of the game, for gold, cattle and copper resources, 2 victory points for each item. The other resources do not yield victory points, so take care to swap them in time.

My conclusion: Homesteaders is a game with exemplary design and components. In the first edition there were 2 boards with a misprint, which were quickly and without any problems replaced by the publisher, which earns the company another word of praise. The only critical remark I can make is that the topic seems forced. Standard mechanisms like auction, deck building and worker placement have been mixed anew and combined for a well-working game devolution. But, despite the ambitious graphic design, the flair did not really get across. But that might be due to my familiarity with the historic "Homesteader Act" which had nothing whatsoever to do with urban development. All the same, I want to give a positive evaluation of the game. Its generous components are worth the money anytime and the playing time of 60 to 90 minutes leaves nothing to regret, supported by the fact that it received a nomination for best strategic game in the 2010 "Golden Geek".

Rudolf Ammer

Players: 2-4

Age: 12+

Time: 90+

Designer: Alex Rockwell

Artist: Hans Janssen

Price: ca. 25 Euro

Publisher: Quined Games 2012

Web: www.quined.nl

Genre: Auction, strategy

Users: With friends

Users: For experts

Special: 1 player

Special: 2 players

Special: Many players

Version: multi

Rules: de en fr nl

In-game text: no

Comments:

First edition 2009

Combination of auction and strategy

Copious rules exemplary components

Compares to:

Western Town and other games with constructing a town and utilizing buildings

Other editions:

Tasty Minstrel Games 2009

My rating: 5

Statements:

An attractive and beautiful game with cleverly combined elements of auction and strategy as well as exemplary components.

Chance (pink): 1

Tactic (turquoise): 1

Strategy (blue): 3

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 1

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0