OUR REVIEW

SMALL MINES, LARGE MINES, SINGLE MINES

KOHLE & KOLONIE

COAL MINING AND SURFACE MINING MANAGEMENT

In 2012 Spielworxx published a game called Ruhrschifffahrt by Thomas Spitzer. Even at that point in time the game was published as being Part I of a trilogy. Published in 2013, Kohle & Kolonie represents Part II of the trilogy. While in Ruhrschifffahrt the transporting of coals on the Ruhr was the predominant topic of the game, it is now the management of mines including the whole shebang. Albeit you transport coal in Kohle & Kolonie too, using tracks, but transport only plays a minor role in this game. We again find ourselves in the region of today’s cities of Essen, Hattingen, Bochum and Witten, this time in the Era of Industrial Revolution. As the topic of coal mining hereabouts is hardly an alluring topic for a game, it could keep some people from giving the game a try, but if you set the topic aside you find a challenging, entertaining and varied game.

The key mechanism at the heart of Kohle & Kolonie is the operating of mines. As a player you are asked to acquire mining grounds, operate mines and to optimize the processing of the mind coal above ground up to the point of transport/collection.

As in Ruhrschifffahrt the game board represents the region around the games already mentioned, this time partitioned into mining grounds. Those mining grounds are the central elements of the game, because mines are located in those mining grounds, either a Single Mine or a large coal mine with associated Small Mines per mining ground. On the border lines of the coal mines you find settlements of the rural population, who can be hired as local workforce. Individual settlements are connected by four railway lines, on which, besides the settlements, you find also railways stations. Those station cases are, at the start of the game, equipped with a face-down railway marker, which is taken by the player who is first to reach this station case with a miner. Depending on the railway marker you instantly receive money or victory points or can use the railway marker later, once only.

All types of mines are available also in the form of mine cards. As soon as a player acquires a mine he receives the corresponding mine card. For depositing those mine cards each player has his own board on which you can deposit a maximum of six mines in a given order. On this board you also have a depot area for three mining engineers and five settlements in your own color. Your player board also gives you an overview of five options for actions in your turn. In addition to the board each player has five additional cards, called Pithead cards - four of them are double-sided - which he can use to acquire advantages which are resolved in a special phase. Finally, each player has 20 miners, that is, wooden cubes in his own color, which he uses in his actions to do different jobs.

The local workers from the settlements on the board are present as cubes, just like the miners, but are grey. Players can collect those workers and spend them. In the set-up phase of the game each player receives one or two local workers.

Many actions in the game demand payment, so you start the game with coins for a total starting value of 4.

Kohle & Kolonie is played over five rounds. There can be up to 10 phases in a round, all phases are listed on the game board and are marked with a turn phase marker. All five rounds are marked with a disaster marker which is revealed and resolved in a separate phase. At the start of the game all disaster markers are placed face down on their cases on the board.

In those five rounds each player can implement two regular actions, plus one possible bonus action by using your bonus marker and a possible extra action.  A round starts with choosing a bonus marker. Seven bonus markers are available and are set out in a row open-faced, only at the start of the game in a given sequence. A bonus marker that was used is placed back immediately into the sequence at the end of the row, thereby changing the order in each round.

The player in last place in the turn order of the previous round chooses the bonus marker first. This choice of a bonus marker also determines the player order for the rest of the round, according to the position of the chosen bonus marker in the sequence. Four bonus marker enable a player to implement the action noted on it within the action phases, the remaining three bonus markers are used in other phases. Those actions are identical with the regular action, but have the same price during all of the game.

After selection of the bonus markers two action phases are played. Players do their action in turn order; each player implements his first action in turn, then all players in turn implement their second action. Options for actions are Buying of a Mine, Place or Relocate Workers, Deploy a Mining Engineer or Buy a Steam Engine. All action phases are independent from each other, that is, you can choose freely from all options in each phase.

Buying of a Mine is always connected to cost, either one or two money units. In each round exactly specified mines are entering the game. In Round One all Mine Cards marked with "1" are laid out next to the board and are now available for acquisition. In each of the following rounds the mining cards that were not bought are complemented with the new mining cards for the new round. Available for acquisition are only Small and Single Mines. The difference between a Small and a Single Mine is that Single Mines yield victory points instantly when bought and remain in play till the end of the game, while Small Mines are by and by consolidated from Round 3 on into Large Mines and disappear accordingly. So on Small Mine cards you find the round for consolidation of the mine.

The introduction of a Large Mine into the game depends on the corresponding round, the card for the Large Mine is marked accordingly with the number of the round of entry. Large Mine cards are not displayed at the start of the round, but can only be acquired in an extra auction phase. Similar to Single Mines Large Mines also yield victory points immediately when acquired.

As this is important for the course of the game, let me mention that all mine cards are numbered in consecutive order.

All information on the Mine cards is also available from the game board, so you can inform yourself nicely when which Small or Single mines are coming into play and when which Small Mine is consolidated into a Large Mine.

When you have paid all costs for a mine, you take the Mine card and places it onto your own player board. Filling of the free spots for mines must be done in the given order.

Besides paying the price for a mine you must also hire a local worker for a mine; such a worker must be located in a settlement at the edge of the mining ground for the respective mine. You take one of the available local workers from an adjacent settlement and put him into your own stock. The ownership of the mine is marked with a miner in your color on the main board.

Many mines also offer an additional bonus which is stated on the game board as well as on the mining card. This bonus either can be one or two lorries and/or a worker symbol. Lorries can be used in each round to acquire either victory points or money. The worker symbol, on the other hand, enables a player to transfer an additional local worker into his personal stock from an adjacent settlement after acquiring a mine and, in addition, place one of his own miners on his personal board or the Pithead cards.

The local workers can be used by a player to turn over his Pithead card to the better side, in order to do score the lorries or simple for swapping them for money.

When a player chooses the action of Building a Settlement he must pay the corresponding cost, at the start of the game the price is 2 units of money. You can build one of your own settlements on a settlement case on the main board, but this case there must be no worker left in this settlement case. The settlement cases on the board have room for one or two settlement of players, whereby no player is allowed to set up a settlement twice in the same settlement spot. Simultaneously with the building of a settlement a player can place up to two of his own miners in the settlement just built. Those workers can be used in two ways: Either as travelers on the railroad, given that the settlement is located next to a railway line, or during the acquisition of a mine. As you must take a local worker from an adjacent settlement when you acquire a mine it can happen that there is no local worker available. In this case a player can only acquire a mine in this mining ground if you have one of your own workers available in an adjacent settlement. He then takes one of those miners instead of a grey local worker and moves him to the newly acquired mine on the board.  Each player has a stock of five settlements. Beginning with the building of the fourth settlement such building yields additional victory points; the construction of the third settlement yields also an extra action marker.

The action Mining Engineer costs one unit of money at the start of the game. Engineers are placed on the Pithead cards on a corresponding engineer symbol and, when placed there, yield money or victory points in each round. Those mining engineers are very limited, each player only holds three of them. However, placement of the third mining engineer earns a player an extra action marker.

With the acquisition of a Steam Engine a player can raise the output of a mine. Steam engines are bought and placed immediately on one of your own mine cards, albeit only one steam engine being allowed on each mine. As an alternative there is one position for a steam engine available on a Pithead card. Steam engine have an additional use in the game-end scoring, in relation to their overall number.

When a player decides on the last available option, placing or relocating miners, he can introduce two miners from his stock into the game and relocate two of his miners already in play. This action is free of cost. To introduce a miner means that you either place a miner from your stock on your personal board on on one of your Pithead cards, or that you can add a miner to one of your settlements on the main game board; this is limited to two miners per settlement.  For this placement you can use all depot cases marked with a miner symbol on your personal board and on the Pithead cards. Miners on Pithead cards activate advantages for a player and usually earn this player additional money victory points in an extra phase; miners on a personal board can be placed on a Mine card and protect this card from an eventual disaster.

After placing additional miners you can relocate two miners. When you relocate miners they can be transferred from the main board onto Pithead cards or you’re your personal board, and vice versa, or miners can be moved forward along the railway tracks: When a miner is situated in a settlement that borders a railway track, he can be moved to the next railway station case, or, should he already be on a station case, moved along the track. The movement to the next station case is considered to be one relocation action. With the assistance of the Pithead card Workforce a player can enhance this action. When this Pithead card is turned to the enhanced side, you can relocate four miners per action and, in addition, one engineer.

The two action phases are followed by the Extra Action Phase. Each player who holds such an extra action marker, may discard one such marker and play a third action. In the course of a game a player can acquire a maximum of three extra action markers. If he does not spend them during the game they are worth four victory points each at the end of the game.

During those up to three action rounds players can implement additional activities in their turn. Among those activity is making use of the bonus marker, turning over of Pithead cards and swapping local workers for money.

In his turn a player can turn over his Pithead cards at any point by paying the costs stated on the respective card. This automatically ears him the victory points stated on the card, and also an extra action marker for one of the cards, and he can then immediately use the enhanced side of the Pithead card.

Miners and engineers that were located on the Pithead card before it was turned over can now be relocated on the enhanced side of the card. The turning over of certain Pithead cards yields an additional important effect: As soon as a player turns over the Pithead card Cokery, the price for the action Place Mining Engineer raises to two units of money to the end of the game. In the same way, the cost for the actions Build Settlement and Buy Steam Engine raise by one money unit for all players when the respective Pithead card is turned over for the first time.

The turning over of Pithead cards is paid with money and/or local workers. If you have not enough money or not enough local workers, you can swap in any way within your turn: Two money units for three local workers or two local workers for one money unit. The swapping of money for local workers, albeit, is only possible when there are local workers in general stock. In a game for four or more players all local workers are placed on the board from the start of the game and none in stock.

After the action phases a mining disaster can happen. The disaster marker of the current round is turned over and resolved, if necessary. A mining disaster can hit any mine that a player has placed on his personal board. Luckily, you can protect your mines from disaster. Depending on the position of the mining card on your board you can protect a mine either with a miner that you have placed there with the action place miner/relocate miner or you can pay one money which you have to discard to the bank after each individual disaster. Before the disaster marker is turned over players can discard money for protection purposes. Players decide in turn how many of those mines that can be protected by money they want to product. At this point the bonus marker Mine Rescue Team comes into play, which protects a maximum of two mines from disaster. If a player with unprotected mines is hit by disaster is decided by random drawing from a bag. For each mine that a player cannot or does not want to protect he must place a mine disaster disc of his color into the bag, up to a maximum of three discs per player. Then three mine disaster discs are drawn from the bag. Players whose color is drawn lose two or three victory points and must, for each of their disaster discs that was drawn, place one miner onto the depot case for disaster discs, from where you can remove them by the action of Place Miner/Relocate miner.

In addition to the mine disaster discs of players there are four additional mine disaster discs in the bag. One of them is a blank that only spells disaster/loss for all players in combination with one specific disaster marker. The other three black mine disaster discs belong to the Coal Syndicate. The coal syndicate is a quasi-virtual player who comes into play when mines are bought and when mines are consolidated. When a mine disaster disc of the coal syndicate is drawn, the syndicate is weakened as regards to mine consolidation.

Now the disaster marker of the round is resolved, provided that at least one mine disaster disc of a player was drawn; if not, the disaster marker goes out of the game without being resolved.

In the consecutive sixth phase the coal syndicate becomes active. Depending on the open-faced disaster markers on display between one and three mines are removed from the display. For this you always remove those mines that show the lowest number. On the main board you place a steam engine on those mines to indicate that they now belong to the coal syndicate.

The seventh phase Income can be resolved simultaneously by all players. In this phase each player receives money according to the markings on his mine cards and steam engines on those cards.

Phase Eight brings the evaluation of mining grounds. Each player now receives victory points, for this each mining ground is scored individually. Each player, who owns one or several mines in a mining ground is awarded as many victory points as there mines owned in this mining ground, either by all players or by the coal syndicate, that is, one victory point for each and any miner and each steam engine on the mines in this mining grounds. On top of it, each player scores one victory points for each of his own settlements at the border of this mining ground.

The next phase is the consolidation phase, which is only played in rounds three to five, there is no mine consolidation in rounds one and two. This consolidation results in the combining of the Small Mines belonging to a Large Mine are consolidated into that Large Mine, which means that the respective Small Mines go out of play. The Large Mines of a round are randomly scored one after the other. You cannot buy a Large Mine, a Large Mine must be acquired by winning an auction. All players that own a Small Mine of a Large Mine are entitled to participate in the auctions. Bids are placed in turn until all players but one have passed, you bid with money. When the Coal Syndicate is involved in the auction, it always bits a given sum of money and cannot raise this bid.

The winner of the auction receives the card for the Large Mine and all steam engines of the coal syndicate on the corresponding Small Mines and on corresponding Small Mines of all players. Only the winner of the auction pays his bid to the bank and receives the victory points for the Large Mine. The mine cards for Small Mines go out of the game, each player - with the exception of the winner of the auction now receives two victory points for each Small Mine that he had to discard.

You always score all Large Mines of a round. When one player is the sole owner of all Small Mines related to a Large Mine, he gets this Large Mine without an auction. When no player owns any of the Small Mines the coal syndicate gets the Large Mine.

Finally, you play the tenth phase of the round, in which Pithead cards are scored. Depending on where a player has placed miners, mining engineers or steam engines on his Pithead cards, he receives now money and/or victory points. The Pithead card Loading offers a special effect, you can transform lorries depicted on your own mining cards into victory points. While this card has not been turned over to its enhanced side you must discard one local worker from your stock in order to score this Pithead card.

At the end of Phase Ten all players must return their bonus markers, if they did not use them so far. The turn phase marker goes back to Phase One and a new round begins.

When the fifth round has been completed, it is followed by a final scoring in which you can collect bonus victory points. Each player receives victory points according to steam engines that he owns, from three victory points for one engine up to 23 victory points for six steam engines. For two coins each you score one victory point and each miner that is located on a railway station case yields one victory point. Extra action marker now yield four victory points. Finally, each player receives bonus points, provided he should have managed to to place miners on each station case on a railway line, between four and twelve victory points depending on the length of the railway track.

Kohle & Kolonie is a demanding, exacting game that in the first reading of the rules appears to be very complex and peppered with rules for details. The turn sequence is very nicely presented on the board and easily comprehensible. Unfortunately I have to mention here that there are gaps in the rules. I had to find out via internet forums that bonus markers cannot be carried over to the next round or that some sequences have to be played in turn order or that miners on the disaster depot cases can be taken back into play. In this last point there is, however, a difference in opinions of game designer and publisher's editor.  

Despite black coal being in the focus of the game in Kohle & Kolonie as regards to topic, the real focus of the game is the colloquial meaning of coal, that is, money.

Money is a scarce commodity in this came and it is definitely a deciding factor to open up as many sources of money as possible, be it mines or Pithead cards. But you must not use Pithead cards solely for acquisition of money, but should also keep in focus the cases for victory points on them. Because Kohle & Kolonie is a game in which you collect the majority of victory points during the course of the game and only a small amount of them in the game-end scoring. There are two phases played in each round, one of them being solely for the purpose of scoring victory points, the other one partially. And you must not forget, that especially Pithead cards need miners and engineers to be effective. It is therefore equally important to introduce many miners into the game, be it by your own action or by acquisition of mines. Only if you manage to achieve an optimum harmony for those three facets of the game will you win the game!

At long last the correct timing is of great importance, in choosing the mines on acquisition as well as the placement of miners on the Pithead cards or in turning those Pithead cards. This turning scores many victory points and additional income in consecutive rounds, but also brings the disadvantage of higher costs for certain actions.

Kohle & Kolonie therefore must be called a game with many interlocking mechanisms. The plethora of options for the acquisition of money and victory points provides the allure of the game.

The mechanism of settlement building needs a bit of getting used to. As you can only set up one of your settlements on a case on the board when all local workers have been removed from a settlement case there, it happens repeatedly that one player removes the last local worker from a settlement on the board and thereby enables the next player to build one of his settlements there. So you create an advantage for the next player.

The mechanism of the railway tracks comes across somewhat overburdened. Even if those tracks have a historical background the topic seems out of place and the corresponding rules seem forced. It might have served the game better to leave out that complexity.

An interesting mechanism is the resolving of the disaster markers which are discarded unresolved if now player disaster disc is drawn. When players take care to safeguard their mines sufficiently it can happen that no disaster marker is resolved in the whole game.

The game also works well for three players, whereby you use only part of the main game board for such a game.

And yet, all in all, Kohle & Kolonie is a well-made game with few elements of chance and many options for planning. The different components like money, miners, settlements, engineers and additional options for actions are a challenge to balance them to acquire victory points from the outset and a challenge that you can and must face in this game.

Bernhard Czermak

Players: 3-5

Age: 12+

Time: 180+

Designer: Thomas Spitzer

Artist: Harald Lieske

Price: ca. 55 Euro

Publisher: Spielworxx 2013

Web: www.spielworxx.de

Genre: Economy, development

Users: For experts

Version: multi

Rules: de en

In-game text: no

Comments:

Copious components

Gaps in the rules

Strategy game with a minimum of chance

Time and resources management necessary

Compares to:

Vinhos

Other editions:

Currently none

My rating: 6

Bernhard Czermak:

A game that forces you from the start on to direct your actions towards acquiring victory points, while not forgetting to accumulate the necessary resources for this, and all of it within a manageable number of action phases in only five rounds!

Chance (pink): 1

Tactic (turquoise): 2

Strategy (blue): 3

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 3

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0