Review: The Castles of Burgundy

Introduction & Overview

When you discover a new designer, usually because you have tried one of their great games, you tend to go through a phase of euphoria where you get the urge to find out about everything they have published to date. We check BGG, look up rankings, read and reread reviews, until we fall right back into board game consumerism. And this, my friends, is exactly what happened to me with the beloved Stefan Feld. When my collection was still in its infancy, the community hype skyrocketed after the presentation in Nuremberg of the now-famous Bora Bora. Shortly after, I decided that this game had to be mine. And so it was. After being delighted with the mechanics and gameplay feel, the “Feldian” fervor took over me. And that is how my collection welcomed what is, to this day, the highest-ranking game on the BGG overall list: The Castles of Burgundy. The Loire Valley during the 15th Century. As influential princes, players dedicate their efforts to careful building and trading to make their domains stand out.

This is how The Castles of Burgundy is presented to us. As we have already mentioned, it was designed by Stefan Feld, designer of other great games such as In the Year of the Dragon, Bora Bora, or Trajan. The illustrations are done by Julien Delval and Harald Lieske. The game was published by the Ravensburger – Alea tandem in 2011.

In Spain, the game has not been published in Spanish (hence why the title has remained in English), although it is completely language-independent and can easily be found in online stores with delivery to our country. The MSRP is €39.95 (although it can be found practically for half that price). The minimum recommended age is 12 years old. It allows for games of 2 to 4 players with an approximate duration of about 90 minutes per game.

Important: if you already know the game and/or are only interested in my opinion about it, you can go directly to the Opinion section. The Content and Mechanics sections are especially intended for those who do not know the game and prefer to get a general idea of how it works.

Go to Personal Opinion

Components

Inside a standard Alea-sized box measuring 31 x 21.9 x 6.7 cm, we find the following components:

• 164 Hexagonal tiles (cardboard)
  • 7 x 8 Buildings (beige, 16 with black backs)
  • 7 x 4 Animals (light green, 8 with black backs)
  • 26 Knowledge (yellow, 6 with black backs)
  • 16 Castles (dark green, 2 with black backs)
  • 12 Mines (grey, 2 with black backs)
  • 26 Ships (blue, 6 with black backs)
• 42 Goods tiles (7 of each of the 6 colors) (cardboard)
• 20 Octagonal silver pieces (cardboard)
• 30 Square worker tiles (cardboard)
• 12 Bonus tiles (cardboard)
  • 6 Large bonus tiles for each of the construction types
  • 6 Small bonus tiles for each of the construction types
• Rulebook

How to Play

The Castles of Burgundy is a strategy game set in 15th-century Burgundy, where each player takes on the role of an influential duke with the goal of leading their duchy to prosperity through trade, livestock farming, construction, and scientific research. The game is played over five phases, each divided into five rounds. At the start of each round, all players simultaneously roll their two dice, and the starting player adds the white die to determine in which depot a new goods tile will be placed. Subsequently, players alternate turns following the order on the turn order track. On their turn, the active player uses their dice results to perform two main actions, choosing between taking a tile from a depot on the main board that matches their die, placing a tile from their reserve onto a space of the same value and color in their duchy (immediately activating its specific benefits, such as obtaining resources, victory points, or additional actions), selling all goods of a specific type determined by the die to earn silver and points, or receiving two worker tokens. Workers can be spent at any time to adjust the value of the dice by plus or minus one. Additionally, once per turn, silver coins can be paid to buy tiles from the central black depot. Completing entire regions of the same color yields additional points based on the size of the area and the current phase, as well as valuable bonus tiles for the first players to achieve it. After all five phases are completed, a final scoring takes place where additional points are added for unsold goods, leftover silver, accumulated workers, and the effects of—

Key Concepts

Let’s first talk about the board, which is essential to later understand the game mechanics:

• Along the border, we find the typical player score track.
• In the bottom-right and top-right corners, we find two areas to place the different bonus tiles (both large and small).
• In the top-left corner, we find the goods depot, which will also serve to indicate the current phase (the first empty space available).
• Just below that towards the left margin, we find slots to place the five goods for the round.
• Below this area, we find the starting player track.
• Finally, in the central area, we have six boxes indicated by a die and its value (where we will place goods), along with 4 small, numbered colored hexagons. We will also have a central area with 8 black hexagons, also numbered, which form the Black Market. The numbers on the hexagons indicate whether they should be filled based on the player count (2, 3, or 4).

Now, the most important concept is the use of dice to carry out actions. In this game, the value of the dice, in isolation, is not important. That is, a 6 is not better than a 1, and a 5 is not better than a 2. No. The value of the dice will be better or worse depending on our needs. And it will be our strategy that gives weight to the value of those dice.

Independently of the board, we have several external elements. The first of these are the silver tokens. These will be used exclusively to buy black hexagonal tiles from the central area.

We also have worker tokens, which allow us to modify the value of the dice by adding or subtracting one from the die value as it suits us. We can spend any number of tiles. And when adding one to a 6, we wrap around to 1, and when subtracting one from a 1, we wrap around to 6 (here is the clearest proof that values are not inherently important).

Let’s talk about goods. There are six types (matching the six possible values of a die) that we can sell (by using another action). These will grant us victory points and silver pieces. These goods will enter the central depots one by one, placed randomly (according to a die roll), waiting to be taken by a player.

Now it’s time for each player’s personal board. Let’s analyze the different parts:

• In the central part and at a large scale, we find our estate, made up of hexagonal spaces that form a large hexagon (one side is 4 hexagons long). These hexagons will have a specific color indicating what type of tile we can place on them, and the value required to build there. It is worth noting that these hexagons are usually grouped by color, forming regions. This concept is important because by completing regions we will obtain victory points (completing a region means building on all hexagons of the same color that are adjacent to each other).
• At the top left, we will have our silver piece supply, as well as our goods storage. This storage is a 2×2 grid, with the top-right box shaded. In this shaded box, we will place the goods we sell, while in the other three, we will place the goods we have not yet sold. Goods of the same type (same value) are stacked, so we can only hold three different types of goods.
• In the middle-left area, we find a player aid showing what the different tiles do when built.
• At the bottom left, we find our worker supply (where we will place the worker tiles we have).
• To the right of the previous element, we find the storage for key construction tiles, where we will place them when we acquire them from the board, and they will stay there until we build them. Crucial detail: you can only hold 3 tiles here. If we were to take a new one, we would have to discard some of the ones currently here.
• At the top right, we find a space designated to place our dice when we perform actions with them.
• Finally, at the bottom right, we find a quick reference guide of the possible actions that can be carried out each turn.

Finally, let’s talk about the hexagonal tiles. There are 6 types, and when placing them in our estate, their effect is usually triggered:

• Ship (Blue): when placing it in our estate, we will advance one position on the turn order track and take all goods tiles located in one of the 6 depots (the space we choose does not depend on the die used to place the ship tile, we can take from whichever one we want).
• Castle (Dark Green): allows you to take an additional action with whatever die value suits you best.
• Mine (Grey): does not offer an immediate effect, but at the end of the phase, it will grant us one silver piece for each mine we have.
• Animal (Light Green): we will score as many points as there are animals of that tile’s type in the region (pasture, in this case) where we place the tile. There are 4 types of animals: chickens, cows, pigs, and sheep. This means that every time we place an animal tile, we will score all animals of that type currently in that pasture.
• Knowledge (Yellow): they don’t usually have an immediate effect, but rather grant some benefit regarding the game mechanics. There are 26 different knowledge tiles.
• Building (Beige): when placing a building tile, its effect is applied. It is important to note that within each region (city, in this case), there cannot be duplicate buildings. There are 8 different types.

That is enough to get started.

Preparación de la Partida

Let’s move on to setup:

1. The board is deployed in the center of the table.
2. The 5 phase spaces are filled with 5 random goods tiles, face down.
3. The hexagonal spaces are filled with tiles based on the player count.
4. Each player takes an Estate board, a Castle tile which they will place on the dark green space with a value of 6 on their Estate, the two dice, the two tokens for the score and turn order tracks, the 100/200 point tile, as well as one silver piece and three goods tiles.
5. The starting player is determined (via a die roll). This player receives one worker tile and, moving clockwise, each player will take an additional worker tile (the second player gets 2, the third gets 3, and the fourth gets 4).
6. We will place the tokens on the two tracks according to the established order in a stack, with the starting player on top and the last player at the bottom.

We are ready to begin!

Game Flow

The game is played over 5 phases of 5 rounds each.

At the beginning of a phase, the five goods tiles are taken and placed on the goods track. Additionally, all remaining hexagonal tiles are removed from play, and the board is replenished with new tiles.

At the beginning of each round, all players roll their dice simultaneously and place them in view of all players. The starting player will have also rolled the white die. The first available goods tile on the goods track is taken and placed in the depot corresponding to the value shown by the white die.

Following the order indicated on the turn order track, each player will use their two dice to perform two actions. There are 4 possibilities:

• Take a tile from the central board: we take the tile that suits us best from the area corresponding to the value of the die we used and place it in our hexagonal tile storage.
• Build a tile in the Estate: we can place a tile from our storage onto our estate. We can only build on spaces that are adjacent to others that already contain tiles. And, obviously, we can only place the tile on a space of its color that matches the value of the die used to perform the action. Next, if applicable, the effect of the placed tile is resolved. Once placed, the tile cannot be moved from that space for the rest of the game.
• Sell Goods: we can sell all goods from our storage whose value matches the die used to perform the action. If we sell at least one tile, we will obtain a silver piece (regardless of the number of goods), as well as 2, 3, or 4 victory points (depending on the player count) for each tile we sell.
• Get Workers: we can use a die of any value to obtain two worker tiles.

Additionally, at any time during our turn, we can:

• Spend worker tiles to modify the value of our dice. This must be done before deciding on which action to use the die.
• Buy tiles from the black market (central area). Once per turn, we can pay two silver pieces, take the tile that interests us most, and place it in our storage.

If a region is completed while building in our Estate (remember that a region consists of all adjacent spaces of the same color), that region scores in two ways:

• Based on the size of the region (from 1 to 8 spaces), the region will award from 1 to 36 points. The scoring table on our board shows the value for each size.
• Based on the current phase, the player will receive 10, 8, 6, 4, or 2 points (the first phase awards the most points and the last phase the least).

Additionally, if a player is the first to complete all regions of a specific color, they take the large bonus tile of that color. The second player to complete all regions of that same color will take the small bonus tile. The points awarded by these bonuses depend on the player count (with 2 players: 5 and 2 points; with 3 players: 6 and 3 points; and with 4 players: 7 and 4 points). Players add these points immediately.

Game End

The game ends after the fifth round of the fifth phase. At this moment, the final scoring takes place:

• Each unsold goods tile awards 1 victory point.
• Each silver piece awards 1 victory point.
• Every two worker tiles award 1 victory point.
• Yellow tiles that grant points at the end of the game are evaluated.

The winner will be the player with the most victory points. In case of a tie, the winner will be the player with the most empty spaces in their estate. If the tie persists, the winner will be the player whose token is furthest back on the turn order track.

Personal Opinion

Well, we are looking at the game by our beloved German designer that is currently best positioned in the BGG ranking (having spent a long time in the top 20). And it’s not there by chance. The Castles of Burgundy is a magnificent game, and I believe it is the ideal title to get to know this author.

The best part, without a doubt, is being able to chain combos together (a trademark of our beloved Feld) so that with one action it feels like we’ve done two or three. It is the key to achieving victory because, if you do the math, we are going to have a fixed number of actions. To be exact, 50 (2 per turn, at 5 turns per phase and 5 phases). Fundamentally, expanding our estate requires two actions (taking a tile and placing a tile), therefore, in principle, if we don’t take advantage of these combos, we would only manage to build 25 tiles (having 36 spaces to fill). Therefore, every turn we manage to do something more than simply two actions will be a well-executed turn. Thus, our strategies will focus on achieving this: optimizing each turn to the maximum to avoid just taking two basic actions.

On the other hand, once we have played several games (which will happen soon because this game has a certain something that hooks you), we realize that in the end, it’s just us and our estate, and every now and then, another player takes a tile we were interested in. But except for the ship tiles, which dictate the starting player—who has a clear advantage in each round—the conflict over the rest of the tiles is usually not exaggerated. So we can say that the level of interaction tends toward zero, as happens in many Eurogames. Could there be more interaction? Yes, but we don’t know how that would have affected the usual flow of the game. For that, Feld released Bora Bora last year, which puts a twist on the main concept of this game, offering us a title with much more interaction but, as expected, much higher complexity; you’re no longer just trying to pull off combos, but you also have to organize yourself well so the rest of the players don’t stop you. But hey, that’s why I said at the beginning that this game seems to me one of the most suitable when starting with the style of this famous designer. Jumping straight into games like Trajan or Bora Bora might be a bit too much for a first time. The downside is that if we end up liking those latter titles, it will be harder to bring the game we are looking at today back to the table.

As is usual in this type of game, with fewer players there is much more control, and as you increase the player count, chaos makes an appearance. At two players, there is a lot of control, and the biggest factor of influence on our strategy will be dice variance (which, remember, we mitigate with worker tiles). With more players, the market of available tiles expands, but there is more chaos, mainly because there are more dice in play, and therefore higher chances of several players going for the same strategy in each round. Fortunately, the game works very well at all player counts, and aside from these details, the gameplay feel is quite similar. Perhaps the only negative point would be that since players perform their two actions back-to-back, downtime can drag with many players, especially if someone is prone to severe Analysis Paralysis.

The replayability is quite high, as each game can be totally different. First, because the setup of the game will rarely repeat itself. The order in which the tiles appear (both goods and construction) is completely random, so you cannot plan a fixed strategy. Thus, you have to adapt to what the board offers in each phase. To this, we add the low interaction we already spoke about, but which does exist. Every time a player takes a tile we wanted, it forces us to redesign our strategy. As if that weren’t enough, we have the different setups offered by the six double-sided player boards, which, obviously, will change the approach with which we face the game.

Let’s look at the components. As usual, Ravensburger and Alea offer us quite good quality materials, although in this case, there are many points that could be improved. First, the tiles are rather thin. It’s true that there are many of them and they might be adequate for the use we give them. But a little more thickness wouldn’t have hurt. The same goes for the player boards, which are straight-up cardstock. I hate it when cardstock is used for boards. They are practically begging for any kind of catastrophe: bending, having liquid spilled on them, tearing from a bad pull, etc. Fortunately, my skills with a laminator allow me to protect them, but I would have preferred the use of cardboard, even if that would probably drive up the price since there are 6 boards. Everything they didn’t seem to spend on cardboard, they spent on the massive plastic insert, which I still don’t see much sense in; it has 6 compartments, 5 more or less equal and one that is equivalent to the other 5 combined—if anyone can explain the optimal way to use it, I would be very grateful. In fact, I think the reason for including this magnificent insert is to try to make us forget the huge amount of air that would be inside the box if it weren’t included, because all the components fit in the large compartment, and the boards barely take up any volume. The box could have been half the size and there would be no problems.

We will leave the illustrations at “passable.” Nothing about this game will catch your eye for being beautiful. In fact, the choice of the color palette seems to have been made by Stefan Feld’s worst enemy. Aside from the blue and dark green, the rest of the colors blend together with frustrating ease. If you’re playing under dim light, half the time you won’t know if you’re grabbing a mine or a building, or an animal or a technology. Furthermore, the board has a purely functional design. In the background, you can see the depiction of a castle from the Loire, but it is so faded that it won’t even catch your attention. Everything is very functional. The German touch is evident.

And let’s wrap this up. The Castles of Burgundy is a superb design that masterfully combines tremendously brisk dice management with an organic and highly satisfying development of personal player boards. The crux of the matter lies in triggering spectacular combos to wring the absolute most out of every single turn, cushioning luck through modifiers in a constant tactical decision-making process. This immerses us in a point-salad experience as smooth as it is addictive, where the sense of progress is constant and stimulating, keeping you glued to the table from start to finish. On the downside, we are faced with an experience with a level of interaction tending toward zero, which might alienate those looking for direct conflict and who prefer friction between players. However, its conceptual accessibility, paired with that magnificent tension to optimize every roll, makes it a highly recommended choice and a safe bet for lovers of classic-style Eurogames. For all of this, I give it a…