Review: Clans of Caledonia

Introduction & Overview

19th-century Scotland. The country undergoes a transition from a predominantly agricultural economy to an industrialized one, heavily dependent on trade and export. As a result, food production increased to support the growing population, cheap cotton imports replaced flax, and livestock farming expanded. When European wine and brandy production was devastated by an insect blight in the late 19th century, Scotch whisky emerged as a substitute for cognac. The whisky industry came alive, establishing itself as the premium alcoholic beverage of choice across Europe. Players represent historic clans competing to produce, trade, and export their agricultural goods, as well as their famous whisky!

This is the premise behind Clans of Caledonia, the debut design by Juma Al-JouJou. The game was published in 2017 under the Karma Games imprint, created specifically for the occasion following a successful crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter. The artwork is handled by the dependable Klemens Franz (Agricola, Le Havre, Orleans).

It is published in Spain by Gen-X Games (although the game is completely language-independent). It accommodates 1 to 4 players, with a recommended age of 12 and up and an approximate duration of around 30 minutes per player. The MSRP is €54.95. For this review, we used a review copy of the Spanish edition provided by Gen X Studio.

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.

Components

Inside a two-piece cardboard box (lid and bottom), measuring 20×20×6 cm (a shallow rectangular box similar to the dimensions of Twilight Struggle or Hansa Teutonica), we find the following components:

10 Milk Units (wooden)
14 Wool Units (wooden)
10 Cheese Units (wooden)
10 Grain Units (wooden)
10 Bread Units (wooden)
10 Whisky Units (wooden)
Cotton Marker (wooden)
Tobacco Marker (wooden)
Sugar Cane Marker (wooden)
16 Cows (wooden)
16 Sheep (wooden)
16 Wheat Fields (wooden)
16 Bakeries (wooden)
16 Cheese Dairies (wooden)
16 Distilleries (wooden)
32 Workers (wooden)
28 Merchants (wooden)
4 Shipping Markers (wooden)
4 Turn Order Markers (wooden)
4 Victory Point Markers (wooden)
4 Settlement Markers (wooden)
4 Map Boards (cardboard)
16 Port Glory Tiles / Bonus Markers (cardboard)
Market Board (cardboard)
Export Board (cardboard)
4 Player Boards (cardboard)
9 Clan Tiles (cardboard)
4 Export Tiles (cardboard)
4 Victory Point Multiplier Tiles (cardboard)
8 Worker Upgrade Technology Tiles (cardboard)
9 Port Bonus Tiles (cardboard)
70 Coins (cardboard):
- 30 of Value 1
- 20 of Value 5
- 20 of Value 10
50 Export Contract Tiles (cardboard)
9 Scoring Tiles (cardboard)
12 Resource Multiplier Tiles (cardboard)
9 Starting Tiles (cardboard)
MacDonald Tile (cardboard)
6 Price Markers (transparent plastic)
2 Dice (Bakelite)
4 Reference Tiles (cardboard)
Scorepad (paper)
Rulebook

How to Play

Clans of Caledonia blends mechanisms and concepts found across several acclaimed designs. The central mechanism revolves around building a network of resource-producing units (both basic and processed goods). The board displays a grid of hex spaces, each with a specific construction cost along with certain adjacency and reach constraints governed by technologies players can unlock. Money serves as the core resource, enabling players to build different structures to produce goods required to fulfill export contracts, which account for the bulk of end-game victory points. Resources can also be bought and sold in a dynamic market driven by supply and demand. Furthermore, each of the five rounds concludes with a scoring phase awarding points based on specific criteria, alongside an end-game evaluation of players’ river-connected settlements.

Key Concepts

Let us start with the Main Board. It depicts a map of the Scottish landscape divided into hexagonal spaces. The map is assembled from four large, double-sided modular boards that always connect with the same orientation, aligned so the corner showing a small rock in the water meets at the center. This creates 16 distinct map configurations. Hex spaces represent pastures, forests, mountains, or water/lochs. Except for water spaces, all hexes indicate a cost in pounds required to build on them. In terms of construction adjacency, two land spaces are considered adjacent if they share a border not separated by water (rivers or lochs). The corner spaces of the board feature ports pointing to designated spaces where player-activated bonus tiles are placed. Finally, border spaces marked with shaded outlines are excluded in 2-player games, meaning they cannot be built upon, though water spaces can still be used for shipping transit.

Across this board, players will primarily place units and structures, each carrying a specific placement cost, terrain requirements, and distinct benefits. First, we have woodcutters and miners. Both are represented by worker meeples placed on forest or mountain spaces, respectively, generating cash income during the production phase.

There are two technologies to upgrade the efficiency of these workers, increasing their income yield. These upgrades are tracked via small, folder-shaped tiles that denote the boosted income rate for each worker type.

Money is the central engine of the game, as executing nearly any available action requires spending coins. Money can be acquired through various avenues, mainly by passing early in the action phase (passing sooner yields more cash) and during the production phase based on deployed woodcutters, miners, and active technology upgrades.

Next, we have the production units. These come in two varieties: basic agricultural units (cows, sheep, and wheat fields) and processing facilities (cheese dairies, bakeries, and distilleries). Processing facilities require basic goods to produce refined goods.

The basic goods produced are wool (sheep), milk (cows), and grain (fields), while the processed goods obtained are cheese (cheese dairies, processing one unit of milk), bread (bakeries, processing one unit of grain), and whisky (distilleries, processing one unit of grain). At the end of the game, leftover goods score 1 or 2 victory points each depending on whether they are basic or processed.

Players can trade these goods during the game. Each good has a fluctuating price tracked on the market board, which features 6 columns (one for each tradeable good) and various price rows tracked by transparent markers. Every time a player buys or sells a good, its price rises (increased demand) or drops (increased supply) accordingly. To track transactions, each market column provides designated spots for player merchant cubes, which shift the marker up or down. Importantly, a player cannot speculate on the same good within a single round; that is, you cannot both buy and sell the same good in the same round.

When purchasing goods, players can also benefit from a neighborhood discount on the market price when expanding into spaces adjacent to opponent production units, up to a limit of three goods per transaction (one per adjacent unit).

To execute market trades, players utilize Merchants, represented by wooden cubes in their player color. Each merchant allows the purchase or sale of one unit of a good. At the end of each round, all deployed merchants are retrieved and become available for the next round. Players begin the game with 2 active merchants, with the ability to recruit more during play.

A key infrastructural track is Shipping (fluvial reach). This technology allows players to treat land spaces separated by water as adjacent. The first shipping level allows building across river borders, while subsequent upgrades enable shipping across loch/water hexes (1, 2, or 3 spaces away).

This brings us to the concept of a settlement. A settlement is a contiguous cluster of a player’s units on land spaces not separated by water. Any separation by rivers or water hexes divides them into separate settlements. During final scoring, players count how many distinct settlements are connected together via their shipping reach, scoring substantial points based on relative standings.

As mentioned earlier, the outer corners of the map feature one-time Port Bonuses. To activate a port bonus, a player must reach an adjacent land space, either through direct placement or via shipping reach.

Each port bonus can be claimed only once per player per game. Circular Port Glory markers are placed beside the tile to track usage.

Players manage their units and technology tracks using an individual Player Board. The top section holds available units organized into columns by type, showing construction costs above each space. Below them, icons illustrate production and processing conversions. The bottom section houses tracks for merchants, shipping reach, and worker upgrade technologies.

Another cornerstone of the game is the Export Contracts. These tiles display required goods on the left side and granted rewards on the right. A player may only hold one active unfulfilled contract at a time; a new contract cannot be taken until the active one is fulfilled.

Key rewards on contracts include imported luxury goods, which elevate clan prestige. Hops grant victory points directly at a flat rate of 1 VP per unit. In addition, there are imported goods: cotton, sugar cane, and tobacco. These score end-game victory points (ranging from 3 to 5 VP each) based on a dynamic rarity ranking determined by the total volume of each good imported across all players’ fulfilled contracts. The rarest imported good scores the maximum value, while the most abundant scores the minimum. Dedicated markers on the export track monitor these quantities.

To hold an active contract, each player has an Export Tile where the tile sits until completed (at which point it is stacked to the side). This tile also displays the end-game victory point breakdown awarded for the relative ranking of fulfilled contracts.

Furthermore, Scoring Tiles award victory points at the end of each round based on specific criteria. Five scoring tiles are drawn and set out each game.

To track turn order, players place a circular marker on a two-tiered track. When a player passes, they move their marker from the active row to the first vacant spot on the opposite row, locking in their position for the following round.

The Export Board centralizes several of these mechanisms:

The left edge features slots for the 5 scoring tiles evaluated across the game. These slots also indicate the monetary bonus or cost associated with acquiring a contract in each specific round.
The outer border forms an export scoring track numbered 1 through 30. Every fifth space shows a coin icon; whenever an imported good marker reaches or passes these spaces upon contract fulfillment, the active player receives 1 coin.
The central area holds the row of face-up contracts available for selection.
Below the contract display is the two-tiered turn order track, indicating the cash bonus received upon passing.
Finally, to the left of the turn order track is a reference chart summarizing end-game victory points for completed contracts.

Finally, each player commands a unique Clan. Clans provide powerful asymmetric abilities, often granting specific action discounts or alternative income generation engines.

That is enough to get started.

Preparación de la Partida

Assemble the modular main board by joining the four segments at the center where the stone-in-water icons meet on the chosen side.
Place 4 random port bonus tiles on the designated corner spaces (return the rest to the box).
Set the market board nearby, placing the 6 price markers on their starting spaces.
Place the export board, inserting 5 random scoring tiles into the round slots.
Place the import good markers at the start of the export track.
Shuffle the export contracts and fill the available contract display on the export board.
Organize all goods and coins into a general supply.
Each player chooses a color and takes a player board, all corresponding units, an export tile, 4 port glory markers, 2 worker upgrade tiles, a shipping marker, and 7 merchant cubes. All units and markers (except 2 merchants and starting setup pieces) are placed onto the player board.
Determine starting turn order randomly, placing turn markers on the top row of the export board.
Reveal Clan tiles equal to the number of players plus one. Pair each clan tile with a random starting tile. In reverse turn order (starting with the last player), each player drafts a clan and starting tile combo, collecting the indicated starting assets. Return the unchosen clan and starting tile to the box.
Finally, in turn order, each player places their first woodcutter or miner on a valid map hex, paying the total cost (unit cost plus terrain cost). Then, in reverse turn order, each player places a second woodcutter or miner following the same rules.

We are ready to begin!

Game Flow

A game of Clans of Caledonia lasts 5 rounds. Each round consists of 4 distinct phases:

Phase I: Preparation

This phase is skipped in the first round. Proceed as follows:

Flip face-down the scoring tile scored in the previous round.
Refill the contract display by drawing new contract tiles to fill empty slots on the export board.
Players retrieve all deployed merchant cubes back to their active supply.

Phase II: Actions

Following turn order, players take turns executing one action from the following options:

Trade: The player buys or sells units of a single good. You may trade as many units as desired, provided you have sufficient free merchants (one merchant per unit traded). After the transaction, the market marker moves up (buy) or down (sell) a number of steps equal to the units traded. The used merchants remain in that market slot. A player cannot both buy and sell the same good in the same round.
Obtain an Export Contract: The player selects an available contract from the export board and places it on their active export tile (this action cannot be taken if the tile already holds an unfulfilled contract). Depending on the round, the player receives or pays coins for the contract (+5/0/-5/-10/-15 coins in rounds 1/2/3/4/5).
Expand: The player takes a unit from their player board and builds it on a valid, unoccupied land hex. A valid hex must be adjacent to an existing friendly unit or reachable via shipping reach. The player pays the unit cost plus the terrain placement cost. If the placed unit is adjacent to opponent units producing or processing goods, the active player may trigger a neighborhood trade to buy up to one of each adjacent good type at a discounted price, provided they have available merchants. Maximum neighborhood transactions are restricted by player count. If this placement empties a processing building column (cheese dairy, bakery, or distillery) and the player has no active contract, they may draw 3 contracts, pick one (paying the round cost), and discard the rest.
Upgrade Shipping: The player pays 4 coins to advance their shipping marker one step on the track.
Upgrade Technology: The player pays 10 coins to flip over one of their worker technology upgrade tiles (woodcutter or miner).
Hire a Merchant: The player pays 4 coins to recruit the leftmost merchant cube from their player board, making it available for use starting the next round.
Fulfill an Export Contract: The player discards the goods depicted on the left side of their active contract back to the supply. If the contract grants imported goods, advance the corresponding markers on the export track. For every space with a coin icon reached or passed, the player earns 1 coin. The player may also receive immediate bonuses (such as a free merchant, shipping upgrade, worker upgrade for 5 coins, a free build ignoring terrain costs, or straight cash). Some contracts require slaughtering livestock (sheep or cows); in this case, remove the animal from the map and return it to your player board (it will no longer produce goods).
Pass: The player moves their turn order marker to the first available spot on the row for the next round (odd rounds: top row; even rounds: bottom row), collecting the coin bonus printed on that space. The player takes no further actions for the remainder of this phase.

The phase ends once all players have passed.

Additionally, as a free action before or after their main action, a player may activate a reachable port bonus at the corner of the map. Each port bonus can only be activated once per game by each player (marking it with one of their four port glory markers). Multiple port bonuses may be triggered in a single turn if reached.

Phase III: Production

In this phase, players collect income and goods generated by their deployed units:

Each woodcutter produces £4 (£6 if upgraded).
Each miner produces £6 (£8 if upgraded).
Basic goods (wool, milk, and grain) are produced according to the exposed icons on empty player board spaces.
Each built processing unit (cheese dairy, bakery, and distillery) may convert one basic good into a processed good (the basic good is discarded to the supply; you do not need to produce the basic good yourself).

Phase IV: Scoring

Players score victory points according to the scoring tile active for the current round.

After scoring, a new round begins.

Game End

The game ends after the conclusion of the fifth round. Final scoring is carried out. Each player sums:

Victory points accumulated during the game.
1 VP per leftover basic good.
2 VP per leftover processed good.
1 VP per £10 remaining.
1 VP per unit of hops on completed contracts.
Victory points for imported Cotton, Tobacco, and Sugar Cane based on dynamic rarity (5 VP per unit for the rarest good, 4 VP for the median good, and 3 VP for the most abundant good). Ties in rarity are broken in the fixed order: Cotton > Tobacco > Sugar Cane (from rarest to least rare).
End-game Contract Bonus:
- 3/4-player games: 12 VP for the player with the most completed contracts; 6 VP for second place. If tied for first, split 18 VP (rounded down). If tied for second, split 6 VP (rounded down).
- 2-player games: 8 VP for the player with the most contracts (split 4 VP each in case of a tie).
Connected Settlements Scoring: Players count how many distinct settlements (clusters of adjacent units on land not separated by water) are connected via their shipping reach:
- 3/4-player games: 18 / 12 / 6 VP for 1st / 2nd / 3rd most connected settlements. Ties split the combined points of the tied positions (rounded down).
- 2-player games: 12 VP for 1st place and 0 VP for 2nd place.

The player with the most victory points wins!

Variants

Solo Mode: The player aims to achieve the highest possible score. The game operates under 2-player rules with all value-1 terrain hexes blocked by neutral pieces, disabling neighborhood trade benefits. 5 contracts are available, and passing always grants £16. An extra market phase occurs at the start of rounds 2–5, where two dice rolls fluctuate market prices. Final scoring awards points based on thresholds reached in completed contracts and connected settlements.
Fixed-Value Import Goods: Every unit of cotton, tobacco, and sugar cane scores a flat 4 victory points.
Tight Board: A port bonus tile is placed face-down over a board space to restrict the map area (ideally covering one space per quadrant).
No Clans: Players play without asymmetric clan abilities.
Clan Auction: Reveal Clan tiles equal to the number of players. Players bid victory points (which are deducted at game end and tracked on paper). One player randomly puts a clan up for auction; other players must raise the bid or pass. When all players but one pass, the winning bidder claims the clan and places their turn order marker on the next available space of the turn track.

Personal Opinion

Crowdfunding platforms have transformed the landscape—especially when it comes to board games. The removal of editorial gatekeeping floods the hobby with waves of products of questionable quality, particularly regarding game design (even if production values remain high). Genuine success stories through this channel are remarkably rare, often derailed by poor development planning paired with backers eager to throw money at glossy promises. Whenever an authentic hit emerges, it feels almost like a miraculous alignment of the stars. But isn’t it wonderful to be part of a crowdfunding campaign with a happy ending? Tasting that success is what keeps the wheel turning and backers pledging on project after project. Personally, I prefer to wait patiently; time is limited, and I cannot afford to squander it on games that haven’t passed through rigorous development filters.

Fortunately, the designs that clear those hurdles eventually land in retail. That brings us to Clans of Caledonia, a delightful surprise that reached backers during the Essen Spiel fair and is now arriving at retail stores via Gen X Studio. Before diving into the breakdown, I would like to thank the publisher for providing the review copy that made this hefty tocho-review possible.

Switching back to pleasant surprise mode: I was among those who had zero expectations for this title, coming from a first-time designer with a system that seemed like an unabashed mashup of elements lifted straight from established classics (we will get to the references shortly). Yet here we are: the game reveals itself as a polished, tightly oiled design that runs like clockwork.

Clans of Caledonia is essentially the illegitimate love child of a wild night between Terra Mystica (tocho-review here) and The Voyages of Marco Polo (tocho-review here), carrying a few recessive genes from market speculation classics. The beating heart of the game is scattering production units across the map to form distinct settlements linked across rivers and lochs. Using the goods generated by these units, players fulfill export contracts that become increasingly expensive with each passing round. Alternatively, these goods can be bought or sold on the market to grease the wheels of your economy.

The central driver of the game is cash. During the critical action phase, money is the fuel that powers your engine, as nearly every action carries a price tag: expanding across the board, claiming contracts (except in early rounds), upgrading technologies, or recruiting merchants. Everything costs hard currency, making financial optimization paramount to victory. Players must reinvest their earnings into calculated expansion, generating the necessary goods to fulfill contracts secured throughout the game.

And that is essentially it. The core premise of Clans of Caledonia is deceptively simple: expand as much as possible, produce goods (or trade for them), and fulfill contracts. It mirrors the fundamental drive of Terra Mystica. Players start from modest initial placements and must push their economic engine to the limit every single round, knowing that every unit placed on the map is an investment that yields greater returns the sooner it hits the board.

Yet executing this is far more challenging than it appears. Much like Ostertag and Drögemüller’s classic, players manage a diverse array of units with distinct yields: woodcutters and miners supply pure cash flow (the fuel), sheep produce wool, cows supply milk, and fields harvest grain. At a higher tier, processing facilities transform basic ingredients into valuable refined goods: cheese dairies produce cheese from milk, bakeries produce bread from grain, and distilleries turn grain into whisky.

Your choice of unit placement is heavily dictated by contracts—the other structural pillar of the design. This element takes direct inspiration from The Voyages of Marco Polo, generating the exact same tight tension here. Fulfilling the maximum number of contracts is essential, requiring players to push their limits from the opening turn, especially since acquiring contracts carries an increasing monetary penalty in later rounds. Furthermore, fulfilled contracts often provide immediate milestone perks: technology boosts, cash infusions, or discounted expansions.

The third obvious nod to its forebears lies in the asymmetric Clans. Each faction confers a unique special ability that should shape your strategic trajectory; failing to leverage your clan’s competitive edge will put you at a severe disadvantage against opponents who maximize theirs. Much like in Marco Polo, these powers feel robust and can sometimes seem wildly swinging at first glance. Ultimately, however, all clan abilities operate on the economic axis—offering action discounts or alternate revenue channels.

Returning to concepts inherited from Terra Mystica, we have the neighborhood bonus mechanic. Building adjacent to opponent structures provides a trade discount on goods produced by those neighbors. Once again, everything ties back into economic optimization.

This dynamic market represents the distinct element absent from its two predecessors. In Clans of Caledonia, players can actively buy and sell goods to fund immediate actions or acquire missing goods when lacking the corresponding production facility.

Finally, round scoring tiles award victory points for meeting specific criteria each round. Combined with the one-time port bonuses around the perimeter, these form a web of tactical goals players must evaluate right from setup, heavily influencing initial placement on the map.

The real challenge in assembling a Frankenstein design like this is not merely ensuring the mechanics mesh (which they do seamlessly), but capturing the compelling gameplay feel of the titles that inspired it. On this front, Juma Al-JouJou succeeds completely. In Clans of Caledonia, players feel the pressure from turn one. Every decision carries weight in the race for victory. This tension stems directly from two fronts: tight economic optimization where a misstep in building placement stalls your engine, and the cutthroat competition over contracts and map positioning.

Credit must be given to Juma for delivering such an accomplished eurogame right out of the gate. The only minor critique is just how brazenly it borrows its mechanisms. However, in an industry where genuine innovation is increasingly rare, high-quality execution like this is more than welcome. It brings to mind Friedemann Friese’s Copycat, which stitched together dominant euro mechanics of its era, though Clans pursues a much more cohesive, earnest design goal.

One clear advantage it holds over Terra Mystica is how well it scales. While two-player games offer more breathing room and slightly soften board blocking, the tight contract race keeps the tension alive. That said, the sweet spot is four players, where every building placement forces you to react to your opponents’ moves. Downtime is remarkably low, as turns consist of brisk, single-action plays.

In terms of replayability, the game includes plenty of variable setup parameters: modular map boards, round scoring tiles, a thick contract deck, asymmetric clans, and port bonuses. The Marco Polo influence is evident here once more. While it might not match the sheer variability of Luciani and Tascini’s design, there is plenty of game in the box. It is the kind of satisfying eurogame that hits the table effortlessly.

As for production quality, the finish is excellent, even if some components feel slightly diminutive. Certain wooden pieces and board slots are on the smaller side, which can feel a bit fiddly on the player board. Beyond that minor ergonomic quirk, the component standard is high: thick, sturdy punchboards that punch out cleanly, custom wooden shapes with good density, and a clear, well-structured rulebook with ample examples.

On art duties, we have the reliable Klemens Franz. His style may not be lavish or hyper-detailed, but it is instantly recognizable and deeply rooted in the eurogame genre—the moment it hits the table, you know what kind of strategic experience awaits. Where Franz truly excels is graphic design and UI layout: everything is intuitive and reinforces the gameplay flow. My only minor critique is the income iconography on the player board for workers, which uses cumulative totals rather than per-unit income, occasionally causing slight initial confusion for new players.

And let’s wrap this up. Clans of Caledonia is a medium-heavy eurogame that masterfully blends map expansion, resource conversion, and contract fulfillment. Its rigorous monetary economy, combined with the spatial tension of board positioning, a dynamic market, and asymmetric clan powers, generates constant strategic engagement from turn one. While its lack of conceptual originality and open borrowing of ideas might deduct points for novelty, its brisk pacing and the immense satisfaction of watching your engine hum make it a thoroughly cohesive and enjoyable design. For all these reasons, I give it a…