Board Gaming - El Grande

ratticus (58)in #gaming • 7 years ago

El Grande

In a bit of a blast from the past, I found myself playing a 5 player game of El Grande a couple of months ago. For an old game (released 1995), it's still just as good as I remember, and I still suck at it just as much as I remember.

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^{After setup, with each player having their randomly assigned starting province containing 2 caballeros and their Grande}

This isn't really surprising as it's basically an area control strategy game. It's not a war game, but more of a political intrigue and manoeuvring game, with the only conflict coming from role selection to either send opponents men (caballeros) elsewhere, and sometimes off the map back to their court (available to place) or provinces (needing promoting to the court).

The game is played in a sequence of 9 rounds (can be played in 6 for a short game, but that really needs to be decided beforehand, and really isn't the full experience of the game), with scoring happening after every third round.

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^{Just before the first scoring round. Oh yeah, there's some cards that allow you to score specific regions or types of regions along the way too}

The rounds are broken down into a couple of phases, the first being the bidding phase, where you play one of your 13 influence cards. Higher numbers allow you to go earlier in the turn order, lower numbers get you more caballeros into your court (available to place on the board). They're single use cards, so controlling your position in turn order (and bidding position in the next round) is quite important. To avoid ties, you can't play a number that's already played this round. Bidding in the next round starts from the last player (lowest bid) in the previous round, so earlier around the table from the lowest card in the previous round may be helpful. Especially before the scoring rounds!

Once turn order is sorted, from highest number down players take their action turn. Selecting an action card, placing men (caballeros) from their court onto the board and maybe doing the special action the card allows them to do. How many men they can place is also determined by the card, with one each of a 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 available each round. The card allowing you to place 5 men is the same each round, and is one of the only ways to move the king, around which the whole game actually revolves.

The king protects the region that he's in, with nothing able to affect that province or the caballeros in it. It also restricts where placement can happen to just the neighbouring provinces, which when the king is in one of the 3 corners is very restrictive, with just 2 neighbouring provinces. If the king isn't near the province you want to be in, you might need to use a special action to shift caballeros around, or of course move the king yourself. Might even help protect that province you've just finished building up, especially from invaders from the castillo.

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^{End of the game. That green score marker at the back? yeah, that's me. Possibly my favourite 'dudes on a map' game or 'game I almost never win'}

The Castillo (castle) is a dominating presence on the board and is essentially a secret province that you can always dump caballeros into, for them to be moved to a single province during the scoring phase (after scoring the castillo). With scoring only happening every third round, you want protection, as well as the bonus points from having the king too.

It's a fun game about control and working out when and how to score your points, and getting more than anyone else. Even after all these years, it's still a game I'm happy to play.