Game Preview: “Versailles”

By W. Eric Martin
September 12, 2008

Publisher: Hans im Glück
Designer: Xavier Georges
Artwork: Michael Menzel
Players: 2-4
Ages: 10+
Playing Time: 90 minutes
Release Date: October 2008

Under the name Vauban, this game was one of three winners of the 2007 Boulogne Billancourt, a game design competition held annually in France and open to entries from around the world.

In Vauban, named after a military engineer in 17th century France, designer Xavier Georges says, “All the players construct the same fortified city together, but you’re trying to construct the best and the most parts. This fortified city is composed of 36 small tiles, with each tile giving victory points and representing a building or a fortification element to be built. Each building provides a bonus effect for the rest of the game, while a fortification element allows the placement of a worker as a garrison on the map of the city. At the end of the game, your garrisons also provide victory points if your garrison holds a majority in a fortress wing.”

How do you build those tiles? The same way anyone builds anything – with workers, specifically your team of 18 workers, which will be divided among the nine large tiles of the gameboard (which is separate from the fortified city to be built). Each of thse tiles has a specific function: The reinforcement tile gives you new workers, who show up on the entrance tile; the movement tile allows you to move workers based on the number of workers on it; two resource tiles provide goods; and so on. Having the most workers on a tile provides a bonus, such as extra movement on the movement tile.

Says Georges, “A summary of the turn sequence is the following: First, you receive reinforcement, then you move workers, and finally you can build the fortified city. To do so, you pay resources by taking back some of your workers from the resource tiles, then removing the blueprint tile for that building or fortified element from the city layout.

As with other worker placement games, proper deployment of your dudes will move you down the path toward success. “A very common error is placing a lot of workers on the reinforcement tile to get tons of new workers each turn – then realizing that you can’t use them because you don’t have enough movement,” says Georges. “If you place a lot of workers on both the reinforcement and the movement tiles, you will probably suffer from a lack of workers to take advantage of your majorities, which is a key of the game. Experienced players are able to keep a good balance between available workers and workers on the board, and with a very experienced player, few workers will stay unused on a turn throughout the game.”

From Vauban to Versailles to...

Now take all that you’ve just read about this game and prepare for a transformation. After Hans im Glück picked up the game, the company asked to change the name and theme since Vauban was unknown in Germany, the topic was too militaristic, and the constructing theme too familiar.

Georges notes that he had hit on the Vauban theme after seeing Notre Dame and The Pillars of the Earth at Spiel 06 and not wanting to release the third cathedral-building game in a year. Talks with Hans im Glück and artist Michael Menzel brought the theme around to something else – rumored to be Versailles, but that name turns out to be only intermediary – and Georges was sold. “Vauban was not the first theme I had imagined for this game,” he says, “and despite my interest in Vauban and his incredible works, it was not a problem to change the theme, provided that it matched the mechanisms of the game – which is assuredly the case with this new theme, even if it isn’t a ‘construction’ game any more...”

One other change by Hans im Glück is the stripping out of player #5, which shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s perused HiG’s recent catalogue of Ming Dynasty, Oregon, Taluva, Goa, and so forth. “The prototype allows you to play with five players and while it could be fun, it could also be boring if the players are too slow,” says Georges. “In fact, the game is best with four or three players, while also very good with two. HiG doesn’t want to discourage players with a bad ‘first five-player’ experience and has decided to limit the number of players.”

As for what those two-to-four players will be doing, stay tuned for more details in the weeks ahead…

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