Louis XIV
Louis XIV. is a strategy game by alea who have a fame for creating challlenging strategic boardgames. As most of you might know, Louis XIV. reigned as the King of France and was known as The Sun King (Le Roi Soleil). As he reigned for 72 years he had a lot of time to wage wars and to create an absolutist and centralised state. We can all imagine that plenty of people wanted to influence the person at the head of such a state, can't we? OK, now, before I actually dive deeper into reviewing the game, let's look a little further. What type of a man was he? Wikipedia and many others ascribe the words L'Etat, c'est moi (= I am the state) to him. Well, given this attitude, along with the fact that his power was enormous we can all see why so many women where interested in him. He was said to have numerous mistresses. Now imagine: you are the King. You not only have to deal with your ministers, your family, France's nobility but also you enemies and probably even worse a huge amount of competing women. You get the picture? Well, keep it in mind, it's exactly what came to my mind when I actually played the game Louis XIV.
Now, that we are both in Versailles in the shoes of Louis XIV: some bad news first! Neither of us is ever going to become King of France. Not in real life, not in this game. However, at least you are a member of his Court and get to bribe the people directly influencing and surrounding the King. I have to pay my compliments to Rüdiger Dorn, the author of Louis XIV. (who also authored Spiel des Jahres 2005 nominee Jambo): he did a great job in selecting a very atmospheric theme for a rather abstract strategy game.
Let's look a little bit at some gameplay details.
In each of exactly four turns all players get to replenish first (with money, influencing cards and solved mission cards, if appropriate). In my experience money is important but the real winner are the influencing cards. There are several ways to get more of them and I found it advantageous to take them. OK, done with replenishing?
Let the starting player for this turn move into Influencing phase. As I pointed out, Loius XIV. was surrounded by a lot of powerful people. These characters sit in the middle of the table waiting to give their special advantages to the player who influencesthem best (the critical words are printed in italic):
- The special advantage you get depends on the character, e.g. Jules Mazarin (who ran the country instead of Louis XIV. because little Louis was still in diapers at that time) lets you take more influencing cards while most of the others award you with mission chips.
- You influence a character by placing one or more wooden influence token(s) onto that characters card. You have probably already guessed this: each player's supply of influence stones is way too small to let you influence everyone. Yes, you can get these tokens back but only if you abandon the option of influencing one person. Argh! Now, this makes it really expensive, doesn't it
Her Royal Majesty himself is represented by a little figure that is placed on top of one of the character cards. If he is around the person you influence you get moooooore special awards than regular - this happens in phase 3.
In phase 3 we finally get to score big. If we are the best influencer we earn the advantage. Now, what does "best" mean? This one is tricky, because it depends on the character. But not only that: the criteria to earn the advantage may change every turn because you have to flip the character. Confused? It's not my intention to confuse you. But, if you were a mistress at the King's Court would I be able to influence you twice and twice the same way? See, I didn't think so. I also believe that this is another good example of how well the theme has been integrated into the game mechanics.
After earning mission chips and other awards we get to complete missions in phase 4. This is critical to winning as missions let you gain a strategic advantage over your co-players. The more difficult the mission, the more and better the awards required to solve it. Missions can give you great advantages such as greater supplies or better influence, etc. During my first game I tried to complete the easy/medium missions only. After game two, we all noticed that even the most difficult missions are quite possible to fulfill. It's a stretching challenge but not impossible. I guess it pays to play high risk at the Court.
OK, that's about all I want to say regarding the gameplay. It's probably been more than enough anyways, but I hope you get the idea of how I felt when I started playing:
I have played the game a few times now. At first, it was difficult to grasp. The rules are unfortunately not a piece of poetry the King were to be impressed with. Our first game was a total failure with the only purpose of learning the rules. Even the game setup is difficult. But when we finally understood the mechanics, the possibilities and different strategic options, I was really impressed. I am certain we are not at the end of exploring this further.
All games were very close and intense until the end. It was difficult to tell who the winner was until you actually counted all the emblems (the final bit in the scoring phase). Moreover, each game was totally different. Not different as different in Ticket to Ride or different in Carcassonne - it was more like The Settlers of Catan-different.
I truly believe to have found a true gem in Loius XIV. It is not a family game. Don't play it with kids (>12 is recommended by the publishers). Bring some time (~1.0 -1.5 hrs). Take the time to explain the rules by simply starting to play the game once. Get a feeling for the strategies. I can't see how this game could ever bore me. It's not mainstream enough to be awarded Spiel des Jahres but I certainly see it among the best games this year - so far.