Zoch 601105076 "Mangrovia" Game

What a fabulous game! Beautifully designed, a real treat to look at never mind play! Appears complex at first glance but actually easy to pick up for anyone who enjoys strategy/ logic games. A good game for 2 players but more interesting with 3 or more!

All good

Mangrovia is a nice "bowl-placement" game set in a mangrove swamp. "Bowl-placement? Eh...what?" I hear you say...well, yes: Competing to become tribal chief, you put your little wooden offering bowl on the pair of actions you want to take, chosen from 6 pairs of actions depicted on the sacred island archipelago on the board, around which a little wooden boat marker travels during the course of each round. You get to do both actions in the pair, but they are taken in strict order - as the boat travels down one side of the archipelago, you get to take your first action...then others take their first action...then the boat travels up the other side of the archipelago, and everyone gets to take the second action of the pair they chose, an interesting mechanism that means you have to think carefully about what other players might do between your first and second actions. The actions themselves mostly revolve around building huts, placing them on the spaces of a grid printed on the board, overlaid on the beautiful illustration of the landscape of the swamp. You usually have to discard a "landscape" card, and some "valuables" cards to build a hut (you start with a couple of each). The valuables cards have varying numerical values, as do the board-spaces, and you have to pay the exact right amount of valuables for the space you want to build on. There's also four different landscape types, and you have to play the right landscape card to build a hut on a given landscape space. Huts give you end-game points for majorities achieved in the rows and columns of the grid of spaces, and often immediate points when built, as well. There are also special bonuses for huts built in a couple of areas (the "stone" and "pole" areas), and "amulet" spaces - if you build huts on those, you can later use the amulet action to draw amulets from a bag - more amulet huts means more amulets drawn. Amulets score end game points, but are also the only way to build on some hut spaces - they are discarded instead of the usual "valuables" cards. As well as hut building and amulet actions, there are card drawing actions, so you can get the cards you need to build the huts, and an action that makes you first player on the next round, but also lets you change the positions of the "birds of paradise" - these are two little green birds that sit on a 2x2 grid showing the four landscape types, and during each round you can ONLY build on the two landscape types the birds are sitting on, so being able to change them can be a pretty useful thing. This all carries on until someone builds their last hut, then hut majorities on the board are scored, there's some bonus points from the special hut areas, any amulets still in players hands add points based on their face values, and we have a winner... All in all, pretty simple game flow, a fair amount of interesting decisions, and doesn't outstay its welcome. On my first game I made the error of blowing all my cards in an early turn to build a couple of quite expensive huts, and then, in a panic that I would not be able to build high value if I didn't grab lots of cards, I took a turn to acquire a huge wad of them, without building a hut. Hint: don't do this! The game ends sooner than you think, and at game-end I had copious quantities of cards I could do nothing with :( It seems a constant flow of hut-building is a better way to go. A couple of minor gripes: there were a few times where it did seem that me combo of cards I had was good for nothing, which was irritating, and I think the game could bind up a bit with analysis-paralysis prone players, but the traditional mock-threats of physical violence for such egregious behaviour would no doubt resolve that... :p On the physical side, the board and components have well-executed, colourful and evocative artwork. Nice game.

un jeux que je recommande car il est vraiment stratégique tout en ayant un principe simple. tout ceux à qui je l'ai fait essayé l'ont aimé même les peu habitués aux jeux de sociétés :)

Wir haben das Spiel zu Weihnachten bekommen und es zu dritt gespielt. Die Anleitung ist recht umfangreich, aber trotzdem kann man schnell losspielen. Wir haben erstmal mit offenen Karten gespielt, damit unser Sohn (11 Jahre) einen besseren Einstieg hatte. Macht echt Spass. Bei uns fehlten leider einige Spielsteine, aber die wurden nach Reklamation vom Hersteller prompt nachgeliefert. Super Service!

La consegna del gioco è arrivata in tempi accettabili (ma non quando inizialmente previsto): c'è stato un po' di ritardo, ma se considero questo darei 2 stelle ad Amazon che sotto Natale ha fatto diversi pasticci. Riguardo il gioco invece l'abbiamo apprezzato molto in famiglia! Ho provato molti giochi da tavolo e di carte collezionabili, e devo dire che questo titolo mi ha piacevolmente sorpreso per la giocabilità, per la qualità dei materiali, per l'ambientazione e la dinamica di gioco. Il regolamento è molto semplice da capire, anche se può servire un 2 o 3 partite prima di comprendere a pieno tutti i dettagli del regolamento. Il tempo di gioco è effettivamente quello indicato (tra 60 e 90 minuti). Non ci si annoia mai e c'è molto da ragionare per ottimizzare le proprie azioni con l'avanzare del gioco. Inoltre il fatto che può essere giocato da 2 a 5 giocatori consente davvero di impegnare anche solo una coppia di amici oppure una famiglia intera o un gruppo di amici. Per chi ha provato Tzolkin lo trovo abbastanza simile, anche se Mangrovia mi appare più semplice di quest'ultimo. Davvero molto molto bello! Lo consiglio spassionatamente a tutti: sia a chi ha esperienza di giochi da tavolo sia a chi è alle prime armi perché è davvero semplice da capire.

Die Regeln sind relativ einfach und verständlich. Man muss das Spiel dennoch ein paarmal gespielt haben, damit man taktischer vorgehen kann. Schön ist, daß man bis zu den letzten Spielzügen nicht sagen kann, wer gewinnt, das kann sich nämlich ganz schnell bei der Endwertung ändern! Jede Partie ist anders, dadurch ergibt sich ein hoher Wiederspielwert. Tolles Familienspiel, ab 10 Jahren, absolute Kaufempfehlung!

Ero partito con NIAGARA (bellissimissimo!), poi ho preso MANILA (strepitoso!) e mancava questo...non l'ho ancora giocato ma guardando su BGG i voti sono più che buoni, quindi penso sarà come se non meglio dei titoli menzionati.