Clans of Caledonia

Designer: Juma Al-JouJou
Artist: Klemens Franz
Published: 2017
Players: 1-4
Playing Time: 30-120 Mins
BGG Rating: 7.9
BGG Ranking: 65
Publisher: Karma Games
Mechanisms: Commodity Speculation, Contracts, Network and Route Building, Variable Player Powers

Game Description:

Clans of Caledonia is a mid-to-heavy economic game set in 19th-century Scotland. At this time, Scotland made the transition from an agricultural to an industrialized country that heavily relied on trade and export. In the following years, food production increased significantly to feed the population growth. Linen was increasingly substituted by the cheaper cotton and raising sheep was given high importance. More and more distilleries were founded and whisky became the premium alcoholic beverage in Europe.

Players represent historic clans with unique abilities and compete to produce, trade and export agricultural goods and of course whisky!

Quick play overview:

On a player's turn they can do one of the several actions:

TRADE: Use one or more merchants to buy or sell goods in the market. Each good has a cost associated with it and this cost will increase after somebody bought the good or decrease when goods are sold.

OBTAIN EXPORT CONTRACT: Pay (depending on the turn) to get one of the available export contracts (main system of getting points in the game).

FULFIL  AND EXPORT CONTRACT: Spend the required resources on your current export contract to receive the benefits.

HIRE MERCHANT: Spend 4 gold to hire another merchant (players start with 2 but can hire up to 5 more during the game)

UPGRADE SHIPPING: Spend 4 gold to increase how far away you can expand over the rivers/lakes

UPGRADE TECHNOLOGY: Spend 10 gold (5 with a bonus from the export contracts) to increase the gold received by the workers.

EXPAND: Paying tons of gold to place Workers, Sheep, Cows, Cheese Factory,… on the map. These units will produce gold, basic/processed goods in the production phase.

PASS: You finished playing for this round and you move your turn order token to the first available spot for the next round.

Players will take one action at a time in turn order until all players have passed and the production phase starts, where players will earn gold, produce basic goods and/or turn basic goods into processed goods, score points according to each turn special scoring tile (like each worker gives you 2 points, each basic resource gives you 1 points etc.) that are placed at random at the set-up. A new round starts and do it 4 more times… and the player with most points wins.

At the end of the game there are extra points awarded to the players with the most fulfilled contracts and to the players with most settlements (players should build in small patches rather than big villages).

Final thoughts:

There is a ton of rules for this game.  They all make sense once you learn the game and play a turn or two.. but you might lose a player or two during the rules explanation.

If your group survived the rules explanation, then you should have a great brain burning experience.

There are so many options each turn. Should you build on this cheap spot before your opponent does.. but at the same time the cheese is so cheap in the market and if you don't buy it now, the price might increase dramatically and you won't be able to buy enough of it to fulfil the contract etc.

I personally love the Commodity Speculation mechanism. Add to this the urgency of every action available and you have a great game. 

FINAL SCORE:

Gameplay & How often I want to play it: 9/10

I love the market speculation, the fight for the cheapest/best areas. Each player has a clan with a special power that will help you with a strategy.

I want to play it frequently but due to it's lenght, I will be happy if I find a group for 1 play/year.

Art & Graphic Design:

The game looks older than it actually is. I'm not a fan of the art.

Graphic design is clear and works well.

Rules & Complexity:

This is a rules heavy game. If you don't lose any players while explaining the rules, you have a hardcore game group.

Once the rules are understood, they allow for a very complex gameplay. Players have tons of great choices that will lead to more choices etc. which will cause some AP from time to time.

Theme & Mechanism fit:

Building up the industry in Scotland? Producing Cheese, Whiskey and Bread? Keeping the workers away from the sheep? What more do you want?

Buying the goods that you don't produce and selling the ones that you have in abundance is fun. Using the funds to build up the food processing industry or just exporting basic goods is a great mechanisms fit for the theme.

Fun & Replayability:

I would put this game in the brain burner category not in the fun one.

After some 5 plays, once you try all the clans, the game will get same-y in the way you play it. Replayability doesn't come from exploration but from  interaction with other players.