By Portal Games
I enjoy historical fiction, so when I saw this at a Phoenix Fire swap meet, I was instantly sold.
Time: 60 minutes
Ages: 8+
Theme: 18th Century French Aristocracy Family Planning
Mechanics: Card Drafting, Hand Management, Worker Placement, Set Collection
In this game, you play as a pre-revolution French Noble (Either Patriarch or Matriarch) and compete for the most prestige, honor, and wealth through arranged marriages with your most influential or wealthy friends. By the end of the game, your family tree spans 4 generations.
You gain prestige points based on:
- how many children you were able to produce each generation
- how many influential marriages you were able to arrange
- how many mansions your were able to purchase
- how many titles you were able to acquire
- how many charitable events you were able to host
- whether or not you were able to unlock/complete your major or minor secret goals
I don't have a whole lot of bad things to say about this game. I worried at first that it might be too clunky, but once you learn the rules (the rulebook sucks, btw), it plays pretty quickly and smoothly. The player colors could have been rethought so the blue player markers didn't blend in with the blue fertility markers, but it's not that big of a deal. Overall, I enjoyed it. Arranging marriages to a cast of interesting characters was fun.
I didn't think my husband was going to like this game because of the theme, but he actually found it entertaining. In our first game, I played a matriarch and he played a patriarch. This affects starting conditions. Mid-way through the game, I realized that starting out as a male character makes a lot of difference (they start with slightly less wealth, but a disproportionately higher steady income and typically more friends). This means that the patriarch gets extra money throughout the game and wealth is important for wooing good suitors and purchasing dukedoms! I guess it's true to history, but wow, bummer to start with a disadvantage. In our second game we switched genders and I had the advantage. Guess who won each game? Hmm...
Another problem I had in the first game is that I kept having daughters. 80% of my progeny were girls. This sucks because you typically have to pay to get them married (dowry) and I was already low on income. I did manage to find a few men willing to take on my daughter for free, but they were low-born and it ruined my reputation. Dustin, on the other hand, kept having boys and you typically get paid to marry them off (exceptions are if the prospect is an aristocrat). Basically, I found this game hilarious and historically accurate.
We scored as follows:
Dustin - 47, Bonnie - 46 (He won)
Bonnie - 69, Dustin - 53 (I won)
My rating is 8/10 because I would definitely play this again. Not too long and pretty amusing.
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