QUEBEC

 

Design by: Philippe Beaudoin & Pierre Poissant-Marquis

2 – 5 Players, 1 ½ - 2 hours

Review by:  Greg J. Schloesser

 

While there have been dozens of games with the theme of constructing a city, none have been set in one of North America's most beautiful cities:  Quebec.  The city is one of the oldest in North America, enchanting visitors with its blend of both old and new.  The ramparts surrounding the old part of the city are the only remaining fortified city walls surviving in North America north of Mexico.  In short, it is a fascinating World Heritage Site that evokes the feel and atmosphere of the Old World.

Who better to design a game about Quebec than Canadians?  And why quibble over a clever name?  Quebec works just fine.  Designers Philippe Beaudoin and Pierre Poissant-Marquis have teamed with Ystari and Le Scorpion Masque to produce a clever, challenging and creative game concentrating on the construction of the magnificent city of Quebec in the early 17th century.  While the setting is different, the theme and goals are similar:  construct the most prestigious buildings and gain power and influence within the city’s spheres of power.  Fortunately, Quebec adds some clever twists and mechanisms that help make it rise above the dozens of other similarly themed games.

At first glance, the board is congested, confusing and rather un-evocative.  It depicts forty-four building sites in groups of three clustered around eleven districts.  Forty-four large tiles are mixed and placed face-up on these sites. Each of these building tiles has space for three different groups of workers and depicts the century in which it is active:  I – IV.  There are four different colors of tiles and districts representing religion, politics, economy and culture.  Each of these four categories, as well as the citadel, is also represented by a zone of power located on the four corners of the board.  A score track rings the board.  Initially it is cluttered and difficult to decipher.  It does, however, become easier to grasp as the game progresses.

Players begin the game with an architect pawn, 20 – 25 workers, the number based upon the number of players, and a small mat depicting a hand.  Three workers are placed on the "hand" mat and are considered active.  The remaining workers are set to the side, forming one’s personal supply.  These workers are considered “passive.”  In a mechanism similar to the classic El Grande, these workers must first be made active before they can be moved to the board.   Players also receive an assortment of star (scoring) tokens, each depicting one, two or three stars and a value of one, three and six. 

Each turn a player may perform one of the following actions:

Start a new building.  The player places his architect on an empty building that is available in the current century.  These buildings are marked with blue tokens for easy identification.  The building is now active and players may place workers there to help with the construction.  If a player's architect is already on a building, he may move it to another empty building, thereby activating that building.  When doing this, the former building is completed.  The player flips over the tile, revealing the building that has been constructed.  He places a score marker on the building, the value of the marker being equal to the number of groups of workers that contributed to the construction project.  For example, if there were three groups of workers on the tile – the maximum allowed – the player places a token depicting three stars onto the tile.  Any workers present are transferred to the zone of power that matches the color of the building tile.  So, if the tile was red, all workers present on that tile are transferred to the red zone of power at the edge of the board.  These will be important for the end-of-the-century scoring.

One of the main objectives of the game is to construct buildings so you can place your scoring tokens.  Ultimately, you want to form a connected chain of constructed buildings containing your scoring tokens, as this will yield considerable points at game's end.  I will detail this scoring later.

Whenever a player places or moves his architect, he activates three workers, moving them from his supply to his player mat.  This is a major method of activating workers, so players generally move their architect fairly regularly.

Contribute to a building.  Each building tile has space for three groups of workers.  The district to which the tile is attached depicts the number of workers (1 – 3) that must be included in each group.  The district also depicts the reward(s) for contributing to the construction of a building.  There is a wide variety of rewards and their wise and clever use can be quite significant.   Players can activate workers, place workers from their supply into various zones of power, earn victory points, move their architect, increase the value of their scoring tokens, and more. 

It is important to note that a player does NOT receive the rewards of a district if he places his workers on a building tile where his own architect is present. This creates quite a conundrum.  A player must place his architect on a tile that will be attractive to their opponents, enticing opponents to contribute workers in order to reap the districts' rewards.  However, the player must also realize that these workers will ultimately go into the zone of power that matches the color of the district.  So, there is a danger of benefitting one's opponents too much.  More on this later.

Put a worker in a zone of power.  Place a worker from your supply into one of the five zones of power.  While this may sounds insignificant, it can sway control of one of the zones, which can be quite valuable in the end-of-round scoring.  Again, more on this in a bit.

Take a Leader card.  Each century five leader cards are available.  Leaders grant the owner a specific benefit, all but one of which can be used throughout the entire turn.  Once taken, a leader remains with the player, only being returned at the end of the century.  The benefits conveyed by a leader can be quite powerful, so securing a coveted leader is usually an early action, as players try to beat their opponents to the leader they desire. 

However, there is an incentive to wait to acquire a leader.  When a player chooses a leader, he also activates a number of workers equal to the number of leaders that have already been chosen that turn.  So, waiting until several leaders have been selected will allow the player to activate more workers, but at the risk of forfeiting the leader you coveted.

A turn – aka, century – ends in one of two ways:

·         A player has no workers available, either active or in supply; or

·         A player moves his architect, but there are no more available building sites for the current century.

One can never be sure of the timing of the end of the turn, which often causes considerable angst.  Players must be constantly wary of the possibility of the turn ending sooner than they expect or hope. 

A few things happen at the end of a turn:  empty building tiles are inverted, tiles for the next century are marked, and leader cards are returned.  Most importantly, the zones of power are scored.  The objective is to have the majority of workers in as many zones as possible. The first zone to be scored each turn is the citadel, followed by the other zones in a pre-determined order, which changes from turn-to-turn. 

Every player scores one point for each worker present in the zone, while the player with the majority scores bonus points equal to one-half of the number of workers he has there.  The maximum bonus is five points.  So far, this is similar to traditional majority scoring in countless other games.  The really novel twist in the scoring is the cascading of workers.  The player who possessed the majority in a zone moves one-half of his workers – to a maximum of five – to the next zone to be scored.  This may influence the majority status of that zone.  In any case, the player will get to score those workers again.  This cascading continues with each zone, which can be a scoring bonanza for players who plan properly.

The game continues over the course of four turns.  At the game's conclusion, players earn one point apiece for workers on incomplete buildings and each two active workers.  In addition, points are earned for the scoring tokens that players have on the tiles.  The actual points earned vary depending upon whether playing with the family rules or the complete rules. 

Family rules:  Players score 1, 3 or 6 points for each token, depending upon the number of stars the token depicts.

Complete rules:  Each player determines his largest contiguous grouping of scoring tokens, which is based on the same scoring method as described under the family rules.  Each player's largest group scores full points, while any scoring tokens not in a player's main group only score one point apiece.  This complete scoring method forces players to focus their attention on placing their architect on building tiles that will form a contiguous chain.  It also forces players to sometimes move their architect quicker than planned lest a tile that forms a critical link be scooped by an opponent.

Of course, the player with the most overall points becomes the most influential family in Quebec and wins the game.  Our games have taken about 2 ½ hours to play to completion, which is considerably longer than the 60 – 90 minutes listed on the game box.

Events can be included to add even more uncertainty and strategic options.  Each century, a new event is revealed, which generally offers incentives or hindrances to the players.  The first event card always provides a goal that, if met, will provide players will further victory points.  I've played both with and without the event cards and the game plays well with either method.

Quebec is not a terribly difficult game to learn. The rules are, for the most part, well written and easy to understand.  There is not a mind-bending array of possible actions; there are really only four choices each turn, and even less once all of the leaders have been acquired.  Yet, there are an abundance of tough choices to make, particularly in terms of where to place workers and which district powers to exercise.  A further consideration is that workers from a completed building will go to the zone of control matching the color of the building tile.  A LOT of points can be earned in the zones of power scoring, especially if a player can successfully cascade workers to two or three zones.  Often this decision takes precedence over the district powers that can be earned from placing workers.

As mentioned, the choices of when to move one's architect and to which tile are also critical and often taxing.  One must build a large, contiguous area of scoring tokens – preferably high-valued scoring tokens.  To do this, players must place their architect on building tiles that are attractive to opponents, thereby enticing them to place their workers there.  However, there is a sense of urgency to move one's architect fairly quickly in order to secure the necessary building tiles to keep one's largest group of tiles growing and contiguous.  These competing objectives create some wonderful tension.

The game does have a few minor flaws.  Districts should be named on the board, as it is difficult to match them with the power descriptions named in the rules.  This would have also helped enhance the theme.  The options available to a player each turn are not printed on the board or player mats.  While there are only four, it takes a turn or two to learn them.  A turn sequence card or on-board chart would have been helpful. 

These concerns, however, are minor and don't detract much from a truly tremendous game.  It is a game filled with tough and often taxing choices.  It is a game that offers a variety of strategic options with many viable paths to pursue for victory.  There are many opportunities for clever plays that can yield significant advantages and surprises.  In short, it is a very rewarding and rich gaming experience.  Although I still have numerous games released at the Spiel in Essen to play, so far Quebec tops my list of games released at the convention.