Viticulture Review: A Well Aged Vintage Experience

Reviewers Note: Viticulture Essential Edition includes the base game of Viticulture and a few of the most popular modules from the original Tuscany expansion, including Mamas & Papas, Fields (previously known as Properties), expanded and revised Visitors, and Automa cards for a solo variant, along with a few minor rule changes.

Viticulture was a a birthday gift to me as something to play other than Monopoly. I had a chance to play it as a two player game with my brother in law, as well as up to 4 players with my gaming friends. I’ve dabbled with it solo, as well as playing with players counts of 2, 3, 4, 5, and yes 6 on Board Game Arena. I’ve seen the ends of outs of it – and I recommend it as a great game to add when starting a new collection. It is good – it is really REALY good.

No doubt a about it – Viticulture is a quintessential worker placement game. The “place” are set to work in the vineyards of Tuscany set to make fine wine. In the game you will be selecting which types of grapes to plant, which wine to make, and how best to handle your visitors and other patrons of the winery. Of course that is a pretty massive oversimplification of the game – but it points to the essence of what each player will be considering during the game. As with any worker placement games, your workers are generally fewer that the different things you’ll want to accomplish so each player needs to carefully consider where they will place their workers each round.

The game’s central premise or intent is that each player will seek to fulfill wine orders – that is to say if you had an “order” of a “level 4 white” and a “level 2 red” you would take the necessary steps to produce and fulfill that order. As a result you would receive a certain amount of victory points. However that isn’t the sole way to accumulate points. There are various buildings you can construct, actions you can take, and cards you can play that will also provide avenues to accumulate points.

The game provides multiple ways to score points but at the end of the game, it is the person who has scored the most points after the end game point threshold of 20 has been reached.

How The Game Feels

The game “wants” me to feel like I am making wine (specific types of wine to clarify) – and on some level I suppose it does do a good job of it. The theming comes through – which frankly is a tall order when it comes to theme. I think most games don’t do that very well. I do feel like I need consider what type grapes I’m going to want to plant, when will I choose to harvest them, and how will I manage my visitors. The components do well with the theme to, from the common play board in the middle, to the individual player mat (that represent my fields and cellars). Event the little glass tokens that represent my wines and grapes are very aesthetically pleasing.

Given that there are only a limited amount of spots on the board for all the workers in the game – I also need to pay attention to what my opponents are doing. That does ramp up the tension a bit – especially when you are trying to jockey for some key spots on the board. Every action feels important – every spot to board does something important for your end game goals.

While work placement is a key part of the game, this game is also known as an engine builder. That means when you are taking actions, or improving your current game state, it should make it a bit more efficient that the last move, or perhaps you were able to do an action you weren’t able to do before, because you’ve accumulated a surplus of resources. If you are playing the game well, it usually feels like you are definitely building towards something – whether it is feeling a particular high scoring wine order or able to do an action or play a card you weren’t able to before.

The game can handle of to 6 people. While the worker placement spots are scarce, the number of total workers you can place on one single area does scale up as you add players. That said – you still can doddle, lest you’ll be left out of key areas of the board. Then even still – if that ONE spot you were hoping for is taken, the game has a built in mechanism that can allow you to still get that critical spot you need – but you only get to use it once a turn, so there is still plenty of tension to be had.

Now – there will be lots of people out there that will say the game can swing a bit to much because of the visitor card draws. Some of good, some are meh – and some are REALLY REALLY good depending where you are at in the game. Likewise – I will admit it can get a bit frustrating to have certain grapes planted – that unfortunately just don’t match up well with the wine orders you have in your hand. Myself I don’t mind needing to find ways to mitigate bad draws – I figure that is just part of gaming – but for others, it an be a bit of a drag.

Because there are multiple paths to victory, the game doesn’t feel stale or if you get locked out you just should give up. You just need to make decisions based on the game state and alter your tactics for that particular round. Grab you glass of wine and lets keep going.

What a Turn is Like

Because the card draw can impact the game quite a bit, you may be interested in exploring the Tuscany expansion. It offers more ways to draw cards, so it give you more chances to find what you need. Again, I personally didn’t find it rough – but other players have.

Learning the Game –

I have rate the game at a level 3 complexity. Don’t confuse that with thinking that the game is hard. I don’t believe that it is. It just take a bit of time understanding the different spots on the board and what they do. You’ll then need to figure out the most efficient system of securing grapes, planting them (with the right infrastructure), harvesting them, and then making sure you have the right grapes and the right cellar to hold your wine until you fill that valuable order. It may sound like a lot, but trust me it is easy to digest.

I haven’t played this yet with my 9 year old – for a worker placement game at that age – I’d probably look at Stone Age. But for slightly more mature gamers who can handle a bit more rules grit – Viticulture comes in a good place.

That and we have Rodney from Watch it Played – No one does a better job of explaining a game that Rodney – I guarantee after 20 minutes here, you’ll be able to open your first winery!

Replay Value

I have found that with just about any engine builder the replay value tends to be higher than average. You just want to keep playing to do things just a little bit better than before. Your games will vary someone because at the start of the game you may (or may not) have resources that put you down a particular path to points.

The game has also evolved over the years and there are some great expansions you can add if you ever felt like the game has offered all that it can.

The game delivers a good experience each time I play it. I haven’t played each of the expansion, but I would suspect that for everyone added – your adding at least 10 more plays. Over the lifespan of a game – that is considered a good return on investment. Recently a new expansion for Viticulture has been released called Viticulture World. Viticulture World shakes things up a bit by adding cooperative play to achieve victory.

Other Opinion

“…it’s easy to learn, and it’s easy to teach…”

Melissa – Tantrum House

The Upside/Downside

Conclusion

Overall I am pretty high on Viticulture. As stated, the game is well-aged (pun intended) and still delivers a good game experience. Those that are looking for more as they play will be pleased by the additional expansions that have been introduced since the game’s original release date.