A forestry management game.
Invented by Andreas Seyforth.
Published by Hans im Glueck.
Reviewed by Peter Kretschmar
(
[email protected]).
Very nicely produced, mostly tactical for 2-4 players (I've played it only once yet, with 4 players).
Everybody has his small board with 12 areas where you can try and raise six different sorts of wood, more or less hampered by the pollution introduced from a factory and a highway. In the end only the trees, their diversity (bonus points) and the population of animals (depends on the number of populated wood areas) count. But to get to a nice diverse selection of woodland areas you need money, which allows you to buy new saplings and to introduce anti-pollution measurements, decreasing the pollution in your area - which in turn makes your investment safer and raises it's point worth at the end. The need for money allows for some choice of strategy - my wife went 'ecology first', our friend went for 'money first, repair damage later' with similar success. I need more playing experience to see how much variance there really is. An important point not adequately explained in the rules, is that the different types of wood are intentionally distributed *unevenly*, so people can't all go for the most diverse woodlands.
There's a nice mechanism concerning the 'action/event cards', which have good and results on the woods: On your turn you chose 1-3 from your hand of 5 and play them face down on the table. Then you select 1-3 players (2 or 3 cards -> yourself included!) to draw a card, the others draw first, you get the one eventually left over. In case you only played one card the other player may chose to draw it or let it to you. The number of cards played also determines the advancement of the 'years-turn' marker, which may have immediate effect as most cards only have an influence in some seasons.
The rules are mostly clear and concise but could use a table showing the distibution of wood-types and action/event cards. A point not fully made clear, is that in case of conflicting player actions (e.g. 3 players want to grow a fir, but there's only one left) the player order is the deciding point. As the subject matter had our sympathy, the production is very nice and the gameplay went well, my wife and I bought it. Our local gaming club has a copy too.