Viticulture: Bordeaux Expansion Review – First Thoughts

Viticulture: Bordeaux Expansion Review – First Thoughts

You can’t make me not like Viticulture. I reckon of all of the games that I own, then this is probably the one that will always stay on the shelf. It sits close to Scythe, and occasionally they snuggle. I can’t imagine them not being there ready to play. I think it is one of the finest examples of worker placement in terms of simplicity and accessibility, and how the theme matches so well with the game mechanically. It’s never been too difficult to teach and always been enjoyed by the people I’ve played it with. Isaac doesn’t like it. But he has no palate for decent games. That’s another story altogether. The expansions brought in their own twists and turns, with world offering such a departure it was like playing a different game.

Bordeaux is giving you more choices on how you play Viticulture and in some ways tries to refine further what is already there. I do have flashes of thoughts that tell me that this might be a step too far? They are only flashes, slight ones. Tiny ones. A creeping doubt of a thought. I’m glad this is an expansion and not the reprint if that makes more sense. You want me to be dramatic with words and metaphors, then I would say something like “Feet that have been treading for years continually crushing the grapes but haven’t necessarily noticed that they have been treading so long that there’s slight tang of vinegar in the air now. That adding extra grapes at this point to the vat is merely masking.” Which is so overly dramatic I’m thinking this section won’t last another editing fly by.

First things first. This isn’t a ruination. Nothing dreadful, and there’s things here and there that I absolutely like on the strongest terms, but then things I’m just a bit hmm. I don’t need that plate of blue vein cheese. I’m no good with dairy and we can’t open the windows right now. For me, Viticulture was always very strong on how the theme was presented as you rolled from summer into winter, and the layout of the farm represented that beautifully. There was whimsy, you could almost imagine being on the hillside farm, stomping from shed to shed in mucky boots as you made you decision for that year.

Now feel I’m looking at more of a grid with a background illustration of a farm as opposed to there still being that lovely connection. Things have become ordered and presentable. The game board presents itself as a table of options as opposed to a series of scattered tasks. It’s like they’ve employed a project manager who wants to run a lean operation and have decided that operationally it makes sense to save time. Things have become a little bit dry, and I don’t just mean the wine on this occasion. Its been changed though because of experts, bloody experts. these additional spaces below your normal worker spaces offer bonuses that come into play as long as you have an expert cube placed in a space. So now when you are taking your turn, you might be able to collect an additional bonus from a previous round where you played an expert. The experts vary, but mostly allow you to gain an additional bonus based on the space you’ve played in. It adds choice and it also adds in some planning, and I admit that I like having that extra layer of strategy when you are deciding where to play your workers.

I like that the vine cards and the wine order cards have two cards visible as it allows a little bit more planning and give you up to three choices when you do get to pick a card, including taking them from their respective main decks. It lessens the feeling of the luck of the draw and even opens up the chance that you have a bit more control on your destiny at lower player counts, especially when it comes to wine orders. Now you are starting with both a grape and wine token, it helps to mitigate the last third rush where you’re trying to get in as many orders as you can, and gives you that bit of a chance to pace yourself.

We’ve been messing about with the wake up order again, but this time you are giving away more instead of collecting nothing f0r deciding to go first. there’s nice touches here where both grapes and wine can be aged, again helping shift order completion to earlier in the game, though I’m not sure I see the first player spot as anything other than enticing. Giving every other player money and aging of both grapes and wine seems a bit overly generous. Trading is useful. One of my few criticisms of Viticulture is the possibility of finding yourself in a situation where to get what you need is literally four turns away, and again allowing a catch up mechanism is welcome, as long as it doesn’t result in someone else winning over me.

Bordeaux is all about that little touch more. Specialist add that little touch more, trading add that little touch more. Starting with grapes all add that little touch more, kind of feel like we are veering toward a touch of far too much. Its like the vineyard got so big and successful that a corporate wine company came in and bought the place, and still sell the same wine, but now it’s a bit more commercial. The Mama’s and Papa’s no longer work there but just appear on the logo. Its more, which maybe some of you will jump at the chance, and others might feel can you just leave my game alone now please thank you very much. I wonder if this energy should be pushed into a new game because there’s some great ideas here.

Again, we’re not talking about ruining things. Bordeaux is quite simply more ways to play. The double sided board that comes with the expansion still has the original board waiting to be played on. No one is forcing you here. Just a gentle nudge of what could be. If you like viticulture like I do, you’ll pick this up at some point just to see what all the fuss is about.  Its not sour grapes and things aren’t corked, but I think its time to put this bottle on the shelf and let it just sit as it is, in its current form, without the fancy bottle, the silly label, the fancy wooden box and the wax seal. You know, maybe just let things breathe.

Designed By Jamey Stegmaier

Art by Sylvain Leroy

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Viticulture: Bordeaux Expansion