Good evening everyone! Pardon our continued absence lately, we have not been playing a whole lot of new games and we decided when we started this blog that we would not re-review games unless they were of a campaign or legacy nature and several games had passed. Rest assured that we will have post campaign reviews for Gloomhaven – Jaws of the Lion and several others somewhere down the road, we also had several new kickstarters arrive which will see reviews soon. To spoil things a bit and amp up the 3 people who read this blog, our kickstarter copy of Sleeping Gods arrived, but it’s a hefty game with a long initial setup, so we likely won’t play it till later this week. In the meantime, Hector, Amanda and I decided to play one of the lighter of the recently arrived kickstarter games: Almanac – The Dragon Road.
Almanac – The Dragon Road is the first of several promised worker placement games in a series, the premise of which is that you are a the leader of a caravan attempting to gain fame and profit on the way to your destination. I first saw this game on a Dice Tower preview and was immediately intrigued by it’s travelling premise; every game round is played on a different map with different special rules. I immediately pre-ordered the game and have been looking forward to it since.
I’ll begin by saying that the components are absolutely superb, even though the art style is something of an odd aesthetic. The star of the show, the “Almanac” itself, is excellent. It’s a ring bound book with all the different locations for the game contained within, and is of extremely good construction and design. The art is somewhat cartoonish, but very well done, and the iconography is clear and meshes very well with the art design of the book. The cards are some of the best I’ve seen, with an excellent linen finish, and the player screens contain an excellent quick guide to all the icons. The tokens and dice are also solid, although this really begs for some metal coins or printed resources, which I may remedy later with my 3d printer. Overall a great package.
Almanac – The Dragon Road is at it’s heart, a very simple worker placement and resource trading game. You place workers onto spots on the map, completing default actions such as gaining or selling goods, taking or fulfilling contracts, upgrading the wagon and going to the shop. Your end goal being to have the most fame, which is gained mainly through money and the completion of contracts. What makes the game unique is that it builds on this very simple premise by having every round of the game played on a unique map with different spaces and rules for worker placement. Some maps require workers to be placed in a certain order or adjacent to each other, other’s have limited spaces that prevent you from using all your workers, etc.
Each map usually has at least one unique action for players to take related to it’s flavor text, which will grant some sort of special upgrade or bonus to their caravan that is not available on any other map. The combination of not being able to know what spaces are available to you too far in advance forces players to be more tactically flexible. One could have a solid strategy of fulfilling contracts locked in, only to find that there is an average of only one contract fulfillment space on each map you visit, and half the time it’s taken by other players first, forcing a pivot to goods trading or wagon upgrades. A player could also be massing up wagon advancements and workers, only to come across a map where you can place no more than 4 in total, forcing them to start considering efficiency instead. The ability of the first player to choose the next map makes it a sought over position, which is well contested by a bidding system which encourages everyone to bid, even if they don’t believe they will win. There is also an encounter deck drawn from between maps, though I myself found this part of the game very forgettable, it does add more flavor to an otherwise very mechanical game.
The two player game played surprisingly well. Unlikely many worker placement games that require spaces to be closed off or modified for lower player counts, the unique nature of each map made many of them self-adjust without having to have special rules for player count. 2 of the maps we played were actually tighter with 2 players than they would have been with 3 or 4 as the mechanics made spaces on the map open as meeples were placed, thus allowing us less options than we would have at a higher player count. I found that self balancing with very little in the way of special rules for low player counts to be an excellent bit of design work.
Overall I highly recommend Alamanc – The Dragon Road to anyone who likes worker placement games. experienced players of the genre will find it basic at first, but a the unique maps play out, you will find it a very enjoyable experience. It’s also a great jumping in point for the genre, as even though they vary from map to map, the core mechanics are simple and easy to understand. The only type of player for whom I would not recommend this game is the kind of person who likes to pick a long term strategy and work it through a whole game, there are simply too many unpredictable factors to make that possible here. I will have to wait for more playthroughs and the next game in the system, but this may become my favorite in the worker placement genre.
Note: I really enjoyed this game, though I did ask several times if it was meant for younger players because of the artwork. I really liked how each map was a bit different, because it kept you involved and having to think on your feet. I already want to play it again!
The Teal Deer
Game: Almanac – The Dragon Road
Designer: Scott Almes
Price: $70
Players: 2-4
2 player Scaling: Some of the best I’ve seen for worker placement
Playtime: 90ish minutes
Estimated Lifespan: Adding to collection
Expected Average Play Frequency: Bi-Monthly
Complexity: 2.5
Components: 5
Bang for Buck: 4
Value for Time: 5
Fun Factor: 5
Overall: 4.5
Cardboard for 2 
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