The first time I played Viticulture was years ago now… so anyone who hasn’t heard about it hasn’t played a lot of games recently. It was at a friend of a friend’s house and it was pitched as a wine making game. There were six of us, there are only so many games that excel with that many people, and I like wine so… sounded good to me!
What I ended up playing was the most chill game I’ve ever played. Yes, the game can be competitive. But it doesn’t have to be. It can also be, I’m making my wine over here… you’re making your wine over there… what a pleasant way to spend an evening… oh, actual wine? No, I would not mind a glass at all.
It’s that chill from start to finish.
Yes, the game can be competitive. But it doesn’t have to be.
For those who haven’t played it, you start off every game with two randomly dealt parent cards representing your mamma and your papa. This is essentially a way of randomly deciding who gets to start with what resources. Some people get extra buildings, some people get extra money, some people get extra vines. It neat, and thematic.
Then the game is broken in four phases it calls seasons even if some seasons are lighter in content than others. In Spring, you go counter clockwise around the table from the person who has the grapes token with the holder choosing first which play order they want to go in. You can go first but you get no extra bonuses. You can go last and get an extra worker. Or you can go in the middle and draw a visitor card, a vine card, or an order card.
Then Summer starts. Going in the order determined in spring, everyone places a worker on an available place to play a summer visitor card or get a vine card, or to build a structure, or to plant a vine. Then comes fall when everyone can draw either a summer or winter visitor card. Then comes winter, which is like summer but you can harvest a field, make a wine, age a wine, fill an order.
Once everyone has played, the grapes get passed and it all starts over again.
At the end of the day, the final score is noted in Victory Points which are earned from filling wine orders.
Any tactics in the game are expressed through the timing of when to play visitor cards. But the nice thing about them is that they usually give the player some advantage and, to my memory, never disadvantage any other players. In fact, for really good bonuses, you sometimes have to pay all the other players to get it. So when I describe this game as “chill”, I mean that the level with which you compete is entirely up to you. If you just want to make wine and let everyone else fight to become the largest exporter, you can do that.
When the game switches to an emphasis on Victory Points… you still earn Lira. You just don’t need it.
I have only one major criticism of the game and it’s that, like a lot of “euro-games”, there can sometimes be too many currencies and it’s not immediately clear which ones are the important ones. If everything was in Victory Points then you’d know, Victory Points über alles. But, here, there’s also Lira. Lira are used for buying new workers, adding structures to wineries, expanding your wine cellar. But, by mid-game, Lira becomes relatively unimportant. Once structures are built, there’s no upkeep so no real reason to keep earning Lira. And that’s when the game switches to an emphasis on Victory Points. You still earn Lira. You just don’t need it.
It’s a weird mechanic where something you need desperately in the beginning becomes almost unimportant by the end. But it’s also not without precedent. It’s not unlike early strategic resources in Civilization, for instance. Don’t need a lot of wood by the space age…
But that is the most minor of critiques.
Like Final Girl, Viticulture has been enormously successful and, like Final Girl there are a lot of extras you can get. There are a whole bunch of boxed expansions, none of which I’ve played. But there are also card expansions that either extend or replace the Summer and Winter visitor cards for a little tweak on the experience. I have played with those and they’re great fun. Someone also made Lira out of zinc to replace the paper coins that come with the game. I will admit to having bought them because I love playing with the tinkle of money at the table. It is absolutely unnecessary but it just adds a little splash to the game that I enjoy.
Recommend Viticulture? Absolutely. It’s probably my favorite board game. And a chill way to spend an hour.
