Review - Troyes

28th of August 2011 (Sunday)

Game(s) Reviewed:
Troyes



Review – Troyes
This Game Is… …:
A Euro Boardgame on the French city of Troyes set in the medieval ages of 1200 AD (according to the rulebook). The rulebook also seems to indicate that Troyes is about building the Cathedral of Troyes, however building the Cathedral really only represents a smaller portion of what Troyes is all about.

Troyes is a real life city… I wonder if game designers should get a fee for promoting tourism in city-based themes

Like any good old-fashioned Euro, Troyes is about having the most Victory Points (VPs) at the end of 7 rounds (Editor’s Note: There seem to be a barrage of games that are played in 7 rounds these days, Ninjato, Belfort to quote a few & of course 7 Wonders’ association with the number 7).

The mystery of the number 7

The game caters for 2-4 Players with a Grey Neutral Player (somewhat unusual for Euros in my experience) in all 2-4 Player games. Troyes can take anywhere between 1-2 hours depending on the number of Players and Players’ experience levels. Most comments suggest that Troyes seems to be too short. I’m not 100% sure but longer games can be catered for by adding on event cards (which will be explained later).

I don’t have that much of a problem with game length though… I’d want more variety of cards. I’m sure an expansion will fix that

What Do You Get In The Box?
Troyes comes with a board (Editor’s Note: Yes! A board! My excitement is partially due to the fact that I’ve had a lot of card boardgames lately) depicting a top-down view of the fortified city of Troyes. It isn’t drop-dead gorgeous by any means but is reminiscent of art in the 1200s (where people have no muscle tone, are bald, bearded or both and have expressions that would make the cast of B-Grade zombie movies… A-Grade zombie movies have more expression than they do).

Ah…Aboardgame without a board is like Coke without sugar

Typical of a Euro Boardgame, it comes with the pre-requisite multitude of cubes, discs, coins, VP markers, cards (Event, Activity and Secret Character Cards) and of course, Meeples! (Editor’s Note: Again much excitement for my first game with Meeples!) What’s not typical of a Euro, is the inclusion of dice, all 24 of them in 4 different colours (at least they’re 6-sided dice,otherwise there’d be too much culture shock).

Euro + Ameritrash components = Troyes

How Is It Played?
At the start of each round, Players will receive a fixed income of 10 Deniers less the upkeep cost of having Tradesmen in the Bishopric & Count’s Palace. Each Player then takes one 6-sided die for each of the Tradesman they have in the Bishopric (white die), Count’s Palace (red die) & City Hall (yellow die) and rolls his collection of dice.

Starting from the first Player (rotates clockwise at the start of each subsequent round), the Player uses his dice and must fight at least one of the marauding barbarians outside the city of Troyes with the number of barbarians being determined by Event Cards. Once all the roving barbarians have been defeated, starting from the first Player, each Player can utilize 1-3 dice to perform an action from those listed below:
1. Utilize one of the Activity Cards [to gain coins / VPs / cubes (that manipulate your dice)]
2. Build the cathedral [to gain influence and VPs]
3. Combat Event Cards [to gain influence and VPs]
4. Put a Tradesman on the Bishopric, Count’s Palace or City Hall [to gain dice]
5. Go farming [to gain coins]
6. Pass [to gain coins]

Basically each Player totals up the value of the dice they have chosen to utilize and divides it by the factor indicated on the respective card to determine the number of bonuses gained. Each of the actions has its own slew of little rules which I won’t go into. What I will go into is the mechanics of the dice and how the mechanic works in Troyes.

The cool thing about Troyes is the ability to buy other Players’ dice. It works both as a screwage mechanic by “stealing” other Players’ good rolls as well as balancing out the bad and good rolls of all Players involved. The compensation mechanic is well designed but can be difficult for some Players to understand without a table of some sort, I’ve now made the table an essential part of my components for Troyes for easier reference. It basically looks like this:

Use \ Buy	1	2	3
1	$2	$4	$6
2	N/A	$8	$12
3	N/A	N/A	$18

Good rolls tend to be compensated at a higher amount as you would want to combine a high value die with other high value ones to maximize the return. There is however an argument that Players who consistently have good rolls will have an overwhelming advantage, but in my personal opinion this is only very obvious during rounds where the Player is the first / second Player whereby the Player utilizes the good rolls before any other Player can buy them, making it very advantageous for you to roll sixes during those rounds (if you can somehow achieve this feat, you shouldn’t be playing Troyes, but be at Genting Highlands).

Do dice games promote gambling?

Consistently poor rollers appear to make up the majority of us (that’s why casinos earn big bucks) but that’s where the influence mechanic comes in. Influence (tracked at the top of the board) as its name implies, allows you to influence your die rolls. Spending 1 influence allows you to re-roll any one die that is yours and spending 4 influence allows you to turn 1-3 dice onto their opposite face. So if you have the uncanny ability of rolling a lot of snake-eyes, rejoice for you will be the envy of other Players for the first time when playing Troyes.

Once all dice have been used or all Players have passed (gaining 2 Deniers and 1 more Denier for each time their turn comes round again but forfeiting all their subsequent turns until round end, a neat little mechanic), the round ends and a new round begins. Rinse and repeat until end of Round 6/5/4 (4/3/2 Players).

What I Think About The Game?
Gameplay:
At the heart of it, Troyes is truly an old style Euro boardgame with a new innovation of including dice as the petrol to fuel a Players’ actions each turn. To say that this has caused excitement amongst gaming circles is an understatement and actually seems to be a precursor to new innovative boardgames that challenge the conventions of genre labelling like Euro and Ameritrash. The excitement is well due and earned simply because the meshing of these two previously opposing genres simply works, very much like the alternate happy ending to Romeo & Juliet in uniting the Montagues& the Capulets.

The union of two great families

I absolutely enjoy the gameplay and how you need to balance your resources of dice, coins & influence to ensure you're always in optimum position to capitalize on a good opportunity then squeezing out whatever you can get from the remaining resources at the end of each round. Positioning yourself for the big kill then looting ALL the spoils is probably the rule of the day in Troyes. Plus the fact that there is always something to do (even passing is a strategic move to gain Deniers) and always a chance to come back into the game that has me hooked to each Player’s turn and constantly observing the changing landscape of dice.

To be objective, not everyone will turn cartwheels after playing Troyes. There are some who can’t get enough and feel the game is too short, others who feel that there will always be the disparity of high/low rollers when introducing dice, that the Secret Characters introduce an unneeded guessing mechanic which can be game changers right at the end and other concerns which are all valid. Whilst we are being objective, there is no infallible game but Troyes stands out as one which has achieved something unique and brings a whole new gaming experience to your table.

Quality:
Troyes’ components are of good quality with the appropriate thickness for chips and the gaming board. The Player colour choices are somewhat unusual, but I suspect that this is because red and yellow are already used for Military and Civic dice.The rulebook covers the game in great detail with example turns for each conceivable phase and action, it is rather thick but only because there are 4 translations all in one book.

Of course you can find other amusing uses for the components as well

If there are any complaints then it would probably be about the choice of artwork. Again this is a matter of personal taste, I personally feel that the artwork lends to the medieval age theme and is not frightfully ugly so it gets a pass in my books.

Affordability:
Price ÷ Recommended No. of Players ÷ [Game Length (hour) x No. Times Game is Played in a year]

A copy of Troyes is notoriously difficult to obtain. However the game, when it is available, retails for RM170 or so. Based on the affordability formula:

RM170 ÷ 4 Players ÷ [1.5 hours x 6 plays a year] = RM4.70 / hour of play / player

Yum!

All in all, Troyes is very affordable in my opinion. Considering that you’re getting a great game design and one of the best games released in 2010, the cost equivalent of a plate of Char KuayTeow (in Kuala Lumpur) is very worth it.

Is This Game For You?
Having played this with my gaming group and hearing comments from other parties, I’ve come to realize that Troyes is certainly not for everyone despite how great a game I feel Troyes is, particularly those who prefer to have more control over their ability to implement long term strategy or abhor too much Player interference (stealing dice is very much the equivalent of stealing another Player’s ability to take an action). Troyes is also fairly complicated and would definitely put off most newcomers to the hobby.

However if your group of Players thrive on the excitement of rolling dice (and still being able to manipulate the rolls), Player interaction, balancing a national budget of dice/coins/influence and amassing a bucket-load of VPs old school Euro style, Troyes is one of the few Euro games that manages to unite the Euro genre with dice successfully whilst maintaining an overall theme to create a game that keeps you riveted each turn with many possibilities, in Troyes, there are no bad actions or bad rolls, only how much you can squeeze out of one even if it’s a die with a one on it. If you like what you hear, then you have got to go reserve yourself a copy somewhere, somehow and pray that all the others who have reserved a copy get amnesia or something.

Troyes… … Is it a type of pizza?