Orleans: A new favorite at game night

I purchased Orleans with my game winnings when I was at Strategicon, and I’ve played this game twice already within the past week. It has quickly become a game-night favorite. Orleans plays 2-4 people and lasts about 90 minutes. It’s a medium-heavy worker-placement bag-building game, and, best of all, it isn’t too hard to teach. A friend of mine had said he was initially turned off by what looked like a really busy game board, but once game play was explained, he said it’s actually not that hard to learn. Winning the game, on the other hand, requires planning efficient moves.

The goal of Orleans is to get the move victory points through goods, coins and building trading posts. Each player begins with their own bag, player board and four starter Followers (a Farmer, Boatman, Craftsman and Trader). In the middle is a larger board that’s split into two sides. On the left side is various Follower tracks and goods, and on the other side is a map with routes and goods in between cities. There is one last communal board for the Town Halls. Players are basically trying to activate action locations on their player board and get more Followers to place in their bag.

The rounds go like this (and there are 18 of them but they go really quickly):

1. Hour Glass
2. Census
3. Followers
4. Planning
5. Actions
6. Event
7. Start player

Each round starts with a new Hour Glass tile, which is then resolved in Phase 6. The events range from paying taxes on your goods, getting money, losing Followers and other things. During the Census phase, the player with the most Farmers gains 1 coin, while the player with the least Farmers pays 1 coin to the bank. You can tell how many Farmers people have based on where their cube is on the Farmer track. This step is skipped on the first turn since everybody starts with the same starting Followers.

Next up is the Planning phase. Based on where each player is on the Knight track, they draw that many Followers from their bag. You place these new Followers on your market (which limits how many you can draw), and then you allocate these Followers onto spaces on your player board. The Followers must match the space it’s placed on, unless you have a monk (which acts as a wild card), or have a Place Tile that allows for Follower substitutions. To activate a location on your player board, all the Follower spots underneath it must be filled.

When everybody has placed their Followers on their player board, players, in turn order, choose which location to activate. This is important because specific actions are limited by the resources available on the main player board.

When you activate a location, such as the Castle, you move your cube ahead one spot on the Knight track, take a Knight from the pile, and drop it (along with your Followers you used to activate the Castle location) back into your bag for the next round. Moving up the Knight track allows you to draw more people from your bag on the next turns. When you move up the Farmer track, you get a Farmer and the resource above the spot you moved into. Moving up the Craftsman track gives you a Craftsman and a Technology Tile. At the end of the round, you get to place this Technology Tile on an open space on your board (the first one always has to be a farmer), so that the location will require fewer Followers to activate.

The next track is the Boatman, which will give you a Boatman and coins. Moving up the Trader track, you get a Trader and your choice of a Place Tile, which gives you an action that only you can use. Moving up the Scholar track gives you a Scholar and moves you along the Development track, which gives you coins, Citizen Tiles and an end-game multiplier. When you get a Scholar and a Trader, you can activate the Monastery location to get a monk, which acts as a wild for placement.

Lastly, you can spend Followers at the Scriptorium to move up the Development track, or sacrifice Followers in the Town Hall. When you activate the Town Hall, these Followers go to the Town Hall board permanently and where you place them, you gain either coins or movement up the Development track. When you place the last Follower on a Town Hall location, you get a Citizen Tile.

At the top of your player board are three locations: Ship, Wagon and Guildhall. Activating these locations will move your meeple on the map on the main board. Ship allows you to move through waterways and gain an available resource. Wagon allows you to move through the brown paths and gain a resource. Guildhall allows you to build a trading post where your meeple is. Only one trading post can be built in each city, except in Orleans, where everybody can build one. The player with the most trading posts at the end of the game gains a Citizen Tile.

After everybody has run out of actions and all new and used Followers are returned to each player’s bag, the event is resolved. If you cannot pay an event’s requirements, you must endure Torture. For every missing coin you can replace it with any combination of a Trading Station, a Follower from your bag, a Development point, a good, a Place Tile or a Technology Tile. Then the first-player marker is passed to the left and game play continues for 18 rounds.

Citizen Tiles are end-game bonuses and are also found along the Development, Boatman and Knight tracks. Scoring at the end is based on your goods (each good has a different point value) and your coins (which is 1 VP per coin). You also score the sum of your trading posts and Citizen Tiles, which is then multiplied by your score on the Development track. The person with the highest total of all these things wins the game.

This game is quickly becoming a game-night favorite, and those I game with most often enjoy it as well! The rounds go oh so quickly, and it’s seriously fun agonizing over where to place your Followers while being frustrated that you didn’t draw the right ones out of the bag. Oh how I wish I had more monks that I pulled out of the bag!

Anyway, who out there has played this game, and do you enjoy it as much as I do?