It was 2016 when the successful games of Alexander Pfister such as Scythe, Star Wars: Rebellion And SeaFallbut also and above all Great Western Trail became famous not only for the numerous industry awards received, but also for having always been considered a board game that made substance the real strength compared to a rather frugal aesthetic.
It was not, in its original version, a bad game but the innovative gameplay and the intelligent mechanics of the product would certainly have deserved a greater aesthetic care by the always elegant Austrian designer. After six years of waitingfinally arrives also in Italian, by Ghenos Games, there second edition from Great Western Trail featuring a totally revisited design and even more fun gameplay.
Great Western Trail: unboxing and materials
In the introduction we talked about aesthetics and therefore we can only start the review by talking about the sales packaging and gods materials of the various game elements. The first is sturdy and elegant, but also generously sized and with a weight that is anything but low. Aesthetically, the three creepy cowboys who were staring at the player who was preparing to open the box of the first edition and now sit on their horses while their gaze is turned towards a wonderful American valley have disappeared. In the’unboxinghowever, it is possible to observe how Pfister accomplished a excellent restoration work proving that even older games can continue to improve underlining the industry’s longevity and creativity. This second edition has completely new graphics and some changes are functional as well as aesthetic. The game boardfor example, it now has two layers with spaces for tiles and discs to place them without the risk of them slipping, a huge advantage as it gets very busy at the end of the game.
Some tiles and cards now have light backgrounds instead of dark, which makes their icons easier to distinguish. THE colors on the board they are brighter and more attractive and are in stark contrast to the tiles of the private buildings which have more muted colors. By far the best artistic change, however, is the elimination of the sub-theme white men versus Native Americans present in the first edition. Now the main problems are no longer the teepees, but the bandits (who are clearly white) and the workers who are hired during the game have gone from just white men to a white man, a white woman and a black man. Representation is important and even this little visual diversity, combined with the elimination of the notion of Native Americans as an enemy, is a welcome update. It goes without saying that the game components have quite refined invoices both for the materials used, such as wood, and for attention to detail.
These qualities are no small feat considering that the number of components is truly remarkable: 1 game board, 4 herdsmen, 4 hats, 4 locomotives, 4 player cards, 4 player number tiles, 54 worker tiles, 18 danger tiles, 22 outlaw tiles, 3 cloth bags, 56 player tokens, 4 certificate tokens, 56 coins, 1 job market token, 12 trade tokens, 28 objective cards, 9 station master tiles, 92 cattle cards, 24 Simmental cattle cards, 1 Simmental market tile, 55 building tiles, 1 score pad, 1 rulebook, 1 specialization tile, 1 appendix, 15 Sam cards, 1 Sam card and 1 rulebook for solitaire mode. Each of them is stored in a very convenient organizer of plastic well carved and perfectly divided.
Are you ready to become great 19th century entrepreneurs?
Great Western Trail sees the players, from 1 to 4 and over the age of 12, take on the role of 19th century cattle owners. They compete to construct buildings, purchase livestock, hire staff and deliver in Kansas City. The goal of the game is collect the most victory points, which can be done in various ways throughout the game. The most important part of the journey as a livestock farmer is your own play area. The personal dashboard shows a series of auxiliary actions, the actions to be performed in one’s turn, the certificates received and one’s work team.
Taking a shift is quick and easy: you must move your cowboy up to the number of steps allowed on the player board. After finishing the move, the actions available on the space in which you stopped must be performed. The actions which can be undertaken range from buying and selling livestock, hiring employees from the labor market, placing buildings along the trail, trading and eliminating bandits. The last stop on the route is Kansas City, where you can perform five actions indicated on the game board. The first three are the filling of commercial areas and the supply of workers. The fourth is the delivery of your cattle to Kansas City and the fifth is the shipment of the same by your train in the wild west.
There herd it is represented by a small deck of cards the same for each player from the beginning of the game. As in any deck building game, each player will optimize the cards in hand by buying higher value cows from the markets and adding them to their deck. The cow cards They come in nine different colors, with gray Jersey cows being the least valuable and purple Texas Longhorns being the most expensive. The problem is that at the time of sale each player will only profit from the single cow in their hand and this forces players to sell any duplicates upfront in exchange for a small amount of money and the opportunity to buy more cows.
Cattle can be delivered to any space along the tracks that has a value equal to or less than the total, but one of the most important things to do during the game is place buildings on the board. To place a building, you must move your cowboy to one of the spaces that allow you to build new buildings along the path. These buildings, indicated by the player’s color, only provide the player with special actions and force opponents to pay a toll when they pass through. Each building requires a certain number of workers and a construction cost. Once built, buildings can also be enhanced following the same procedure as for construction, but paying only one difference: for example, if you want to build a level 6 building by upgrading the level 4 building, you will have to take 2 workers and pay 4 coins. Each building also has two sides, and all players choose which sides of the buildings to use for the entire game.
Three new features of great impact
Mechanically speaking, the second edition, introduces three important changes to the original version. He adds two new private buildings To each player’s set (so each player has 12 buildings to choose from), one solitary mode it’s a mini-expansion with cows growing and improving by rewarding players for holding them.
The solo mode was developed by Steve Schlepphorst and it works more like a timer than a real opponent. The “fictional” player, Sam, has a deck of 15 movement / action cards that you’ll need to shuffle and swipe between turns. Sam will quickly move his train along the tracks, take the most valuable cards, remove workers from the job market, occasionally buy a cow or two, and take a lot of objective cards, all of which marks as if they have been completed at the end of the game. At the same time he won’t get in the way of the real player making this more fun modebut at the same time totally different from the experience with other players.
Sam moves the game, but by setting a sort of time limit that allows you to not have infinite turns and sets a score to beat. The mini-expansion, on the other hand, introduces the cards to the market Simmental cow. These are sold as calves, with a value of one, and if you have them in your hand when you reach Kansas City, they can be replaced with a Simmental card of value two. The same goes for cards of value two, updating them to value three, which is their maximum peak. After that you are forced to send them to the slaughter, but with their value tripled. In a nutshell: those who decide not to sell their livestock immediately are rewarded.
The ugly duckling becomes a beautiful swan
Great Western Trail it is a game that must be learned thoroughly and unfortunately the regulation does not help because it is long, rich in detail and difficult to dissect. It is also not even a short game having one average duration included between 75 and 150 minutes, but it’s incredibly fun and dynamic. The various rounds are short, but require good reasoning from the players and therefore this leads to a downtime somewhat variable. The upkeep is just as smooth and only occurs when a player reaches Kansas and requires only a quick placement of the tiles and tokens. First glimpses of the game’s dense iconography and richness of components might suggest a ruthless and heavy game. However, while it’s certainly not a light game, the simple process of turn-by-turn facilitates players on the winding journey, releasing key information along the way and ensuring a good understanding of how the game works during the first few journeys.
This elegant flow of information along the journey allows players to experience a sense of satisfaction for their mastery of interlocking mechanisms and their own strategies, creating an extremely rewarding experience that you will want to try again and again. The great mix of deck building, tile placement, action management and point-to-point movement never gets too complex. Sometimes you may feel overwhelmed by choices, but ultimately every action makes sense. Great Western Trail mimics the freedom and vastness of the old west, allowing players to choose their own path to victory. You may be happy with your humble herd and choose to make a living by installing train stations, employing your workers as stationmasters to wait for the various end-game bonuses. Or you could move into the construction sector, capitalizing and making your opponents pay just passing through your buildings or entirely in the land trying to have as many high-quality cows as possible. The progress of the game is largely left in the hands of the players. You want one greater interaction with the players? Build more buildings. Do you want to finish the game quickly before someone else does? Get to Kansas ASAP!
Conclusions
Great Western Trail it’s a game really excellent worthy of a place in the collection of each of you. If you are looking for a fresh, full-bodied, not at all trivial board game that cleverly stands out from the competition, you certainly can’t go wrong with this one. tickler of the highest level. This last feature has been known since 2016, but the new year has allowed us to enjoy new graphics, better quality components, a mini-expansion and a solo mode. What more could you want? Now it is perfect both for fans of the original title and for all those who have heard of it, but did not yet know whether to buy it or not.
