Meeple on Board Rating
Be the first to review this product.Board Game Geek Reviews
Be the first to review “Altiplano”
You must be logged in to post a review.
You must be logged in to post a review.
Altiplano, a bag-building game along the lines of Orléans set in the South American highlands of the Andes — the Altiplano — is not a simple game, presenting players with new challenges time and again. There are various ways to reach the goal, so the game remains appealing to try out new options and strategies, but success or failure also depends on whether your opponents let you do as you like or thwart the strategy you are pursuing. The competition for the individual types of goods is considerable — as is the fun in snatching a coveted extension card from under another player’s nose!
Each player starts with a unique role tile, giving them access to different goods and methods of production. Players have limited access to production at the start, but they can acquire additional production sites throughout the game that give new options. The numerous goods — such as fish, alpaca, cacao, silver or corn — all have their own characteristics and places where they can be used. For example, while silver can be sold for a high price at the market, fish can be exchanged for other goods at the harbor and alpaca can produce wool that can then be made into cloth at the farm.
Aside from building up an effective production, players must fulfill their orders at the right time, develop the road in good time and store their goods cleverly enough to fill their warehouses in the most valuable way. Often, a good warehouse keeper is more relevant in the end than the best producer.
Ages | 12+ |
---|---|
Players | 2 Players, 3 Players, 4 Players, 5 Players |
Play Time | 60m – 120m |
Designer | Reiner Stockhausen |
Mechanics | Action Points, Contracts, Deck, Bag, and Pool Building, Variable Player Powers |
Theme | Economic |
Publisher | Angry Lion Games, Arrakis Games, Baldar, dlp games, GaGa Games, Giochix.it, Meeple BR Jogos, Pixie Games, Surfin' Meeple China, White Goblin Games, Arclight, Reflexshop, Renegade Game Studios |
baddice
Thoughts after three games, all two player. This has gone down well with Mrs B and myself, playing in about an hour and 15 minutes. I've never played Orleans, by the same designer, so can't compare it with that, but it has obvious similarities with deck builders. A key difference here is that you are drawing a certain number of counters per turn and can in effect “park” ones you don't immediately use on your player board. This means that you can plan ahead for a particular combo, it doesn't have to come up in the same hand. The game amounts to a competition to build the most efficient machine, which you can do by increasing the number of counters you draw each turn, the number of moves your meeple can make between the board locations, or by selling goods for money that can be used to buy additional action options. But if you focus too much on these choices you'll fall behind an opponent who's busy using cheap goods to get more valuable ones. These in turn help you to complete order cards and rows in your warehouse. Both these moves can produce lots of VPs but you need to judge carefully when to carry them out, especially early in the game, because doing so will remove the necessary counters from your supply. There are some fine balances to be weighed. There's no direct player confrontation but it's not multi-player solitaire – there's competition for the dwindling resources which becomes crucial towards the end of the game as you find yourself needing the last cloth or silver or whatever to complete a high-scoring order card or warehouse row. Your ability to get it might depend on something as basic as having one more food counter, itself worth 0 VPs, that lets you make one more meeple move. That makes for a tense endgame. Rating increased to 8.5 after more two and four player games. I had to increase it on account of the number of requests to play it's getting. Some critics have called it multi-player solitaire, and one even said that there was so little player interaction they took their actions simultaneously rather than going round the table. This is wrong. In most games I play you'll hear the cry “I wanted that” as one player takes a card or last resource token wanted by another. Admittedly this is infrequent, but it happens often enough to make it important to plan for something you need. If it is multi-player solitaire then it is only in the sense that the Olympics 100 metres is multi-player solitaire: the runners might not actually be trying to trip each other but their success is measured against their competitors. Same in Altiplano: there's no take-that, but you'll only win if your engine is working better than that of anyone else.
adamredwoods
4 plays / 3,4 players LIKE: The best part is the game's end timer: it's dependent on the players, and fairly easy to run it out quickly, making for an interesting game. Who will end it and which turn? With that mechanism the game can be tight, which I enjoyed. The resource economy feels tighter than Orleans, and the stockhouse is a great mechanism. Several paths to victory-- gaming the stockhouse, the orders, or the premium goods, or even a combination of those. DISLIKE: Largely solitaire, but the game timer and resource depletion makes for some interference. I don't think the timer would be as prominent with 2 players. OVERALL: I liked it, but it is indeed similar to Orleans. Although, it may play a bit faster than Orleans. Worthy of owning both? I don't think so, because the differences are minor.
Ajax
Same rating as [b]Orleans[/b] right now, but may have the potential to surpass it. It improves on its older brother with the "building market" and other small ways. You get to build a good, meaty engine, but like [b]Orleans[/b], you need to commit to it strongly by about halfway through the game. Loooong game for me, but fun the whole way through. Still, a great design and good production quality. Made even better with those GeekUp bits!