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In the late 18th century, the Industrial Revolution starts. The first factories were founded by businessmen like Richard Arkwright, who ran the first factory for spinning wool with machines like the “Spinning Jenny” and the water frame.
In “Arkwright: The Card Game”, you run a business and will employ workers in your different factories to produce and sell goods. The more workers, the more goods that can be sold — but be prepared for crises and some stiff competition.
The game is played over three decades (1770/1780/1790), split up into four rounds per decade. On your turn, you play new cards from your hand to open factories and upgrade existing ones, select improvements, improve factory quality, build machines, and employ new workers. You can also pay money to improve your shareholdings, and take out loans if you require more money for production costs. After the actions phase, you can improve your abilities by advancing your development markers on your player board, or take one of the available development cards.
Then, the production phase starts, where every player who owns a factory of the current good produces those goods. The market fluctuates with the general demand, so the demand may be lower than the value of your current good, lowering your profit. Workers must be paid, and machines need regular maintenance, so you can possibly lose money instead of turning a profit. Selling enough of one good improves your share value, and there are bonuses for having the highest appeal. Lastly, if you can’t sell your goods to the home market, you can ship them overseas or store them for future rounds.
After the final round of the last decade, the game ends. Players then sell all goods left in their storehouses, reduce the number of shares they hold by the number of loans they took, and reduce their share value based on their personal shipping track. Each player then multiplies the number of their shares by their share value to determine their end score. The player with the highest end score wins the game.
—description from the publisher
Ages | 12+ |
---|---|
Players | Solo, 2 Players, 3 Players, 4 Players |
Play Time | 60m – 100m |
Designer | Stefan Risthaus |
Mechanics | Loans, Market, Stock Holding |
Theme | Card Game, Industry / Manufacturing |
Publisher | Eagle-Gryphon Games, Game Brewer, Lotus Frog Games, OSTIA Spiele, Rawstone, TLAMA games, Maldito Games |
dietevil
After playing and loving Arkwright we wanted to give the card game a try. Honestly, I don't know why it exists. It's neither super short nor significantly simpler than the original, it's far less interactive (in fact, our 2p game was completely non-interactive) and it was extremely painful on my eyes. Trying to figure out which cards were what, the iconography (many VERY TINY icons), highly sub-ideal rules, and I was far more exhausted after playing this than after learning and playing the original. Just play the original.
Frankie95
This game currently goes for about £20 on the Geek Market which is a travesty given the quality of the components and the thought that has gone into the design. At the same time it's a dog of a game to grok and it's so fiddly!! You have to slide cards under your factories so the game spills all over the table. Hard to play. Hard to want to get rid of. Will grit my teeth and persevere (has a fully fledged solo mode).
freechinanow
I've never played the larger board game of Arkwright, but I can assume from my experience with the card game that it is a good distillation. Yes, it can feel very much like a game where you're just manipulating a spreadsheet. But if you're into well-designed economic puzzles, I can thoroughly recommend Arkwright TCG. I would admit that there is probably more tension in the game if you aren't brilliant at the math behind it, as you're at times gambling with opening new factories and adding workers, hoping that you will be able to pay all the costs by the end and still come out ahead. Purely mathematical players may still enjoy themselves, but find the tension is lacking if you're able to generally forecast your earnings. The beginner's setup is great for learning, but the expert variants add different Development cards each game, which will add the needed variety. I don't think I'll ever have the time or patience to play the larger version, so this fits nicely with my smaller collection of mid-weight economic games.