Build an epic Czech cathedral

You have probably heard of 🕍 Kutná Hora, the latest game from Czech Games Edition. If not, maybe it went under your radar due to its classical theme. Even though a lot of love and detail went into it (e.g. building illustrations match their real-life counterparts), most people will just see the typical uninspired theme: building a medieval city and a cathedral. However, Kutná Hora has some interesting mechanics and ideas, some of which I haven’t seen elsewhere before! 🙃

It’s a competitive euro for 2-4 players with a dynamic simulation of economy 📈, and a big focus on player interaction. The way the simulation works is quite ingenious! 🧐 There are 2 cardboard gizmos that will help with this - these hold decks of cards with numbers on them, and they have tabs for the various resources that will point at different values. As you construct new guild buildings that raise the production of a resource, supply goes up, which means the prices go down ➡️ which you show by pulling on the matching cardboard tab. As new people move into the town and population increases, so does demand, so the prices go up ➡️ which you track by flipping to the next card in the gizmo. This all works fluently, and has an impact on the players’ strategy.

Even though the game revolves around these 6 resources and their guilds, interestingly you won’t gather any of them. Instead you always just collect or spend the value of things in coins, depending on their current prices. This involves a fair amount of arithmetics, so be prepared for that! 😅

I definitely want to mention the action selection, because that is what first spoke to me. ☝️ It’s simple and elegant. You have 6 cards, each depicting 2 possible actions. On your turn you have to play 2 cards and pick an action from each, and every 3rd turn you only play 1 card and discard the last one. As you use cards, you will sacrifice other potential actions, so each round is riddled with compelling choices.

There is more to say but for now let’s leave it here: Even if the theme of Kutná Hora doesn’t seem unique at first, the mechanics do shine bright, and it brings something new to the table.