So I think 🍇Viticulture 🍇 doesn’t need much introduction. It’s probably one of the most known euros and worker placement games out there. At least I heard it mentioned hundreds of times in the past, so it was high time for us to finally try it. 🙃 To be honest I always had some fears that it would be perhaps too simple, too bare bone. But after finishing our first game I understood the charm and the satisfaction of the core gameplay loop. 👍
It is one of those games where there is one main way to score points, and that is to fulfil wine orders. ☝️ To do these orders you need to draw order cards and have wine. To have the wine you need a big enough cellar and grapes. To build the cellar you need money, and to have grapes you need to grow and harvest them on your fields. For this you need vine cards to plant. So there’s this whole wine manufacturing process that you keep repeating during the game – which sounds a bit monotonous, and this was the source of my fear that I mentioned. 🤔
I believe the tightness of the game helps with this aspect. Especially in 2p it’s really tight, as each location only has one spot for a worker. So you keep gunning for the most important actions and pivoting every minute as spots get taken. 🧐 The linear process of wine making becomes more of a puzzle as you do separate steps of it in different sequences.
The most important mechanic though in my opinion are the visitor cards. These really elevate the gameplay and give you alternate ways using your workers, and are also a nice source of victory points. There is a large spectrum of effects that add to the fun and the replayability. Unfortunately you can only play these with a worker action, and the spot will get taken quickly. 😅
I also love how the value of grapes and wine grow with passing rounds – it is both a nice thematic integration and an interesting mechanic you need as a tool. 😊 Your vineyards usually won’t be able to produce high enough value grapes so you might need to create a barrel of wine and wait a few rounds to be able to fulfil a complex order.
In the end Viticulture is a lot more fun than you would expect after reading the rulebook! 🥰
❓Have you played it?
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