It’s the height of fashion and you are one of the top tailors in all of France. Louis XV reigns and his extravagant ball is where anyone who is anyone will be seen and you need to be ready to show off your wares. Your Frocks and Gowns are the talk of the wealthy and they are ready to buy and display your beautiful works on this most wonderful night. It’s up to you to prove that you have what it takes to to be the most distinguished of all the tailors in France and be the best that the Rococo Era has to show!
Rococo Deluxe Edition is published by Eagle-Gryphon Games and is designed by Matthias Cramer, Louis Malz and Stefan Malz. Art and Graphic Design by Ian O’Toole. It plays 1-5 players.
Overview
In Rococo Deluxe Edition players are individual tailors who are trying to increase their prestige. You control a variety of employees who allow you to perform actions and some even have extra bonus actions. As the game progresses you attempt to earn Prestige points over seven rounds and be the winner with the most points at the end of the game!
Gameplay
Each player begins with a starting hand of 5 employee cards along with a resource tile rack, player board, trademark tokens in their color and one each of the lace and thread tokens. Each player also starts with 15 Livre (gold).
Rococo is played over 7 rounds. Each round consists of 4 phases that are as follows:
- Prepare for a new round
- Select 3 employee cards
- Perform actions
- Receive Income
Phase 1-Prepare for a new Round
Here players will prep everything that needs refilled from the end of the previous round. The first player is determined if anyone took the Queen Favor token. New resource tiles, garment tiles and employee cards are placed on the board as well.
Phase 2-Select 3 Employee cards
Each player will start with 5 cards of employees. The employees range from Master (gold), Journeyman (silver) and Apprentice (bronze). Each of these employee cards will be able to perform a certain amount of main actions along with their bonus action. Each player will choose three of these employees into their hand at this time. If you have less than three in your face-down pile you will bring all discarded face-up employees over to the draw pile and select what you need from there to finish up to a hand of three.
This phase is important to plan out at least a few rounds ahead, as you progress into he game and gain more employees you will see the need to make sure you know when the employee you need is coming up for the round and when the best time to use one would be.
Phase 3-Perform Actions
In phase 3, each player will play one employee card at a time going clockwise around the table. This is where the majority of the game will be played. The main action must be played before the bonus action on all employee cards. There are six main actions and the level of the employee card determine if that employee may play out an action or not. The Master can do them all, the Journeyman cannot do the Hire a new employee action and the Apprentice cannot do the Hire, Tailor or claim the Queen’s Favor actions.
Each of the six actions are available each turn for a player based on the employee chosen, then their bonus action is available. Once a player has done both of these steps the card is discarded face-up and turn passes to the left. The different actions include:
-Claim the Queen’s Favor. Here a player takes the starting token for the next round and also gains 5 coins immediately. If you control this token at the end of the game you also will earn 3 victory points.
-Acquire Resources. With this action players will obtain a resource in silk from the board from any of the drawers available. Each silk token costs a certain amount based on the amount of tokens remaining on the board in that particular drawer. A player will either place the silk in their tile track or immediately discard it for the resource pictured on the bottom of three and/or lace.
-Tailor a Garment. You may tailor one garment from the design patterns on display on the board with this action. To do so, players will pick one and pay the cost for the pattern along with the required resources. Once constructed, you can choose to either sell the dress for the live amount listed or rent it to a guest attending the ball. If rented, you place it in one fo the 5 Halls on the board and gain bonuses if applicable.
-Hire a New Employee. Here players will pay to hire a new employee from the market and pay the amount listed based on the cards remaining. The employee will go directly into your hand and may be used this round, thus giving you an extra turn during the round.
-Depute an Employee. This will remove the card from the game, sending your employee off to work in the King’s court. You will gain the coins listed on the card and you may then use the bonus action of that employee one more time if there is one listed.
-Fund a Decoration. Finally you may pay to fund any of the decorations, musicians or statues on the board as well. You pay the money amount shown and add one of your tokens to claim it. You may also fund a spot in the kitchen, but only one on each side. The kitchen funding allows you to increase your income in the next phase.
Phase 4-Collect Income
In the last phase, players will go until everyone has played all of their employee cards. Then each player collects a base income of 5 livre plus any bonuses from he kitchen tokens they may have claimed. These will give more coins based on claimed decorations or dresses made for that player. This is a great way to make residual income that keeps paying off as your tailoring business grows.
The game is played for 7 rounds and then at the end of the final round prestige (victory) points are determined. All halls are aware majority for first and second most garments, live are converted to prestige points, statues are scored and all trademark tokens of a player’s color are scored as well. The fireworks display is unique here in that it allows you to move one or more of your dresses in the main ballroom up to watch the display if you have funded a fireworks section on the top. Careful planning for which garments are there can make a big difference in points, as these locations can double or triple the point total of one garment.
The game ends with all the points totaled and the player with the most prestige points will be declared the winner!
Impressions
What could be better:
The main board. I love the artwork here (more on that soon) but when it comes to the main game board it is very busy for a new player. It is hard for players to concentrate on the info on the board because of how vibrant and full the art is. Like I said, I love the art but for a new player be ready to need to repeat the details on the board frequently as they try to identify the details and determine what all is going on. So if anything I would have liked to see it be just a little bit less busy as it does provide a small barrier to players I am trying to get to check it out for the first time.
Storage. Maybe it is just me but it is hard to fit all of the extra dresses and items into the box perfectly. I love all of the different country dresses for the expansion but it is hard to get everything into the box well. It all closes but I would have liked to see something more like On Mars has where all of the bits are well stored with areas for them all.
What I liked:
The artwork. The quality that Ian O’Toole puts in is the gold standard in these games. I love that Eagle-Gryphon went to him to reimagine this work and really give us a new perspective on a familiar game. The detail is superb and although new players do struggle a bit with the details of the board it is one that you will really enjoy looking at as it sits on the table. The box stands out, the art on the components is all beautiful and fits the design and theme of the game so well. This game is another example of work recently from Eagle-Gryphon that I could totally see hanging on a wall in a frame.
Iconography. Once again Eagle-Gryphon nails the details on the icons of this game wonderfully. Once you get a rhythm for what the different symbols are and what they stand for, it all falls in to place easily. I found players who were new to the game were able to pick things up quickly and when teaching the game it made it easier to recall similar symbols as they appeared. Even little things like the different colors for the livre to designate when you either gained or lost money was perfect.
Gameplay. Having never played the original version of this, I anticipated getting a chance to try it out. I was not disappointed in any way-this game is smooth and everything I had heard was good about it. If you are considering this one and hesitant for any reasons, don’t let it be for the play and style of this game. You will fall in love with it for sure!
Overall Impressions:
Rococo is a stunning entry into the Deluxe big box games that Eagle-Gryphon has been offering up as of late. The presentation of this one is unparalleled in style and design in the games I have played this year. The art is beautiful and the components are gorgeous-everything from the game board that deserved to be framed and hung up on a wall to the detail in the characters and the dress gowns. The lace and thread look great as well on the table and the coins are some of the best metal coins I have seen recently. There is almost nothing I could find about the presentation of this game that I don’t love. It definitely hits the high bar for the best packaging and overall presentation for anything I have played this year.
Rococo as a game is super solid as well. There is such a smoothness to it, the different actions you can pick are all pretty easy to pick up and understand, but the challenge comes not as much from the actions but making sure that you hav the right employees available at the right time. The way your deck of cards works, you need to be selecting and also leaving the right cards for yourself for the next round especially if you have more than 3 left in your draw pile. The more I play this, the more that challenge has been one I have wrestled with. Do you go with a large hand of cards? Do you keep it slim and focus on a few cards to keep them cycling each round? I don’t have the right answer, but both ways have proven different paths I have tried with success. I look forward to exploring that more with more games.
Another great thing about the gameplay for this one is the challenge is the challenge of all the different mechanics that it brings together. Not only are you trying to deal with the hand management of what card to play and when, you have to factor in resource management and set collection while also trying to gain and maintain area control. I love that there are many paths to the victory here, and if you go all in one one or spread around a bit you can still do well with your endgame. The important part is to find a few areas early on to focus with and make sure you are not in direct competition for that pathway with another player. I love the bonus actions attached to the cards as well, and learning how to time those correctly is super important when it comes to playing out your turns.
The fact that Eagle-Gryphon includes five expansions in the box is awesome as well. I look forward to exploring all of them, but the Jewelry Box expansion is a must include after you get a few plays in on this one. The variety this adds to the game makes it easier to stay away from a definitive end-game move for players as they progress forward.
Overall Rococo Deluxe Edition is one of the best games I have played this year and is quite possibly the best looking game I have gotten to the table as well. It is smooth and competitive, encouraging players to dive deep into the world of silk and lace as you strive to become the best Tailor that France has ever seen. I expect to have many more plays of this with family and friends-it is even a game I would consider teaching to a more non-experienced gamer looking for a way to broaden their gaming experiences. Do yourself a favor and find a copy of Rococo Deluxe Edition and explore the world of ballroom garments yourself at your next game night-you won’t be disappointed!
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