Whether you are a wine lover or not, Viticulture is one of those games you definitely must have heard of, if you are into games since the previous decade. It was first published back in 2013 and was re-implemented in its final edition (the Essential edition) in 2015. The game uses “worker placement” as its core mechanic, taking you through the whole process of producing wine from planting vines, to gathering the grapes, making and aging wine and finally fulfilling wine orders in order to become the most sucessful wine-maker in the area. The game takes place in pre-modern Italy where you find yourself having inherited a vineyard from your parents, including some plots of land, some workers, an old crushpad and a tiny cellar. Through proper management of your resources and manipulation of visitors, your aim is to produce the best wine in Italy and win the most victory points.
The game is played with 1 to 6 players, 14+ age and lasts 45 to 90 minutes. The Essential edition includes the second edition of Viticulture along with several elements from the Tuscany expansion pack, hand-picked by the reknowned designer Uwe Rosenberg.
Viticulture utilizes the four seasons of the year to go through various stages of wine making. In spring players decide the schedule of their workers. An early wake-up schedule gives you the opportunity to act earlier in the game and place your workers first on the most valuable spaces on the board. However, deciding to act later grants you better bonuses. In summer, players allocate workers in places on the board where they can plant vines and construct buildings to help them advance their installations. In Fall players invite visitors to help their workers. In Winter players allocate workers in places on the board where they can harvest grapes, make wine, fulfil wine orders and train more workers.
Let’s go through our usual scoring categories:
Components:
I am always excited to open a Stonemaier game as its components are every single time top-notch and Viticulture is no exception. I was pleasantlty surprised when I saw the game’s box, as I was expecting something much bigger however what I saw was a rather small box. Space is valuable when talking about board games and having an extensive collection of games always causes a headache from an organizational point of view. Viticulture’s box fortunately won’t take that much space in your library.
The box contains a nice insert that fits all game’s components and has extra space maybe for an expansion.
The game board has a normal to small size, utilizing every inch with valuable information and a wonderful depiction of your vineyard and the surrounding area. The spaces where you allocate workers are beautifully designed with pictures depicting the actual places: fields, roads and various housing in pastel colours.
The player mats are equally beautiful depicting your fields and structures and have adequate space to place your harvested grapes and bottles of wine.
The cards of the game are made of glossy durable paper that could even do without sleeves (although i used sleeves just in case). The various available structures have their own special wooden figure but some of them resemble each other making it difficult to distinguish (i.e. the medium and large cellar) . The grapes and wine bottles are represented both with the same glass beads. I wish real tiny bottles were used to represent the wines you produce. The glass beads seem ok to use as grapes but isn’t very representative to use as wine bottles too. I guess cost-related limitations led to this decision, however I think that using separate tokens would really elevate the whole feel of the game.
The game money is made of thick cardboard but there are also metallic coins available at the Stonemaier games’ e-shop.
9/10
Gameplay:
Viticulture is a typical worker placement game with a wine making theme but it also has some special features that you may appreciate:
First of all the use of the four seasons is a deviation from most worker placement games where worker placement takes place in a single phase. In Viticulture, rounds play the role of years in wine-making and each year is cleverly divided in seasons when specific actions can be done. Workers are actually placed only in summer and winter and most importantly, you can use them only once per year. That means that if you play all of your workers in summer, you won’t have any left to play in winter. Therefore, cautious planning ahead is needed in order to make the most out of your workers. You start out with a grande worker and 2 regular workers but in the course of the game you can train additional regular workers, reaching a total of five.
Wake-up schedule (or actually turn order) is a very clever feature of the game. Players will alternate as in every game being first but not actually to play but to decide when they want to play. Everyone, regardless turn order, comes to get a bonus. Even more so, the later you decide to play, the greater your bonus will be. Having said that, It’s important to have a specific plan of play, so you can choose which bonus suits you best. Towards the end of the game you will find it more useful to play earlier because actions on the board that help you generate your last victory points, such as wine making and fulfillment of wine orders will be very popular.
Visitor cards are extremely helpful in this game because they can help you achieve your goals easily and give you a great boost if played wisely. That said, not everyone will have the same benefit from these cards and luck will play its role in what cards you happen to draw.
I like the fact that there are more than one different paths to success in this game for example planting many vines and investing in structures or selling early your 3rd field in order to have more money. Each player can experiment with different strategies and find out which suits him/her best.
The essential edition of the game includes an interesting addition, the “Mamas & Papas”. These are cards that depict your starting resources, based on who your mama and papa are. Mama cards define the number of regular workers you start with and number and type of cards. Papa defines your starting money, the presence of the big worker and a bonus to choose between two.
The solo mode is quite pleasing having a simple but also effective way of playing.
8/10
Learning Curve:
Viticulture has pretty straight-forward rules, however you need to play at least a few rounds to fully understand every aspect of the game. Moreover you need to play at least one game in order to understand its depth and grasp the strategic opportunities that lie in each way of play. The rulebook is very well-written, with many examples and explains everything with clarity.
6/10
Theme:
Viticulture is certainly one of the most thematic worker placement game out there. It actually feels like making wine while playing this game. This feeling is achieved through the wonderfully designed board that depicts every aspect of the wine-making process and the actions themselves. Every step of real wine-making is here from planting the vines, to harvesting the grapes, processing them in the crush pad, make wine and store it in a cellar to finally selling wine. What else would you ask from a wine-making game?
From a thematic point of view, visitor cards feel a bit awkward, since visitors of a vineyard would never actually help the establishment with its wine-making chores. On the contrary, other possible actions in the game, like taking the visitors on a tour and gaining some money from that feel completely logical.
9/10
Replayability:
Viticulture is one of the most interesting and enjoyable worker placement games on the market. You will find yourself wanting to play many games in order to experiment with different strategies and approaches to the game and you will be entertained in the process. This game also has the ideal duration for a core game in a board game night session. A game with a duration between 60 and 90 minutes is probably what an average board gamer will want to play and Viticulture fits in. Its theme is special and will appeal to many players who are looking for something out of the ordinary. The solo mode provides and enjoyable option for the lonely nights and can help you understand the game better and develop your strategies taking your time to think about the best play each round.
8/10
Player interaction:
Unfortunately Viticulture is one of those games where each players draws his own path to glory without intervention from other players. But if you think about it, it makes perfect sense from a thematical point of view. You are making wine and you want to develop the most successful vineyard in the area. You wouldn’t want to sabotage other nearby vineyards in order to do so, would you? The closest thing to player interaction you can find in this game is occupying action spaces on the board, this way blocking your opponents from access to them.
5/10
Final thoughts:
Viticulture is of the best worker placement games out there, highly thematic with wonderful components and challenging gameplay. It is targeted to somewhat experienced gamers and it offers some really innovative mechanics, not seen in other worker placement games. Highly recommended overall.
Recommended for: Avid board gamers!
According to our scoring system for board games, scoring categories have different weights. Components have 13% weight, Gameplay 35%, Learning curve 6%, Theme 5%, Replayability 26%, Player Interaction 15%. According to this system and the above scoring in each category, overall weighted scoring of the game is:
Overall: 7.62
