Name: Troyes
Designer:Sébastien Dujardin, Xavier Georges, Alain Orban
# of Players: 2-4
Playtime: 90 minutes
MSRP: $55.00 CDN
Link to Rules
Synopsis: Troyes is a strategy game in which you represent a rich family from Troyes, a grand city in the Champagne region of France. You use your influence to recruit and supervise individuals from three realms of expertise: military (associated with the color red), religious (white), and civil (yellow). Each player manages a common pool of workers (represented by colored dice) to determine which activities and events they wish to utilize to improve their status in the town.
Can you manage your city better than your opponents?
This 2010 release from Z-Man Games is one of the new breed of dice pool/worker placement games. Each turn, players roll a group of dice based upon workers they have previously placed in the various buildings depicted on the board. These dice can then be used on various activities and events that come out during the round to garner additional influence and victory points. As these events and activities are drawn from a large set of cards, the game is highly replayable. An additional novelty in this particular worker placement game is that you can hire your opponents' workers by paying them with your hard earned coin. This ups the tension and interaction in the game dramatically.
Troyes is clearly a descendant of worker placement games like Caylus and dice games like Kingsburg. Like these games, they appeal to more seasoned gamers. I've found the game really begins to shine after 3 or 4 plays, as one begins to appreciate the interaction between activity cards and the possibilities with dice manipulation. I personally quite like Troyes and believe it is in the top tier of gamer games of the last year.
Darren
Tweet