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A pack of Caylus brings the players a game board, 40 building tiles, 100
wooden houses, 31 wooden pawns, 36 wooden disks, 140 wooden cubes, 40
plastic coins and the rulebook. Caylus, a strategy based board game has
an interesting blend of building, producing, planning, and bargaining.
The goal of a game of Caylus is to collect as many Prestige Points as
possible. The many ways of doing this are by constructing buildings and
by working on the castle of Caylus in medieval France. All the while two
royal agents - the bailiff and the provost - keep a watchful eye on the
progress of the work.
The players are provided with resource cubes of five varieties in five
different colors. The resources provided are food, wood, cloth, stone
and gold. Each player in Caylus is also awarded six workers who are used
for various activities like constructions, harvest and the like.
There are buildings all over the game board. Some are neutral buildings
and some are constructed by the players. All players can use all
buildings but every time another player uses a building, the player who
constructed it gets bonus points. Players also get bonus points for
placing workers in the castle of Caylus. Royal favors are also awarded
for constructing the castle of Caylus. Royal favors come in the form of
prestige points, money, resources and access to construct buildings.
Clever use of royal favors can bring in a lot of points taking the
player to victory.
The game mechanics in Caylus involves interactions that are so entwined
that players are bound to get totally involved in the game. It is only
when such absorbing role playing happens that players find themselves
able to make the necessary strategic and tactical decisions. Half
hearted attempts at game play will result in lesser accumulation of
points.
A game of Caylus can take up a lot of time. The time taken varies due to
differences in players’ response to situations. Some people just need
more time to think.
Review of Caylus
Players involved in a game of Caylus have to exercise several skills.
They need to manage their money well, employ the available resources in
a judicious manner and develop the economy of the little village of
Caylus.
As Caylus involves a lot of strategic game play, it takes a long time to
finish one game. Players enjoy these sessions and find Caylus worthy of
replay several times over. It is mostly parents who find the time taken
to play one game of Caylus, a bit too much. When one considers the kind
of skills that get honed during game play, the time taken is well worth
it. The rules involved are quite complex and it takes players a lot of
comprehension to understand and use the rules in their favor. They
should be able to recognize a situation where a rule can be used to gain
points. Those playing Caylus need to put their thinking caps on.
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