Architekton is a cute little, two-player tile laying game that, at first, bears a strong resemblence to Carcassonne. Trust me, that resemblence is a lie. More than that, the cute part is a lie. Architekton might look a cute, little puppy but it’s really a wolf that’ll try to bite your hand off. There are some very good parts of this game but there are some serious flaws as well.

Architekton comes in Queen’s small size box, the same as Rat Hot or Fjords. The box is, honestly, too tall for convenient storage purposes and could be smaller. It is pretty sturdy, though. If you manage to destroy the box, it’s because you were trying to or you stored it under Starcraft.

The game is made up of three different kinds of pieces: Little wooden houses in two different colors (black and white), tiles, and point chips. The tiles are further broken down into landscape tiles and building tiles.

Since this is a tile laying game, the tiles are really the most important part. If you lost the houses or point chips, you could replace them with coins or meeples from another game but if you lose the tiles, you’re going to have to get another copy.

The landscape tiles each show one single kind of landscape: grass, dirt, forest or water. The building tiles, on the other hand, have a classic looking Roman villa on them and each side has one of the four different landscapes. They generally don’t have all four types but some kind of combination. As a side notes, I am seriously colorblind but the textures of the four landscape are different enough that I have no problems telling them apart.

The theme of the game is that you are playing two rival Roman archetects/landscapers. The apparent goal of the game is the build the most valuable villas in the best locations. The real goal of the game is to try and wipe your opponent off the face of the map.

You start the game out by each player taking all of the houses of one color, as well as one point chip. After dividing the tiles into their two types and shuffling them, you then create a reserve of four tiles of each kind, face down so no one knows what they are. The top two landscape tiles are flipped over and put catty corner to form the starting board. Then, the top three of each type of tile are flipped over to create the draw pile.

On your turn, you get to place two of the tiles on the board. They can be either landscape or building. However, you can’t have two tiles of the same type sharing a side, so the board will become a quilt pattern. Similar to Carcassonne, at least one edge must match when you place the tile. You can’t place a tile diagonal to the board but as long as one side matches, you don’t have to match the others.

If you place a building tile, then you must place one of your houses on it. This is not like Carcassonne where you get a choice in the matter. No, if you put down a building a tile, then you are claiming it, whether you want to or not.

After you turn is done, you then fill up the draw pile so your opponent has three of each kind of tile to pick through as well.

Ah, but what happens if one of your villas is completely surrounded, be it on your turn or your opponent’s? I’m glad you asked. If all four sides match the landscapes around them, you get a point chip. However, for every side that doesn’t match, you instead lose a point chip. If you would like, you can choose to take your house off the tile, which reduces the penality by one point. If you cannot pay the penalty, the game automatically ends and you are the loser.

If the game doesn’t end that way, it will end when you run out of tiles from the two stacks you’ve been drawing from and have to use the reserve tiles that you set aside at the beginning. Each player is still going to get the same number of turns. There are enough tiles in the reserve so if the first player has to breach the reserves, the second player is still guarenteed six tiles to pick from.

After the last tiles have been placed, you then remove all the houses that aren’t surrounded on at least three sides. Each player then gets points equal to their largest group of diagonally connected houses. Whoever has the most points at that point is the winner and will get all the lucrative archetectual gigs in ancient Rome.

Well, that’s how you play the game. Let’s talk about the game itself.

Apart from China/Web of Power, I have never fallen in love with any of Martin Schacht’s designs. I enjoy Paris Paris and Rat Hot and California. Someday, I will play Hansa and Zoolereto and I expect to like them. However, his games usually don’t set me on fire. Architekton doesn’t set me on fire either.

That said, Shacht does do a very good job designing games. I am always left with a strong sense of solid craftsmanship with his games. There are a number of design choices in Architekton that I like, in particular how the reserve tiles make sure that each player gets the same number of turns. I also like the balance of removing a house to save a point versus saving that house for the endgame scoring.

Before you buy the game, there are some things you have to consider. First off, there are only 22 building tiles and 24 landscape tiles (the extra two are used to create the starting board.) The board is going to be smaller than a lot of tile laying games and the game is going to be shorter than you probably expect. Architekton tends to be a fast game. That’s not necessarily a bad thing but you should know that thirty minutes is a long game of Architekton.

Second, this is a nasty game. A lot of the gameplay of Architekton is about screwing your opponent. You want to do your best to make sure he or she is losing points for his houses. You want to end the game early by dropping them into the negatives. Your moves are going to be about either protecting yourself or hurting the other guy.

This leads me to what I feel is the biggest flaw in the game. I think Architekton works well as long as both players are playing nasty. It becomes a tight, aggressive game with a lot of tactical play. However, if the players do not play agressively, if they leave each other alone, I feel that the game falls apart.

While most of my games have been nasty and fun, a friend who also owned the game told me that the game didn’t have enough point chips. It seems that in his games, they had actually run out, something I had never been in danger of. More than that, he told me that he had found the game to be pretty boring. I can very easily see his point.

There are some games, like Caracassonne, where you can play nice and the game still has enough interesting choices to be fun. I don’t think Architekton is one of those games. If you aren’t playing rough, then I think the game loses most of its zing. The wrong playing style can really hurt the gameplay. You can say that about any game but I think that it’s a lot easier for Architekton to break down.

With that said, even though I enjoy Architekton, I can only reluctantly recommend it. There are better two player games out there and there are better Martin Shacht games out there. Architekton can be a fun game but there are many other games that handle a greater degree of playing styles much better.