Introduction/Background
Louis XIV is a beautifully produced, engaging, and competitive game set in the 17th Century court of Louis XIV, the infamous Sun King. Mystery Bob and I have played enough times that I now feel comfortable to rate and review this game by Rudiger Dorn, published by Rio Grande Games. I purchased my copy new, but opened, through Ebay a couple of months ago. We have logged in four plays as of this date, all 2-player with the official 2-player variant that utilizes a 3rd “dummy” player.

Goal of Review
In trying to provide a fresh review, and not a restatement of the rules and gameplay, I will focus on what we have found enjoyable and not enjoyable based on our 2-player games. If I were researching this game, I would like to find a review that provides helpful information on the attributes of the game instead of a play-by-play description (which in the case of Louis XIV can tend to be confusing, cumbersome, and not reflective of the actual game experience).

What we Like
Components:
The components are beautifully produced and have an acceptable quality. The initial “board” is easy to set up, and we pack the components away in the reverse order that they are placed on the board, which makes the set-up even faster. The rulebook has a handy summary in the page margins for quick reference. It also contains historical data on the personages showcased in the game.

Gameplay:
This is a fixed length game consisting of four rounds, with each round consisting of four distinct phases. Each phase flows quickly and intuitively. The Influence phase (2nd phase) is the meat of the game and where you want to carefully calculate your different possible strategies. I say “different possible strategies” because you need to be prepared to react to your opponents’ moves and include flexibility in preparing your gameplan. We also like that the winning conditions change each round for the characters (only if there was a clear winner for that board), so that you don’t always have to have a majority or pay bribes in order to obtain that character’s reward/favor.

The Louis XIV figure on a game board makes the reward conditions more attractive for the winners and losers. This is another factor that you need to keep in mind, and since his location changes each round you are not stuck in a rut of sameness that I feel would kill any game. Luckily, the game offers several ways to earn VP’s which are not always sought by your opponents in every round. We like the fact that you need to prepare different strategic goals for the different rounds as well as keeping an eye on how many VP’s your opponent has accumulated. Your brain gets a workout because you need to keep a lot of different goals in mind: your secret missions’ winning conditions, saving gold, obtaining extra turns (via winning the extra Influence card), acquiring your mission bonuses, sacrificing an Influence card to recover influence markers, and when to play your Intrigue cards.

Although it seems like a lot to remember, the four different phases and the successive rounds break up your thinking, and it’s very enjoyable thinking. There are lots of things to keep track of and many times the most obvious strategies are not the best ones to follow.

Winning Conditions and End Game:
The winning conditions are balanced, rewarding careful planning and completing missions. Converting your extra cards, chips, gold, and influence markers (on a game board) to shield/VP’s adds an element of luck and surprise to the end game scoring. However, in our games, a large margin of completed missions usually determines the winner.

Replayability Factor and Number of Players:
We find this game to have a high replayability factor due to the various and flexible strategies that can be utilized as well as the fixed game length (a real plus for us right now, as we don’t have the time to play games that drag on too long). For 2 players, you utilize a 3rd “dummy” player that is very unobtrusive to the game flow and also adds extra competitiveness by influencing up to four different character cards during each Influence phase. I would venture to guess that more players would only add to the enjoyment of this game, but would like to stress that it is very good with just 2.

What we did NOT Like
Components:
The cards, which are outlined in black, are showing signs of wear on the edges after only four plays!!! I did see a suggestion here on BGG of how to deal the cards in stacks on a table instead of shuffling—which will take care of my other negative—the cards are very difficult to shuffle properly.

The rulebook is another negative as it needs to be studied and digested in order to be fully comprehended. Again, the wonderful player aids here on BGG are great to have on the table to refer to during the game.

Gameplay:
We find the luck factor of drawing the mission cards just a bit high for our taste as well as the often mentioned randomness presented by the shields. But these are also balancing factors that we are more than willing to overlook and thus far, they haven’t affected the outcome of our games. In addition, we also find that some of the rewards on the mission cards are useless, so it can be quite frustrating to draw one of those missions especially in the early rounds.

Winning Conditions and End Game:
No negatives for us so far in this category.

Replayability and Number of Players:
Also no negatives for us here.

In Conclusion
We really enjoy Louis XIV and it is our highest rated games of those we have played. We are always interested in playing it and are always looking forward to its many and multifaceted challenges. A definite winner for us and lots of fun, we highly recommend it!!!

Embarrassing Confession
For many months we had totally discounted this game because we did not like the theme—seeking favors and bribing the French court(?!) After a suggestion from a BGG-er, we researched it a bit more and finally bought it. Boy, are we ever glad that we did!! So, if the theme is what is stopping you from playing, we can vouch for the fact that the game supersedes the somewhat uninteresting theme and is definitely worth playing!!