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Steve Berger
United Kingdom
Borough Green
Kent
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I was recently asked by a fellow geek what my feelings were about Vinhos. Below is my response, but edited into something that makes sense for a blog. This shouldn’t be used as a review of the game in terms of ‘this is how it plays’ but it can be read in terms of ‘this is what I think of it’.
What Appeals?
Vinhos rewards your play. There is the random element of the weather which impacts all players, and also the order in which the vineyard grape colour, and wine specialist cards are revealed, but almost everything else is within your control. What lies at the heart of this game is managing all elements of the game to maximise your ability to make VP. Pursuing any single strategy will cause you to suffer in other areas – trying to win each wine fair, or winning majority in the foreign export market will get you points in that field, but will cause you to suffer in other areas. Every area is finely balanced, and you need to do a bit of everything in order to achieve anything. The limitation to the number of barrels, and the aging of the wine force you to often take actions that you would rather not contemplate. The moving of the Round Marker means it is always where you don’t want it to be when you can least afford to pay for it. Do I commit a wine to the wine fair now to gain advantage of the placement slot I want to use, or do I wait for a better wine from my cellar? Do I want to use an action now to place the wine, or do I wait until the fair is called? Do I commit barrels to the foreign market for game end VP, but lose their ability to generate income that I desperately need now? Do I divest and lose the points to give me the cash to make better wines? Do I commit barrels to spaces on the manager row that tie me in to a particular strategy, and limit my options?
The impact of what other players are doing is relatively minimal, but you need to keep an eye on them especially in the game end phase. If a player commits to a fixed point on the manager row, then you may be able to restrict the number of points they can make from it. Also, you can cut off their strategy if you see it early enough, but it will hurt you if you do. This game is made up of various constituent parts, and the endgame is an often overlooked part of this. This is the point where, with experience, the game is won or lost. I don’t think there is a fixed winning approach to the game – I believe you need to go with the flow a little, and maintain a developing strategy. However, on this, my experience with this game is limited for a number of reasons, so there could be a single path every game to win. I must admit, I lost interest in Dominion after a while simply because it became so formulaic, and I find Settlers too much about maximising probability, and not enough about clever play. I have other issues with Settlers, but I’m not going into those right now!
Dry mechanics don’t bother me too much as long as they are in some way relevant. What I find hard to accept in games are complicated mechanics that detract from either the theme or the gameplay, or in the worst possible situation, both of these. Another Essen release, Mousquetaires Du Roy, suffered badly from this, in that, for a very simple premise behind the game, the mechanics were clunky and complicated, actually having little relevance to the gameplay and making the game itself grind to a halt on frequent occasions. With Vinhos, actually the mechanics are very simple. Vinhos is, according to BGG, the most complicated game in my collection. Wrong! Try playing Stronghold with it’s 2 rulebooks and terrible translation. With Vinhos, there are (like Cuba) a lot of different constituent parts you have to remember, but they make sense thematically. The Expert tiles can be used whenever they apply, but get flipped if you do, and then can’t be used for the fair. If you haven’t flipped them, and use them for the fair, you lose them. The barrels can be moved in the manager rows, but you can only do this once per phase, and you need to throw a wine to do it. This makes perfect sense – you’ve gained their interest via the wine you’ve submitted to the fair, and now in exchange for some of your wine, they can help you out. You can put a bad wine into the fair, but still come out the winner because of the influence you have over the experts. The designer somewhere makes a really good point that these fairs are a little corrupt, and it isn’t always what you make, but who you know.
What the real miracle is here is that everything you can do has a simple thematic mechanic behind it to allow it to work within the game. The overall effect is that you really feel like a winemaker. The ‘weight’ of the game, much like Caylus, isn’t learning to play it, but learning to play it well. In my last game with my son, he concentrated on making money. He produced high quality wines and went for the local hangouts to make some cash, which he finally cleared out to take the game end cash bonus slot. My concentration was on having 3 completed vineyards (2 vineyards and 1 winery), and then picking up the bonuses for that. I suffered at the hands of some really bad weather early on which wasn’t so bad for him simply because he had the wineries and enologists needed. I ran 2 estates with Cellars, and used the third for making wines for the managers. Through some careful use of the experts, I managed to draw every wine fair apart from the second, when he should have won all of those, and it came down to me having more wines at the end to manipulate the managers. Two minor negative issues from our game were a) when moving onto another player you pay them 1,000. I still can’t really get my head around this, not because I don’t understand it, but because it is indiscriminately punishing. From this I mean that you can be on your knees financially, and have to reward a richer player. It is a good idea to break strategies, and I agree with the idea of paying more, but I think I’d rather see the money go to the bank, with the logic that, because someone has got there before you, it is now more expensive to take that action. Why give the money to the player already there? Are their henchmen blocking the door? I need to see what comment, if any, the designer has made about this. The only reason I can think of is that turn order is set from lowest to highest on the fair track post the fair, so I suppose in theory this punishes the player(s) doing better at the fairs, but it tends to have the most impact when choosing a second action. But don’t misunderstand me here – this really is a minor point, and if the money went to the bank, I might well be writing here that it should go to the player! I don’t think I’ll truly understand or appreciate this mechanic until I’ve played the game as a 4-player. The second issue is the difference between 1st and 2nd at the fair isn’t enough in a 2 player. Easy enough to house rule, but I really don’t like having to do that. But these are really minor complaints. One other comment is that an experienced player should win hands down, but I’ve always taken this as a sign of a good game, and it is something that applies for most of my top rated games. Brass and Caylus are really good examples of this, and that is pretty good company for any game to be in.
On that subject, I truly believe that Vinhos is as good as either of those. I was expecting to see this rise through the ranks but it doesn’t seem to have done, and this has surprised me. I can’t help thinking that if Vinhos had been designed by Uwe Rosenborg it would be top 5. However, I’m happy to have this hidden gem. Same thing with Inca Empire which doesn’t get the attention it deserves.
I would argue there are multiple games within a game in Vinhos. There is the wine fair sub game, the manager row sub game, and the manager row end game. I’m hoping to find an evening when my wife is out, all house chores are up to date, and the kids are out or otherwise occupied to set this up on the table, and play a solo 2-player game, to try a fine wine strategy against a mass production strategy. My gut feeling is that the mass production would win, but in the hands of a really good player, the fine wine approach will take it, especially with more players involved, and a larger gain to be had from the fairs. If I remember rightly, in a 4-player, the lowest scoring player at the fair gets a wine expert tile. This makes me smile because it is as if an expert comes over to you and takes pity on you.
Correct use of the manager row is essential though, so getting a wine into the fair early on that meets hopefully at least 2 requirements (usually A and C) is essential. Even if it is something as simple as moving up the investment track, this is well worth the lost wine. Equally though, this is a game about VP, so you really don’t want to throw all your wines away. I think an estate without a cellar just to churn out a wine for the managers is a decent approach. However, you get really bad weather, and suddenly you either panic buy a winery or an additional vineyard if you can, or your plan is finished. Yet another reason why the game is great.
There are very few games that keep me thinking long after the game has gone back into it’s box, and been placed safely on the shelf. I’ve spent most of my adult life working in some way related to accounts, so have developed an analytical mind, trying to break games down like a puzzle (which is why I’ve recently enjoyed playing Alien Frontiers). Those that keep my mind mulling over are Brass, Container, Cuba, Notre Dame, Agricola and Vinhos.
Having said this though, this isn’t a game you want to get through quickly. Some games have fallen flat with me, like Endeavour, and I just wanted it to finish. Vinhos vs Agricola is an interesting concept. Agricola fails for me – I like the game, and almost everybody in my gaming group has a copy. One guy even has all the expansions and mini wooden animeeples and vegimeeples, and currently claims to hold the world record for the highest single player score from chosen cards. The problem is we are all equally as good at it – as good as you could really be in this type of game. I’m not trying to boast here at all, but there is a process we all follow and the end scoring is dependant almost entirely on one thing – the cards we get at the start. If you played each hand face up, we could all look at the cards and say – hey, with that hand Fred is going to win this game. Three hours later, Fred wins. I enjoy Agricola without the cards as the family game. It is often much closer, more fun, and quicker. Another issue with Agricola is a personal preference. I want reed. I need reed. I can’t get reed. In Vinhos, I want a winery, I need a winery because the weather is -2, and I only have a single vineyard on the estate, I get a winery. OK, so it costs me more than it should have done, but I can get it.
Any Problems?
So, this is an excellent game. It reminds me of Cuba, but improves upon that idea. Vinhos does recreate the feeling of growing wines, and the design of the board helps this. I enjoy having my player board with my estates. I’d love them to be little red or white bottle wooden bottle pieces with numbers on them, but fully understand the impact this would have on the cost. The printing on my wine tokens is slightly hit and miss for line-up, and they are a little fiddly, but this is being pedantic. So what are the problems? For me there is a large gap between understanding the rules, and understanding the game. My approach to learning rules is to read them through, and then summarise them myself. I can then put them in an order that I can follow personally, and also this helps me learn them, and learn any of the quirks of the game. I’m sorry, but quirks probably isn’t the right word, but it is the best I can think of at the moment. What I am referring to is the rules that are created specifically to keep the game working – and Vinhos does have these in abundance. It is that complicated decision for a designer between making a thematic experience, and designing a workable game. Genoa and Goa are good examples of this. In Genoa, the ‘tower’ moves about the streets dropping discs on the way. In Goa, you can only choose to auction adjacent tiles, and they are ‘owned’ by you. Thematically, these make no sense, but in terms of the game, they work, but the designer makes no excuse for them. In Vinhos, there is a feeling that some mechanics have been wedged in to aid gameplay under the pretence of being thematic when they are there simply to improve the gaming experience. Reading the two geeklists written by the designer pointed out rules peculiarities that I don’t think were clear in the rules themselves, and further reading of the faq forum pointed out a few other small points that weren’t how I, and others, had interpreted them.
Teaching the game takes skill as there is a lot to cover. I was at a gaming day a few months back, and was playing Thunderstone on a table next to a group who were all new to the game except for one player. It took him an hour to teach, and then as a three it took probably three hours to play, and he had the rule book permanently open on his lap, and seemed to spend most of the time scratching his head. My suggestion would be to find a willing volunteer, and to play two or three two-player games of this before trying it with a larger group. You have to explain every rule. Knowing you can pick up two barrels from the same hangout for free before taking an action or a wine fair is important, but is a peculiarity. Also, knowing how the multipliers on the manager rows work is essential, and knowing that again this action doesn’t require a move (although is costs a wine) is very important. Having the right amount of wines at the end of the game in order to move barrels on the manager rows is essential, as is having the right wine expert abilities available to manipulate the final scoring. This is hard to teach, and even harder to understand. To get the most from this game you need a dedicated group. In that area it is much like games along the lines of Brass or Caylus. Your first game will be a disaster, but future plays will reveal the intricacies of the design. The game really does build to a crescendo – everything you do on the way places the building blocks for this final scoring.
The Theme?
Yes – the theme is very well done. We travelled to France last year, and stayed in the Dordogne, a wonderful region with some amazing wines. We found a local Sauvignon that I still have a bottle of at home, and I can’t bring myself to drink quite yet. Running a winery would be a dream job for me, along with being a game designer! To enjoy this game at it’s best, it really should be played with a glass of wine in hand. Playing it you can feel the effort that has been put into it, which just doesn’t come out with some games. It isn’t always neat and tidy, but it is rewarding. Good luck getting your group to play it!
A Winning Strategy?
My comment to anybody who plays the game the same way every time is that they aren’t maximising the options available to them. Sometimes there are options I would like to take, but at that particular moment, they aren’t cost efficient, so I need to adjust my strategy accordingly. If a player takes an aggressive approach to exports, I need to find a way of countering that. If my opponent is sending poor wine to the wine fair, then I don’t need to worry so much about increasing my quality, and can instead concentrate on, say, increasing my income. My limited plays have seen my strategy develop not only from game to game, but also during play. I know if there is a good chance we are due a bad year soon, so I can do what it takes to prepare, or risk a winery not producing at all. The difference between being first and second in the fair isn’t too bad, but between first and third or fourth can be too damaging.
On a simple level, there is not the time to take the actions you need to do everything you want. When you do have the actions, you don’t have the money. This appeals to me in a game, but works better in Vinhos I think than it does in Agricola. It is far simpler in Agricola, but I just find Vinhos more satisfying and rewarding.
Comparisons And Conclusions?
The designer, Vital Lacerda, hasn’t done anything else of note before this. He is obviously a very talented game designer though – I think what he has done is take the theme, and build the game around it, taking the mechanics he requires from other games, and fine tuning them to fit. I agree with what he has done because it fits what I want from the game. I want to be able to take an action if I really need to, so I can, but there is a cost, or if I’m really clever, I can find an imaginative way to solve it by using the experts or managers. You are never prevented from doing anything, but sometimes it can be a lot rougher on you than you hoped. Actually, the game can allow for imaginative solutions to problems which is as satisfying as any game I can think of. My most enjoyable moments in games come from clever play, be it over the course of a single turn, or over a number of turns. Games that spring to mind on this are Brass, Power Grid, Twilight Struggle and Steam.
I like to see the evolution of game ideas, and I think Vinhos is a good example of this. Scott Nicholson is good at picking up on these trends. I think Carson City is a really good game, but it is obviously an evolution of Caylus. The designer took Caylus, gave it a more fun theme, took out the bits that, in their opinion, didn’t work, added some theme related gloss, and then you have the finished game. I love Caylus, but prefer to play Carson City. Sometimes, I don’t think this evolution works – I don’t like Stone Age because I think it is 2 extremes of a game, and for me the marriage doesn’t work. One the one hand you have this simple worker placement and dice rolling thing, and on the other you have this complicated card selection/set collection/resource management thing that I don’t enjoy with some kind of strange end of phase feeding using resources mess. When I sit down to play it, I need 20 minutes to remind myself what I’m supposed to be doing. It’s a game about Stone Age men. Why is it such a mish mash?
At the moment Vinhos sits at 170 on the ranking, but with an average of 7.81, which is higher than Princes Of Florence, at 21. I really think it should go top 20, but I can see it going in the 50s or 60s, in the Wallenstein/Navegador area. I hope the weight comes down to ‘medium’ though because that might encourage people more. 53% of voters have it as medium heavy, and 30% as heavy. I’ve rated it as medium, but am in a small group of 13% of owners. Once you understand it, I don’t see it as heavy at all.
Right – enough for now!
Happy gaming,
Steve
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) of the game as I perceived that it would be too heavy for our gaming group to get into, but even halfway through our first game I was really enjoying it and the mechanics/strategies etc were starting to click. 
