I played my first game of Caylus on the end of February on a prototype (already balanced with mechanisms and very fluid, but with ... let’s say "basic" graphics ), when the author and editor decided we could play it on the regular public gaming session organized in a shop in Paris. I have played since around 15 games and let me tell you: I enjoyed each of them. I played more than the half with either the editor or the author (I should have really built my own prototype, thus I would have played even more). So it will be a rather positive review (because I simply love this game) but I will try to be as fair as I can be.

Let’s state first the background. 1289. To strengthen the borders of the Kingdom of France, King Philip the Fair decided to build a new castle and soon the modest village of Caylus is rising up into a larger city. Each player is a master builder that came into the city in search of glory and renown (symbolized by prestige points). In a concurrent environment, seizing opportunities will be the motto of the whole game.

Each player owns a team of 6 workers that will reach different places to gain resources, money (deniers) or building opportunities in the city and the castle. Following the turn order, each player can place one of their workers, or decide to pass. Placing one worker costs basically one denier, plus one per other players who already passed. If you want to place your last workers when everyone else passed, it is going to cost you money!

In the city, buildings have mainly one place to fill and the first in will be the first served (for the round). At the beginning, we “only” have (in this order on the board):
- six special buildings: the gate (allowing to place the worker in later, useful to temporize and hide our intentions), the trading post (to earn money), the merchant guild (to influence the provost, which I will detail later), the joust field (to earn a King’s favor, meaning special benefits), the stable (to change the turn order) and the inn (to pay only one denier when placing a worker).
- six neutral buildings, placed randomly (and that the only part of randomness in the whole game): a quarry producing stone, a farm producing either food or cloth, a sawmill producing wood, a forester producing either food or wood, a market to earn money and a carpenter to build wooden buildings.
- two fixed buildings: a peddler (to buy resources) and another carpenter.

There is also one fixed gold mine farther on the road, the last and the rarest available resources.

But Caylus is called to grow and players can build their own buildings on the road snaking down the castle. Buildings cost resources but earn fixed prestige points. If a player other than the owner is using one of these new buildings, then the owner gains one additional prestige points. If the owner decides to go on his own buildings, then he will always pay one denier to go there, even if several players have passed (but don’t get any additional point in this case). It is tricky because the new buildings are more efficient that the basic ones and you will be tempted to go there, even if giving prestige points to opponents. Especially when they could be useful refuges for the owner when other people passed (since it only costs one denier)…

The new wooden buildings (built with the carpenter) are:
- upgraded production buildings (a better farm, sawmill and quarry)
- a better market and peddler
- the mason, which allows players to build stone buildings
- the lawyer, which allows players to convert neutral (or their own) buildings, into residential ones. The residential buildings give money each turn (and incidentally “destroy” one of the basic building, making a specific resource or money rare).

The new stone buildings (built with the mason) are:
- upgraded mixed production buildings (which give also resource to owner when other players visit them)
- buildings giving prestige points for money or cloth
- buildings giving gold for money or resources
- the architect allowing to convert one of our residential buildings into a prestige building.

Prestige buildings always require gold (one to three), and lots of another resource (usually stone). They bring the most prestige points, but cannot be visited by workers.

If you place a worker on the castle, you can give batches of resources (3 different resources, one of them being food) to build parts of the castle: first the dungeon, then the walls, and finally the towers (and when the towers are built, the game is finished). This brings prestige points directly and may also earn you a King's favor. Favors must be spent instantly in one of the four tracks:
- gain prestige points
- earn money
- get resources
- having buildings opportunities
The more you use a track, the more the track is effective (in a way it reminds me of Goa, but without having to pay to increase levels, just using it). It is limited on how advanced the castle is, the latest levels being accessible at the end.

But all this will be far too easy (and maybe boring) without the presence of two royal agents: the bailiff and the provost. The bailiff is advancing along the game, forcing the players to build the castle more or less quickly (or bear penalty), and give the rhythm of the game (slow or fast). The provost is deciding which buildings will be activated on the round. And this agent can be corrupted. If you invested a worker in a building without having it activated by the provost, then it was pure loss. That’s a key element of the interaction, especially when you can have agreements with players (“I move one step, you do the other one”). Players will pay to move the provost in the order they passed. While you are sometimes tempted to pass quickly (the first to pass gains one denier and rise the basic cost to place workers), influencing the provost last (so pass last) is essential if you are on dangerous positions.

Let’s finish with my opinion.

On the game play: the rules are dense (on the level of Puerto Rico for example) and I must agree that explaining the rules requires time and patience from the audience (I did it twice with beginners). But once the game is set, everything is fluid, especially with the design of the board and tiles (giving all the information needed in a glimpse, with explicit icons).
Which is very enjoyable is the different waves during the game. The wooden buildings come first, then the stone ones, depending on how early the mason comes and the rarity of stone resources. In parallel and depending on when the lawyer comes, first basic buildings will become obsolete and turned into residential buildings, which can lead to a struggle for a specific resource or simply money. Last but not least are the prestige buildings and the fight for the architect(s).
Although a lot of the mechanisms turn around the castle, the way the city is developing will consequently influence the shape of the whole game (having a lot of food and building a lot in the castle, having a lot of stone and building huge prestige buildings, the global richness or poverty of the game, or the combination and order of the buildings, like having a quarry before the mason, or a cloth farm before the lawyer, or…).
Placing workers is also quick (everyone places his first worker then the second then the third…), which keep the game tense and dynamic.

On the mechanisms: a game with buildings that brings victory points for resources and money, hum we’ve already seen this… But this time, buildings are accessible to all players and believe me, that changes a lot. Interactivity, which is often a pitfall in economic games, is really here: taking the buildings that other people want, influencing the provost or just threatening to do it to make other players spend their money.
The game is for me highly tactical: you’ll try to find a way of creating revenue (both money and resources) to convert it in prestige points, while seizing all the opportunities of other players “mistakes” (well there are simply too many choices, hard to tell the right to do and in which order). The very good point is if you are working on it and don’t do too many mistakes, you will never be totally out of the game: too poor? Well just spend one turn in the market and the trading post, or invest a favor in the money line, and you will come back in the game. It is highly satisfying to feel that you can run for victory even if you have done a bad start (because others have taken the building you wanted or moved the provost against you). Which is for example what make me dislike some (not all of course ) gaming sessions of Age of Steam which is an aggressive economics game where mistakes or bad start can’t be easily forgiven. It’s boring to know who have won the game one hour before the end.
The incident drawback is that it is hard to have a clear vision of what makes you win or not since your buildings are intricated with other players buildings, prestige points are won when players visited you, many actions can lead to victory, not a single one (though I can see a few strategies that really work out). You don’t have your own small board where you can visualize your own building strategy. It is more like feeling or living the game than totally mastering it (well you cannot control others ). It is certainly a bit unusual and confusing during the first sessions.

The global feedback from beginners is usually that the game is really balanced (could I say something else while being a playtester ). There is no killer placement or buildings, it just depends on the whole game: a new peddler could be great to build early if the game stay rich, but if it is poor, it is useless, or at least a bad investment for the owner (though it could be also a "trap" for other players to spend their money... let's say "more than reason dicts"). I could say the same for all other buildings. Each of the favor tracks could be really powerful (depending also on the game and number of players):
- the prestige points track is the safest but doesn’t give immediate benefits for developing our game
- the money track is useful when the market is converted early or when the buildings converting money in resource (peddler), gold (bank) or prestige points (church) are coming adequately
- the resources track could seem a bit weaker, but are often useful to get the missing resources (I’ve seen a game where the food were so rare that it was vital to go through this line)
- the last track is the trickiest but potentially powerful (giving a certain freedom with building, without having to visit carpenter, mason, lawyer and above all architect, especially in the end game favors).

On the lifetime: if you like it, I think you gonna play it for a while. It has never been a game where I finished without saying: this session was surprising. I have seen sessions without any prestige buildings, with a lot of them; I have seen the lawyer coming first (very funny) or very late (advantaging a lot the players investing in the last track of the King’s favor); I have seen stone buildings coming very early or in a surprising order, which leads to unexpected events; I have seen the castle totally neglected or totally built, with inherent favor battles. I am still learning on how to use the special buildings: I was judging the gate weak, but when the guild is chosen, you want to temporize (“wait and see”); I though the inn was a must have, especially with 5 players: my latest session, it was simply useless because of the global richness of players; I was neglecting the joust field which reveals to be very powerful in many games (earning money before influencing the provost, building before everyone else in a turn, increasing the power of the prestige points track in end game…). And this game really works for me from 2 to 5 with equal pleasure (count 60 mns for a 2-players game, 90 mns for a 3-4 players game, 120 mns for a 5 players game).

More than dissecting the game into parts and mechanisms, I just simply think that the alchemy behind all this is just working according to my taste. To summarize: it is for me a perfect economic game (my favorite mechanism), highly tactical and tense (though strategies can be elaborated, the key word is opportunism), and above all interactive. I probably enjoyed this more than any other game, dunno exactly why and how, and how far it is related to being a playtester. Maybe I am over enthousiastic but if you like economic games like Puerto Rico or Goa, I think you should have at least a look at this one.