Archipelago: Long Island Iced Sea

Archipelago is a complex game of exploring a chain of islands, producing and selling goods on the islands, ... and a bunch of other stuff like boats and buildings and babies.

And keeping the natives from revolting!

The box:

The natives are welcoming the colonists?  The game is a lie!

Archipelago is interesting, in that it is a game of hidden information.  The various ways to get points change every game, and are determined by cards dealt face-down to each player at the beginning of the game, along with two cards that are face-up for everybody to see.  These cards tell you what things are worth points at the end of the game, as well as a particular condition that, when met, ends the game. 

Like this card...

I want a trophy. And some medals.

...which says that the game will end if the stockpile (bank) runs out of 3 different colored cubes, and that you get points by controlling the most (or second most, or third most) ports on the islands.  Just an example.  I'm not taking pictures of all the cards.  My phone doesn't have that kind of battery life.

You can choose to play a short, medium, or long length version of the game, each with different cards that bring the game to a close more or less quickly.  This is nice, because sometimes you want a game you can play all afternoon, and sometimes you really need the game to be over in time to watch The Voice.

Players don't just hide these cards.  They hide everything!  Money, cubes, tokens, snacks, everything.  Behind these cardboard screens:

The secrets within the bowels of this ship are mine and mine alone.

You only know a couple of things that will be worth points at the end, so if you want to cover all your bases, you have to do a little bit of everything.
"Everything" consists of...well lots of things.

Each of the spaces on this amazing wheel of many colors corresponds to some action you can take.

Pretty sure this is what LSD makes you see.

For instance, you can move your people around the islands, or build various buildings on the islands, or explore the islands, or tax the people of the islands (which makes them cranky).  Basically, you do stuff with the islands.  Look up the definition of an archipelago.  Spoiler: it involves islands.  It makes sense.

Oh, these are the islands.

We're surrounded by fish and sharks and whales!  We must find land quickly!

That was a lie.  That's the ocean, obviously.  Your ships have to explore a bit and find the islands.

Dry land at last!

More and more of the islands get explored as the game goes on.  You work the land for resources with your little meeples.  These resources interact with the two markets.

The islands produce fish and rocks and pineapples and wood and cows and...lava.

There is both a foreign market (i.e. Europe) and a domestic market (i.e. that guy down the street) that you can sell to for money, or buy from to get the goods. The initial goods that you buy or sell are worth more money and their value decreases as more and more of them are sold and available in the markets.  It's like supply and demand curves, or something.  Take an economics class.

You get more meeples by either hiring the native population or making meeple babies.

I bet it's full of pineapple juice.

You can also use money to buy various cards at the end of every round.  These cards give you special abilities, or extra actions, or sometimes just points.

Nice chin strap beard, Minister.

The numbers represent the card cost.  During the card-buying phase, these cards may get rotated by you or other players, which changes the number shown at the bottom of the card, and thus it's cost.

At various points during a round, a crisis might occur.  This means that the players need to discard certain resources in order to keep the natives from getting angry.
Sometimes, you just have to pay resources.  The natives want fish, you give them fish.  And so on and so forth.
Other times, your workers decide to take a nap and will only wake up and do work for you if you meet their demands.

Sleeping in the pineapple fields is probably pokey and uncomfortable.

When you don't give the people what they want, they get angry and start to rebel.  Apparently they look like this.

Gene Simmons?

 If at any point there are more angry natives than there are non-rebellious workers, there is a rebellion on the islands and EVERYBODY LOSES!  This little twist drops this game into the category of "semi-cooperative" in that everyone is competing against each other, but at the same time everyone has to make sure they aren't too selfish that the rebel count gets out of hand.  

So, this game has lots of rules.  They all fall into place once you've played a bit, but it's a lot to take in.  I'd suggest playing the short game version first to get it down.

But this day, we played the long version.  And it was long.  Many hours.  Much fun.  Such game.

The start of the game:

My favorite part of this game is the bright colors of...everything.  I also like that you start with such a small part of the archipelago explored, but by the end of the game...

Lots of island!

End of game.

 It's great when you want the gameboard itself grow and develop over the course of the game.

By pure accident, I seemed to be building some kind of church with my people cards...

 The Pope provides points for piety.  The Bishop becalms the betrayers.  The Missionary musters more meeples.

 

But my church brethren did me no good here.  When the game ended and the secret point conditions were revealed...I met basically none of the conditions.  I had 7 points.  Bichlien 11.  Jake 12.  I was more than just a bit behind.

Maybe I'm just bitter about losing so badly, but I really don't like the hidden win conditions in this game.  I love the actual act of playing the game and all that entails, but I feel like it falls flat at the end where it can be almost random who wins and loses based on the hidden cards...

Nah, I'm just bitter.  You know your own secret condition, plus the two communal common knowledge cards. And I'm sure there's some bit of watching the other players and what they are doing in order to guess what kinds of conditions they are trying to meet.  It's probably less random than I make it out to be.

I still don't like that, though.

Neither do the pandas!  Rebellion!!

"You can take our bamboo, but you can't take our freedom!"