Finally! It's worth saying, she's finally here.
The long-awaited expansion of one (two) of the most beautiful and refined "abstract" board games of recent years!
Yes, because it was a shame that the number of players was limited to 4, for this game that, thanks to the limited duration and simplicity of the rules, could accommodate at least another couple of contenders at the table: and so it was.
I'm talking about the expansion of Sagrada, a game released in 2017, by the duo Adamescu-Andrews, which has made so much talk about himself.
In the expansion you will find, in addition to the planks for the fifth and sixth player and the dice / chips needed, also new windows, new personal goals and a new game mode.
MATERIALS AND RULES
In the box, of the appropriate size, we will find two new planks, with the background coloring one yellow and the other orange.
Then 12 gems and 40 coloured dice are added (8 for each colour).
Since the colors of the dice are still 5, the expansion to the sixth player has forced to expand the cards personal goal: were then added new cards that will provide points on the basis of the dice located in appropriate boxes, as shown in the diagram on the card.
So we have some new stained-glass schemes and 2 tool cards that can only be used by playing the variant.
The materials for the variant are 6 cardboard rosettes, of the same thickness as the planks, in the six different colours of the players: each rosette houses 10 dice.
The equipment ends with a modular box where you can roll the dice and the instruction booklet.
The materials are of high quality, as the basic box commands.
The rules for the standard game obviously do not change by adding the two players: you just have to be careful to prepare the bag of dice and be careful to use, alone or mixed with others, the new cards of personal goals.
Interesting is instead the variant proposed, which increases the strategic aspect of the game.
Each player, in addition to the usual supply, also receives the rosette of their own color: at the beginning of the game will take two dice of each color, will roll them and place them in the 10 housing of the rosette.
The rules of the game change in this sense: each turn you are only fishing a number of dice equal to the number of players plus one (and not twice the number of players plus one): then each, in their turn, will have to choose a single die from those extracted from the bag, but will continue to place in the window two dice: the one chosen from among the fished and one taken from their rose window, in the order you want: all the actions defined in the tool cards can be applied to the only dice chosen, not to that of the rose window.
As usual, the positioning of the dice is not mandatory, but if you can not or do not want to place the dice on the rose window, there will be empty spaces at the end of the game that will bring, as usual, negative points.
Obviously, the tool cards that presuppose the choice of the two dice cannot be used in this mode.
The rest of the game is identical: they do not change the rules of placing and do not change the way in which you count the final points.
ENTERPRISES
Well, it seems to me quite evident from the enthusiasm expressed in the beginning that I was waiting for this expansion, because I happened several times to find myself at the table in 5 or 6 players and not be able to propose Sagrada!
So absolutely welcome the opportunity to pass the 4 players: you slightly lengthen the times, but with players a bit 'scafati not even notice.
Let's talk about the new game, which can be more interesting.
As you can imagine, being able to see in advance half of the dice that you can insert should allow better planning of the game.
I say "should", because if the throw is not particularly happy, since the tool cards, apart from the new ones, do not act on the dice of the rose window, let's say that it becomes more complicated to go and correct the luck.
Then there is a strange effect: just because you always have the dice on the rose window under your eye, I happened to have almost an effect of "impression of the retina", that is to choose a die from those caught, thinking you still have to place one of the dice of the rose window, and instead had already been placed, so watch out for drops in attention.
If it is therefore true that the strategic aspect has been widened, to make the expenses is the interactive aspect: in fact the choice of the two dice gave greater possibility to annoy the adversaries, above all when they were found with few chances: with a single choice, this aspect has been considerably reduced.
Having half of the dice to be placed in front of your eyes also has (or should have) a beneficial effect in game times: in theory the second dice should be easier to choose.
I say "in theory", because the other side of the coin is that, precisely because they increase the possibilities, you risk instead to increase the game time due to some friend suffering from paralysis from analysis.
For the rest, the game is not distorted at all: it remains in my opinion valid in both versions.
If you liked the basic game, this expansion is absolutely to have, especially if you happen to sit at the table with more than 4 friends.