{"id":669,"date":"2020-05-20T11:46:57","date_gmt":"2020-05-20T16:46:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sunderedrealm.com\/?p=669"},"modified":"2020-04-03T20:33:19","modified_gmt":"2020-04-04T01:33:19","slug":"sagrada-a-dicey-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sunderedrealm.com\/index.php\/2020\/05\/20\/sagrada-a-dicey-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"Sagrada: A Dicey Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Sagrada\"<\/a>
Sagrada<\/figcaption><\/figure>Title: Sagrada
\nPlayers: 1-4 (5-6 with expansion)
\nPlay Time: 30-45 minutes
\nDesigner: Adrian Adamescu, Daryl Andrews
\nPublisher: Floodgate Games
\nYear: 2017<\/p>\n

Overview<\/strong>
\nSagrada<\/em> uses brightly colored dice to fill a grid. The game concept was inspired by the stained glass windows of the famous church in Spain. There is a drafting mechanism (picking dice) and there are placement rules (details below) and both hidden and public goals. In this review I’m going to talk about both the base game and the expansion, since we have played with both. The expansion adds support for a fifth and\/or sixth player, in addition to providing additional cards, dice, and a dice tray that they might as well have left out. I had previously written up my first impression of Sagrada<\/a>; this review will provide more details about the components, the rules, and the game play experience.<\/p>\n

Components<\/strong>
\nThe main components are the dice, a draw bag, the cards and player boards. The dice are, well, dice. They’re pretty colors as they would need to be to simulate stained glass, but in the end they’re just dice, nothing special. The stock used for the cards is fine. Given that these cards are not shuffled that much I did not bother using sleeves. They’re not upgraded with a nice linen finish, which some games use. The art work on the cards is nicely done, and there are additional notations included to support solo play, which is appreciated. <\/p>\n

The player boards on the other hand are fantastic. They are dual-layer boards which means when you put a die in a spot it’s much more likely to stay there. That’s an important consideration given that you’re building out a 4×5 grid of relatively small dice. It would be super easy to jostle existing dice out of position while attempting to place a new one without this! I believe this also helps to carry the theme of stained glass windows.<\/p>\n

\"Sagrada
Sagrada Player Boards<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The expansion adds two more player boards which fit perfectly in the main game box. It’s almost as if they knew they were coming and prepared for them. \ud83d\ude42 There are more dice, a rather dinky dice tray that we never use, but most importantly new public and private goal cards. In the main game, there are only six private goals, and they each have to do with a specific color die. If you watch the other players, it’s not too hard to figure out which color they are trying to horde. With the expansion that issue goes away as some private goals are more about die placement than color. That was the most welcome improvement in the game for us, as we rarely get up to 5-6 players anyway.<\/p>\n

Overall the black fabric bag, the brightly colored dice, the dual-layer player boards, the artwork on the cards…I feel that Sagrada<\/em> definitely scores higher than average on the component grading scale.<\/p>\n


\nGame Play \/ Rules \/ Complexity<\/strong>
\nThere are only a few things that need to be done to set this game up for play. Each player picks a board and the matching color scoring token. You shuffle and deal out a private goal card to each player. Shuffle and play three public goal cards. Shuffle and deal three tool cards. (Details on all of these later.) Each player is then given two double-sided windows that they might try to build. Each player selects one window to build based on their private goal, the public goal, and how much of a challenge they want.<\/p>\n

Each window has a number of dots on the bottom, ranging from three up. The number of dots serves two purposes. First, it’s an indication of how difficult that window is to build. Three dots are easy, more dots are harder. Second, it tells you how many tool tokens you start with. An easy window (with three dots) starts with three tool tokens. A harder window with six dots starts with – you guessed it – six tool tokens.<\/p>\n

Finally you add a number of dice to the bag based on how many players there are. In the first few games we played we simply used all of the dice, and it makes the game less strategic. With a more restricted number of dice you have to plan ahead more.<\/p>\n

At this point you’re ready to roll some dice! The first player pulls (N*2)+1<\/code> dice out of the bag, where N = the number of players. (Wait, nobody told me there would be math…)<\/em> The first player selects (drafts) one die and placed it on his or her board. The second player then selects \/ places, and so on down to the last player. The last player, once they have drafted and placed their die, immediately gets a second turn. The second turn order is reversed, so the first player gets the last pick. <\/p>\n

Each player gets to draft and place two dice each turn. With N*2<\/code> dice to pick from, the first player would have to take whatever was left at the end of the round. But with (N*2)+1<\/code> dice, there is always a selection to be made. I like it! <\/p>\n

The final die also has a purpose. (It’s not like being picked last in gym class.)<\/em> It is placed on the round tracker so all players know how many rounds are left to be played. (There are ten in a complete game.)<\/p>\n

Once you have drafted (selected) your die you place it on your board. However, you cannot have two dice of the same color next to each other, nor can you have two dice with the same number (they call it “hue”) next to each other. That means no reds next to another red, and no fours next to another four. When you are first starting out, this might not seem to matter too much. But the further you get into the game, the more you start to fret about your choices. The dice that you draft and place are all trying to complete your window. Remember those window cards I mentioned earlier? Now it makes sense to show a few samples.<\/p>\n

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