Game Review – Alhambra

Over the last few years a lot of new board games have been release.  So many that aside from games like Settlers of Catan or the variety of Ticket to Ride it has been hard to get any older games out on the table.  I do not believe that this is because these games are bad compared to the current crop of games.  In fact just like at any other time there both good and bad games that are published.  Because there are more of them it is harder to wade through them to find the 10% gems.  Of the 70 or so new games that I have played I can think of five that I would like to add to my collection.

The other thing to contend with is that sometimes a game that you thought was great when it first came out, you look at years later and it has turned into a stinker because you have found another game that does what that game attempted much better.

As a result, I wanted to take a look at an older, award winning game and see if it stands the test of time.  In this case I wanted to look at Alhambra.

Alhambra was release in 2003 and had won 13 different major awards over the years including the prestigious Speil des Jahres in 2003.  With honors like this it would have to be assumed that it was considered a well designed game at the time. 

In Alhambra players are trying to build the best palace complex, or Alhambra, by acquiring buildings that enhance it and increase its value.  These buildings are represented by tiles and have values of 2 to 12 depending on the number of walls and the building type.  The more expensive the building the more versatility it has in the way of being able to build more additions to the complex.

At the beginning of the game the players start with a single fountain tile that all buildings that are built must have a path to or they may not be placed, and 20 – 28 coins to be able to purchase buildings with.  Coins come in denominations of 1 – 9 in one of four different currencies.  These currencies are used to purchase buildings from the market.  During each player’s turn there are four different buildings that will be up for sale in the market, one in each of the currencies.  The currency that can be used to purchase a building in the market is dependent on where it is placed in the market. 

The player may perform one of three actions during their turn.  They can purchase a building and add it to their Alhambra, take more coins, or take a tile from their reserve / redesign their palace complex.  If they purchase a building by paying its exact value in coins as their first action during their turn they may take an additional action.  They can continue to purchase additional buildings during their turn until there are no more buildings left in the market as long as they continue to pay the exact value for them.

The victory points in the game are scored during the scoring rounds and are earned for having the most of building tiles in the six different types / colors.  There are three scoring rounds during the game.  During each scoring round the player with the most of one of the types of building scores they points for that type of building.  In the first scoring round, only the player with the most buildings of a type gets the points.  In the second round the players that have the most and second most score points for the type of building.  In the third round the top three players get points.  In addition each player scores a point per segment for their longest wall.

The game ends when there are no longer enough tiles left to refill the market.  At this point the third scoring round takes place.  The person with the most points wins.

I have found that there are two common strategies used when playing Alhambra but the key to either strategy is to manage your money as well as possible because both strategies rely on being able to make multiple tile purchases during as many turns as possible.  The key to managing your money is to not just take the highest denomination available on you turn.  It is just as important to take the 1 and 2 coin cards.  You should always do this when you can take two cards at once.  The more small coin cards you have the more of a chance you will have to have exact change when purchasing tiles and be able to purchase more than one tile at once.

The most basic strategy is what I like to call the wall strategy.  It is the easiest of the two strategies to follow and the hardest for other players to interfere with.  The idea behind the strategy is for the player to focus their effort on building a long wall.  It is based on getting a point for each segment of wall a player has in their longest wall.  If it is done correctly the player can get more points in walls than they can get in any single tile color in the first and second rounds.  The chances are also high that the player will be able to get the top score in at least one of the tile colors during every round because they will be collecting many of the tiles that the other players do not want and get a multiple tiles variety of colors that the other players do not.

The biggest thing you will want to look out for when using the wall strategy is make sure that you do not close off your entire Alhambra too early in the game.  Keep at least one area open for adding new tiles into your Alhambra but do not leave too many gaps in your wall.  Remember that the points only go to you longest wall segment not all the walls in you Alhambra.

Keep in mind you will need to generate a leading score in your first and second rounds.  In the third round people that get the high scores in the top tile colors can get higher scores in the third round but if you did things correctly in the first and second rounds you should be able to maintain your overall lead.

The other more common strategy is for the player to focus all of their effort on collecting the high scoring tile colors.  The key to this is for the player to make sure they maintain dominance in the number of tiles in each category of the green purple and white categories.  This does not mean that the players need to collect over half the tiles in the category they need to just get one more than the rest of the players do.

The problem with this strategy is that if there are multiple players not only using this strategy but collecting the same color tiles, they will most likely end up in ties with each other and dilute the points that are available to them.  As a result they will not get the points needed to beat the other players.

The trick to the strategy is to maintain quantities of cash in each denomination so that you can purchase the tiles that you want as they become available and only very rarely go after tiles that are not of the two or three colors that you want to collect.

Back to the question of whether Alhambra stands the test of time.  I find Alhambra to be just as enjoyable to me as it was when I was first introduced to it.  There have been way too many expansions for the game some that are good some that are bad.  I find the most satisfying option is to play the game without any of these added to it because they add little to the base game.  I find it to be more enjoyable than most games that have as many random elements because most of the time the random elements do not cripple a player’s performance.

I recommend this game for anyone collection.  Unfortunately you will need to purchase the Big Box version of the game which includes many of the expansions which are unnecessary to enjoy the game.  However you may be able to get the original on eBay, the BBG Marketplace or other auction site at a good price.  If you can find it get it.