go to Game Pages index
Rating 5/10 after 1 play
by Klaus Teuber
art Tanja Donner
publish Kosmos / Mayfair
players: 2-4
duration: 60-120 minutes
type: medium board game
PACE: QUICK. Once you understand the rules, the game should flow very quickly as players are eitehr trading in goods to claim victory points, or flipping over travel cards to move their figure on the board. But in order to find out how quick this game is, you are going to have to wade through a rather long and finicky rulebook...
COMPLEXITY: MEDIUM. There's too many parts to the game to classify it as light, but none of the parts are all that complicated. Players balance their need for resources with their need to build their characters, but both goals are fairly easy to work towards.
LUCK: MEDIUM. Like many other games that use the "die roll + modifier" this game can be very lucky if one player decides to forgo building his character in order to simply meet every challenege head-on, then gets the lucky rolls he needs to make a quick run. But since the game tends to build, player have some incentive to build their characters. Their is a memory element in the game as well when players "spy" out land hexes.
TENSION: LOW. Either you turn in cards for points, or you go travelling to either build up your character or to get more cards. But the decisions aren't really torturous or difficult, nor is their much variation in strategy.
CONFLICT: LOW. This game allows for no conflict. Trading is almost a non-issue, so trying to withhold trades, scarcely matters.
VISUALS: GOOD. The artwork is excellent, but the visual presentation is fiddly. Lots of little bits with different numbers and symbols etc, which is all necesary because of all the little things you need to track. Necessary, but visually very busy. Like Starship Catan in a bad way.
THEME: HIGH. IUsually when I can rate theme "High", I really enjoy the game, but here's a game with very good mechanics to theme, and I can't say I really care for it. But the idea of working your way to new areas on the board to get goods that you can use to barter in town works alright. It's just too much work!
PLAYERS: N/A -- best with 3?. Only played with 2, but I suspect this game is best with 2. 2p: not enough compeition in trying to win victory points; 4p: lots of competition, but the game would take far too long.
GAMER APPEAL: MAYBE. There's a lot of luck in this game, and a lot of repeition, and a lot of fiddly bits. Fans of RPGs might find enough to like in this one.
CASUAL GAMER APPEAL: UNLIKELY. Not even a Settlers fan is guaranteed to like this one. A few borrowed elements from the Graddaddy, but mostly a lot of fiddly bits. If you love Starship Catan and Settlers fo the Stone Age, you might like this.
REPLAY: LOW. I suspect this game would get very repetitive very quickly since every game will develop similarly. This is the same problem I have with Settlers of the Stone Age, where the first 2/3rds of the game tend to be the same from playing to playing. The difference being that I enjoyed Stone more than Candamir.
| You start the game with nothing but your bare hands, hoping to develop your skills to be able to thrive in this new land. Find resources in order to make friends in the village; build experience to be better equipped for encounters in the wild; keep special provisions to help you through emergencies. The first player to acquire 10 VPs is the winner.
My 2 cents
| This game takes elements from all the other Settlers games, and throws them together in an adventure/RPG game that seems bogged down and dull. Unlike Settlers of Catan where the random board setup ensures every game plays differently, Candamir basically develops the same each time, meaning that every playing will feel a lot like the last one. Throw in a ton of little cardboard chips, a ton of rules, and you are left with a game that is bound to alienate most game players, especially the casual board gamers that would normally flock to Settlers games. Not a bad game, but certainly not a good one.