Check out my final thoughts and 10 minute teardown podcast for Viticulture

My d4 DICE reviews are a quick and easy to digest review of a board or card game. Along with a brief introduction to the game I use DICE as an acronym for Duration, Interaction, Complexity and Engagement to quickly explore a game. Enjoy!

Player count: 1-6 players
Play time: 45-90 minutes
Designers: Jamey Stegmaier, Allan Stone & Morten Monrad Pedersen
Publisher: Stonemaier Games

Tuscany, visions of rolling hillsides, beautiful landscapes and of course vineyards.

In Viticulture, players take on the role of someone who has inherited a meagre vineyard in rustic, pre-modern Tuscany. You don’t start off with much, a few plots of land, an old crushpad, a tiny cellar and three workers. But you have a dream, a vision, of owning and running a successful winery.

Viticulture is a worker placement game that is played over a number of rounds. Each round players will allocate their workers across the seasons to perform various actions. Actions include gaining vine cards, planting vines, selling/buying land, constructing buildings, harvesting vines, making wine, fulfilling wine orders and playing visitor cards. But these spaces are limited as are your workers. Careful planning and balancing of worker placements in the summer and winter is essential. Victory points are scored mainly from fulfilling wine orders and the first person to score 20 points triggers the end of the game. The player with the most points is the winner.

d4 D.I.C.E. Review

Duration

A typical game of Viticulture is going to take around 60 minutes. A two player game will be probably come in around 45 minutes. The game length is spot on, it doesn’t out stay its welcome and turns are very quick. The end of round clear up is simple and straight forward and doesn’t involve a lot of upkeep.

Interaction

The main form of interaction comes with respect to occupying worker placement spots that other players may need. Some of the visitor cards also interact with the other players but not in a negative take that way. Interaction is done in a very well in Viticulture.

Complexity

Rules wise I don’t see this as a hard to learn or teach. I think comes from the fact that a lot of the action spots make sense. You need to plant vines, harvest vines, make wine and sell it. It all makes sense.

Engagement

I am fully engaged with what the other players are doing as well as my strategy. Paying attention to what actions they are likely to do next based on their situation can help to determine where you want to go. I am invested and engaged with the theme and the process of making wine.