Viticulture from Stonemaier Games has been a huge hit since its initial release back in 2013. With 3 expansions so far (Tuscany, Moor Visitors and Visitors from Rhine Valley) it seemed that it has been completed and offered a wholesome experience. However Stonemaier games surprised us once more by announcing one more expansion for its wine-making board game, “Viticulture World”. Is it essential or you can live without it? That’s a question we will try to answer today.
If you are reading this article, I suppose that you are already familiar with Viticulture so I will talk only about the innovations brought by the new expansion. However if you don’t know the base game, I suggest you read our informative review of Viticulture here.
This expansion is designed by Mihir Shah and Francesco Testini while its art is visualized by Andrew Bosley. It requires the base game of Viticulture and makes the game last 75 to 95 minutes, that is a bit longer than the original. It still supports solo play through the artificial “Automa” opponent and it is suited for ages 14+.
The most important feature of this expansion is, as its title suggests, that it transforms the game from an antagonistic one to co-operative. What better than trying to make the most succesfull vineyard in your local area? But of course collaborating with friends to make to most renowned vineyard in the continent! The goal of the game is that each player accumulates at least 25 victory points and the shared influence token reaches the end of the influence track (reaching 10 points).
In this expansion you can choose one of seven continents and try to cope up with big challenges that each separate continent has to offer. Each continent comes with its separate event deck. At the start of each one of the six years the winemaking process lasts, you will be drawing a new event card, specifying a new twist on rules for the specific year. Each continent deck playes completely differently than the others and has a different degree of difficulty. The easiest is Greengully and the hardest is Africa.
The main differences introduced in this game compared to the base game are the following:
- All players start out with 4 workers and the Grande worker. The fifth worker is returned to the box and never used. Two of the 4 workers must wear yellow hats at the beginning of the game and the other two, blue hats indicating that they can be used only in summer or winter respectively. These workers start out as seasonal workers and can’t get bonuses from innovation tiles. (Read about innovation tiles in the “Components” section of the review.) Later on in the game you can train the seasonal workers and transform them to regular ones, by removing their hat. Regular workers can be placed either in summer or in winter actions and they get bonuses from action spaces. Whenever a player places a Grand worker on a action space where another player’s worker is on, he/she may make a trade with that player giving and taking coins/cards, grapes or wine.
- The set actions of the game for summer and winter can be upgraded through innovation tiles thus helping players reach their goals easier.
Now let’s see how the game scores in each of our usual scoring categories:
Components
The components of this expansion comprise of the following:
- a new gameboard. This is of very thick, sturdy cardboard of great quality as the base game board.
- black-bordered visitor card reprints that substitute the same white-bordered base game cards
- rectangular and oval innovation cards. They are made of thick high-quality cardboard
- mamas & papas cards, that can be combined with those of the base game. I really appreciate the fact that with the new cards, you may end up with two mamas or two papas which is very considerate for families that are of this type.
- one influence and one event wooden tockens
- yellow and blue hats. These are my favourite components. They are worn to the seasonal workers and they make the game so fun!
- the Continent deck cards. They feature a characteristic structure of the continent on one side and special rules that affect gameplay on the other.
The contents of the game are held in a neatly organized box with special incerts for every component.
Overall I found the quality of all components of this set, great! 10/10
Gameplay
If you like cooperative games and you are in for a big challenge you will absolutely love this expansion. Viticulture is not an easy game to master and with this expansion it gets even harder. Fortunately the difficulty of the game can be moderated through the choice of which Continent to play. Even so, winning the easiest scenario isn’t easy at all even for veterans of Viticulture. That can be a good thing or bad thing, depending on what you are looking for. It certainly works fine for me! New players of Viticulture are recommended to stick to the base game until they feel experienced enough to proceed with the expansion.
Besides the challenging gameplay what I like most in this expansion is the ability to transform the action spaces, through the innovation tiles, and try to make the best of them to achieve your goals. And indeed this is the way to win the game.
Training of your seasonal workers to become regular ones and start receiving bonuses is another interesting feature that works really well and is also very realistic. It certainly saves time to have all workers available from year one despite the fact that you can use them only in one of the two worker placement periods.
All in all, gameplay has been elevated in every way with this expansion and all new features work smoothly and are great fun. 9/10
Learning Curve
The extra rules featured in this expansion are pretty clear and don’t make the game much more complex. Seasoned players of Viticulture will have no problem implementing them in their games. The design of the new gameboard helps towards this, depicting the order of actions to perform at the beginning of spring and at the end of each year. 8/10
Theme
The theme of the game is somewhat enhanced by the awesome hats that workers wear to distinguish them between spring and winter seasonal workers. That is a very clever addition that serves well in terms of gameplay as well as theme. 7/10
Replayability
With seven Continent decks and the degree of difficulty this game has, it is sure that it will keep you busy for a lot of time. However when you get to beat all scanarios there will be nothing else to do, since the goal in the expansion is just to win and total victory points don’t play big role. The game’s solo play can also keep you good company during lonesome afternoons. 7/10
Player Interaction
There is a lot going on in this expansion that involves players interacting with each other since the game becomes cooperative. Players must work together to organize the wine-making business and there is a lot of planning indeed. In 2-3 player games, action spaces on the board can be occupied only by one worker each year so “who is going to go where” is something that will be discussed a lot. Another point of cooperation will be the trade action available when a grande worker decides to visit an action space occupied by another worker. Through it, players can exchange cards, coins, a grape or a wine which is very helpful In general, player interaction is certainly enhanced in this expansion, although not in an antagonistic way. 8/10
Final Thoughts
Certainly this expansion is not for everyone for two reasons. The first one is that its difficulty makes it worth only for experienced players of Viticulture and even they will face many challenges trying to win. The second one is that cooperation is not for everyone. I, for instance, don’t like sharing my victory with someone else and always love antagonism. However, the big challenges that this game introduces, makes even me want to try it again. All components are high-class, as with every other Stonemaier game, with a nicely organized box. Hats off to the designers for the clever idea of hats for the worker meeples. Every gameplay change that is featured in Viticulture World seems to work for the best. All in all you will have a great time trying to master this game if you are up for the challenge!
Recommended for: Viticulture enthousiasts
According to our scoring system for board games, scoring categories have different weights. Components have 13% weight, Gameplay 35%, Learning curve 6%, Theme 5%, Replayability 26%, Player Interaction 15%. According to this system and the above scoring in each category, overall weighted scoring of the game is:
Overall: 8.30
