Master Mapsmith (Review of Cartographers)

I've really been enjoying the roll 'n' write and flip 'n' fill kick that the board game world has been on lately. What I feel like I've been missing, however, is a fantasy-themed one. Well, voila! Cartographers is here! It's not really the battle that I was hoping for - you're actually a cartographer, a mapmaker, scouting and mapping out the lands for your king. You work through summer, spring, autumn and winter, each season bringing with it different objectives and scoring conditions (indicated by random cards each game). You need to be sure to plan for the current season as well as future ones or you'll miss out on some points.

Each season you flip cards from the deck which will give you a terrain type (farmland, water, village, or forests) and a tetris-style geometric shape for you to draw onto your map sheet (the game comes with a pack of 100 of these and they are double sided with an easy side and more difficult side). The objective cards will direct you to place certain terrain types in certain arrangements to score the most points. There are also ruins that you may need to play on sometimes and also mountains. If you surround a mountain completely, you receive some gold. Watch out though - some cards involve a monster ambush! In competitive play, the person next to you will draw this ambush on your sheet and in solo play there is a pattern they follow for placement. Either way, any spaces adjacent to them left unfilled will lose you points at the end of the season.

Whether playing alone or with others, the point of the game is to get the highest score. I'm not generally a big fan of score games; I prefer a win condition (like living or dying). That being said, can I still get behind Cartographers?

TOTAL PLAYS: 5 competitive, 5 solo

COMPONENTS

I haven't played the other Roll Player games (this game takes place in that universe), but this game seems to have the same great art that is expected in those games. A game like this doesn't require much art, but they included lots anyway. Each card has its own unique art, my favourite being the ambush cards, and the style and theme of the player sheets and everything is really nice. The quality of the components is top notch as well. Everything seems nice and sturdy and serviceable. I wish the pencils were fancier and the erasers worked. 4/5

RULES

As with most games in this genre, there isn't a lot to the rules. You can figure out how to play a multiplayer or solo game within 15 minutes of picking up the rulebook. The most complex are comes in with the objective/scoring cards. Some of them are a little bit tricky to understand and could be interpreted a few ways. They have a section in the rulebook where they highlight all of these cards, but they don't really explain them any more clearly. That's all that's missing from the rulebook for me. 4/5

GAMEPLAY

What I really like about this game is how the score cards are different for every season. During the first season (spring), you only score points for the A and B cards. During summer you score for B and C, Fall is C and D, and winter has D and brings back A. That means you want to try and score as many points for B as quickly as you can, because they won't be back later. That being said, you also need to plan for C and D because you'll never maximize your points if you don't plan ahead. I'm really impressed with the way they've added this twist with the scoring.

I'm always a fan of competitive games that aren't focused on screwing over your opponents. This is why I tend to like roll 'n' writes, because they're more or less playing by yourself but with other people. What's nice here is that you don't play very cutthroat, but you do get a chance to draw on another player's sheet when an ambush happens. You can do some serious damage during this time, but there are only a max of four ambushes in a game so it's not a focus of the game. 4/5

REPLAYABILITY

There is a decent amount of replayability here. There are sixteen different objective cards and you only use four per game, so you'll always get a different combination of goals every sixteen games. That's ok, though, because you won't see all of the cards in the deck of terrain cards every game, either, and they'll always be in a different order. There are enough moving pieces here that every game will be at least a little bit different. For a small light game, I'm impressed with the replayability, although it can begin to feel same-y. 4/5

FUN

While I tend to rate the bigger and more complex games higher (Gloomhaven, Terraforming Mars, Spirit Island, Clank!, etc.), we all need some light games to fill in those shorter times and for introducing newer players to. This is a great game for those situations. The fantasy theme may not appeal to all new gamers, but if it does, it's a great one to to introduce people to. There is also a lot of strategy here for veteran gamers to dig their teeth into and shoot for those high scores. There is basically no set up for this game and you can play a solo game in 15 minutes or less, so it's one of the fastest and most satisfying games you can play. I definitely lean towards heavier games, but this one has earned a long term spot on my shelf. 8/10

TOTAL SCORE: 24/30

Unfortunately, in the midst of teaching students, raising children, and spending time with my wife, there isn't always time for the big games. That's why it's nice to have a few quick and light ones. These don't tend to be fantasy themed, but that's the niche spot that Cartographers fills!

If you want more information on my review system, check out the full description here.