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Last Fall I bought Der Palast von Alhambra at Spiel '03 in Essen. It had won the prestigious Spiel des Jahre Preis as the best game of 2003. I was intrigued by this, as competition at this award is fierce. Previous winners of the award included The Settlers of Catan and Carcassonne, games I enjoy immensely. Thus, I wanted to check out Der Palast von Alhambra as it was bound to be at least a solid game. This, it is, but it doesn't quite measure up to Settlers or Carcassonne.
While I obtained the German edition, published by Queen Games, the game has recently been published in an English version by Uberplay Entertainment. To broaden the audience of this review I wanted to use the English terms as used in the Uberplay edition. I sent an e-mail to them, and they kindly and quickly replied by sending a PDF-file of their version of the rules.
Translations in other languages and the pre-Uberplay English version can be found here at the Queen Games website. While the German title is Der Palast von Alhambra ("The Palace of Alhambra"), the first three words are apparently lost in translation, and the English version is called simply Alhambra.
Concept
The concept of Alhambra is that each of the two to six players builds their own version of the Alhambra, a famous palace in Granada, Spain. You do this by paying artisans to build pavilions, manors, mezzanines, chambers, gardens and towers. Unfortunately, the workmen come from all over Europe, and want to be paid in their own currency: the Denar, Dirham, Dukat and Florin. Furthermore, the Alhambra doubles as a fortress, so you have to build an outer wall as well.
As with many German games, this concept is just a layer over an abstract game. Just as Carcassonne doesn't have anything to do with medieval city-building, does Alhambra not really have anything to do with building a Moorish palace in 1238.
Contents
In the nice, sturdy box (roughly 25 x 17.5 x 9.5 cm) one finds quite a lot of components.
- 12 tokens, two for each of 6 colours,
- 54 building tiles, representing 6 different kinds of buildings,
- 6 identical starting tiles, representing the Lion Fountains,
- 108 money cards in the 4 different kinds of currency. (The denominations range from 1 to 9, and each denomination has 3 cards in every currency.)
- 2 scoring cards to divide the 'treasury' in roughly 3 parts and mark the scoring rounds,
- 1 building market board to hold one building tile for each of the 4 different currencies,
- 1 score track board
- 1 cloth bag to hold the building tiles, and
- 1 rule booklet.
All this fits nicely in the box, which has compartments for every component.
Presentation
The game's packaging and production value are top-notch. The card board tiles are very sturdy, as are the cards. Every component is richly coloured and illustrated. The money cards and the building tiles are colour-coded, and the money cards have icons on them, as well. This makes distinguishing them a breeze. I especially like the tile reserve boards, as the scoring info is repeated here for easy reference during play. Unfortunately, this doesn't include the price range of the buildings — this would have made it perfect. The full-colour six-page rule booklet is written in a clear and concise style, with many diagrams and examples. Few, if any, questions will remain after reading it.
Game play
Every turn, the player chooses from three actions:
- take money, or
- buy and if possible place a building tile for his Alhambra, or
- redesign part of his Alhambra.
When taking money, one takes money cards from the four money cards that lay face-up. A player may take more cards as long as their total value does not add up to more than five, or takes a single card of any value.
As I mentioned in passing, the money is divided in four different currencies, and the four cards lying face-up are restored from the 'treasury'. The treasury contains all different currencies in equal measure, so the cards laying face-up can have any combination of currency. So, what do you do? Do you take one card with a high value, or multiple cards with low value? Do you focus on one kind of currency, or do you spread your bets?
When buying a building tile one has to pay in the currency that's denoted on the market board. The amount is determined by the kind of building, and the number of walls that are on the sides of the tile. Basically: a tile can have up to three of its four sides closed off by a wall. More walls mean that the tile is more difficult to place and the cost of the tile is lower. Another faction in determining cost is the type of building. There are less pavilions in the game than that there are towers. The cost of pavilions ranges from 2 to 8, that of towers from 7 to 13.
An important thing here is that if you pay too much, your turn ends while you don't receive any change. On the other hand, if you pay the exact amount of money you get another action!
When you buy a building tile, you also opt to place the tile on your reserve board, choosing to add it later to your Alhambra. Otherwise, you can later place it in stead of another already-placed tile in your palace. That tile now goes to your reserve board. This redesign is the third kind of action.
Placing tiles is subject to quite a few restrictions. The most important is that all tiles have only one orientation: turning of a tile is not permitted. Another restriction is that you should be able to reach every building from your starting tile, without having to climb over walls. This makes some tiles hard to lay, thus sometimes necessitating the redesign action. Tile layout is thus an important factor in the purchase of buildings.
Scoring happens in three scoring rounds. The first round only gives points to the person(s) with the majority of tiles in a type of building, and happens after roughly one third of the money cards is taken from the 'treasury'. The second round awards the two most prolific builders in a building type, and takes place after roughly two-thirds of the game has passed. When all the tiles have been placed, the final scoring round occurs. It awards the three highest-ranking builders of each building type.
In each scoring round, there are more points to be won. Additionally, in each round each player is awarded points for his longest exterior wall segment. Obviously, the player with the most points after the third and final scoring round is winner of the game.
Playtest
Alhambra's basics are fairly simple, and sessions with new players are up and running in about ten minutes. Get money, lay building tiles, achieve majority. A minor thing that causes some confusion in the first turns is that players try to match currency colour with the colour of the building tile, but this is easily corrected.
There are, however, many restrictions to the laying of tiles, and there are many possible optimizations. Some of these choices I sketched in the previous paragraphs: do you buy a 'better' building which you don't have the currency for to pay exactly? Do you buy tiles with lots of walls, thus extending your outer wall but at the risk of suffocating your fortress? On which currencies and buildings do you concentrate? Is it worth a turn to set aside this building tile on my reserve board?
I've seen it happen in some other games that the players cannot choose between actions, and try to work out each and every possible turn of events. This can lead to slowing game play down to a crawl. Alhambra prevents this by restricting the amount of possible actions: you have three possible actions: take money, buy (and place) a building tile, or redesign your palace. When taking money you choose from four open cards; when buying a tile you choose from four open tiles. This leads to what Shannon Appelcline defines here as a pretty narrow 'decision tree', which keeps things manageable.
While playing we found out the hard way that the redesign action is often inferior to the other two actions. Redesigning your Alhambra in a thorough matter often takes multiple turns. These turns can often better be spend in taking money or erecting additional buildings.
One strategy that worked quite well for me was the following: In a rule, you only buy tiles if you can pay the exact amount of money. You stray from this only when you absolutely need a particular tile — either to improve your own fortress in a major way (for example, adding a tile that lengthens your outer wall) or to deny an opponent from doing the same. In the first scoring round, this will lead to having few buildings compared to the other players, because you have few different denominations of the different currencies. However, the points awarded in the first scoring round are slim compared to the points awarded in the second and third round. As you collect more and more different denominations, you'll later have more and more possibilities to pay the exact amount of money. This expands your Alhambra, but also nets you more turns. I've found that the investment in the opening phase almost always pays off in the end.
There's one major drawback to this game that unfortunately costs it major points: a distinct lack of direct involvement of the different players. This especially holds in five- or six-player games. (Alhambra can be played with as few as two players, or as much as six.)
As a player, there's little you can do to affect the other players, apart from snatching a prime tile or handy currency. These tactics are largely ineffective in a five- or six-player game, as you can only hinder one or two players in this way. Medium-term planning is also futile with many players ("I'll take that money card so I'll have the exact amount of money for that tile there in my next turn") as the chance of a card or tile remaining on the boards are practically nil. For these reasons, the game works better with three or four players.
There are special rules included for two-player sessions, which I've not tried out yet, but they look to be more competitive and involving.
The many components take up a lot of space, so plan accordingly. This is mostly because every player builds his or her own palace. Add to that each player's reserve board, the currency and building market, the 'treasury', and the score track, and you'll run out of space fast.
Game sessions take about 45 - 60 minutes. This playing time actually matches the duration that is printed on the box. I almost added Style points for this fact alone, as most games understate the playing time.
Conclusion
So, what's the verdict? Alhambra is a good game, with excellent production values. It's easily learned, with simple basic mechanics. The many restrictions and the room for optimization make it challenging, while the restriction on the number of options make the decision set manageable. Unfortunately, the game falls down through the lack of direct involvement, especially at five or six players. This makes the price of US$ 34.95 rather steep, even though the components are excellent and plentiful. I'll be forgiving in that, and rate it a five out of five for Style. Substance... well, I give it a low four out of five in that category.
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