Players: 2-4
Time: 60-90 minutes
Difficulty: 3 (of 10)
This edition of Dos Rios was simulataneously produced by Mayfair Games and Kosmos.
The Components
Dos Rios comes with:
- The Board:
- 6 board edge pieces
- 12 land tiles
- 40 river pieces
- Wood Pieces:
- 24 campesinos
- 16 casas
- 4 haciendas
- 40 dams
- 15 harvest cards
- 50 Rios
- 1 rulesheet
The Board: The board for Dos Rios is built out of a number of modular components. First a frame is constructed out of 6 board edge pieces which jigsaw together. This frame includes not only a few unique board features (river sources and mountains at the top; wagon tiles along parts of the sides; and cities and lake at the bottom), but also the top 13 hexes of the map, which are all forests or hills. The middle of the board is constructed out of 12 land tiles, each of which is a triangle of three hexes. These hexes feature one of three terrains: forests, hills, and fields, with the fields clearly marked by a specific type of crop (corn, tobacco, or wheat).
The pieces of all printed on heavy, linen-textured cardboard, in full color. They fit together snuggly and create a dynamic board that's different every time you play. It's generally pleasing to look at, and definitely one of the high points of the game.
The river pieces are squiggly blue cardboard lines which will be placed on the board running from the center of one hex to the center of an adjacent one. They're printed on the same medium-weight linen-textured cardboard, and aren't anything particularly special in and of themselves, but look good against the board background.
Wood Pieces: These wood pieces are all carved, painted wood, which are up to the usual quality of German games. Each player gets a set of campesinos (farmers), casas (houses), and haciendas (nice houses) in their color (black, white, yellow, or red). The campasinos are really nice looking cowboy-like figures. The houses are much more simple pentagons, while the haciendas have a bit of shape to them and remind me a bit of the Spanish missions here in California.
The dams are simple brown rectangles of wood.
Harvest Cards: Instead of being done as cards, these fifteen harvest pieces are actually tiles, printed on medium-weight linen-textured cardboard. they're nicely produced.
Each card shows a specific type of harvest: one of the rivers; woods; or one of the types of fields. Each one also features some artwork, and overall feels true to the theme and feel of this game. I personally thought the desperado cards were bit too close in look to the normal cards for each river, while one player had trouble distinguishing the wheat and corn from across the table, but generally, these are well made.
Rios: Money, printed on regular paperstock in 100 and 500 Rio denominations, with each denomination also marked by color (white or blue). Again, there's nice, theme-appropriate artwork. The paper is pretty flimsy, however.
Rulesheet: A four-page rulesheet, printed full-color with lots of illustrations and examples. The layout is a bit plain, with two big columns of text, but it was otherwise easy to follow.
Box & Tray: A large, square box that's fairly common for Kosmos releases, printed to usual high German quality. It's a bit bigger than the game needs, but not grossly so. The tray is somewhat generic, with four small side slots and two large central slots. It does a good job of keeping player pieces separated, though I've had to add in a few plastic bags as well.
Missing from the components is a way to track the movement action points that are used each and every turn; you have six of them, and it's a bit easy to lose track of them when you're playing. One of more tracks to measure these on the frames of the board would have been highly useful.
Overall, Dos Rios is printed with high-quality components, almost all of which are individually stunning to look at. The game also looks quite attractive when you're playing, and thus it earns a full "5" out of "5" for Style.
The Game Play
Dos Rios is a resource-management game, where your general goal is to build four casas and a hacienda with monies run from harvesting along the banks of the two rivers.
Setup: The game board is outlined with a frame, then randomly built with a set of 12 three-hex tiles. Each hex, as already noted, shows one of three terrain types: hill, forest, or field.
Build the River. There are two river sources on the board: the source of the brown river to the northeast and the source of the green river to the southeast. The starting player will now layout the rivers, which generally run north to south. In each space, the river will flow into one of the three southernly hexes: south, southeast, or southwest. It will flow into the lowest elevation of the three hexes, with hills always being highest, then forests, then fields (then, only on the far south of the board, lake as the lowest terrain type). If there are two or more legal hexes at the same elevation, the person placing the rivers gets to decide which way it goes. Eventually, the river will either flow into one of the lakes in the southern corners of the board, or else the city which runs along the south.
Place Campesinos. Each player is then given 6 campesinos, 4 casas, 1 hacienda (all in their color), and 2 (brown) dams. They will then take turns placing one campesino each on the board, until each has placed three. The remaining three campesinos for each player are placed in the city. Each player keeps his hacienda and casas for later building.
Display Harvests. Finally, a number of harvest cards equal to the players plus one are flipped up and placed in order next to the harvest deck, with desperados being returned to the deck if drawn. Players will always get to see what the next several harvests could be (and, in particular, a player will always get to know his next harvest before he takes his current turn).
Order of Play: Each player now takes the following actions on each of his turns:
- Move Campesinos & Take Actions
- Resolve Harvests
On the first round of play, there are two special rules: you can't chase off anyone who hasn't gone yet; and there are no harvests resolved through the first round of play.
Move Campesinos & Take Actions: Each turn each player has six action points which they may use to move one or more of their campesinos. An action point moves a campesino one space, or onto or off of the wagon trails (which allow sped-up movement near the city).
There's also one other way to spend action points: if you have a hacienda you may spend 2 action points to move one of your campesinos directly from the city to your hacienda (but not vice-versa).
There are a couple of restrictions to movement: a campesino can't move into a hex with another player's campesino unless he is chasing those campesinos off; a player can't have more than two campesinos in a hex; a campesino can't end a turn in a hex with an opponent's casa; and a campesino can't move into a hex with another player's hacienda.
Players can take a number of actions before, during, or after their movement, including: chase off other campesinos; build dams; build casas; and build your hacienda.
Chase Off Campesinos. You chase off an opponent's campesino(s) if you move into their hex with superior numbers (e.g., 2 of yours move into a hex with 1 of theirs); or if you move into their hex with the same number, but from a higher elevation (e.g., you move a campesino into their forest hex with just one campesino from your adjacent hills hex). Generally, the campesinos you're moving in don't have to come from the same hex, except as required if you're trying to out-elevate them.
Campesinos that are chased off imediately return to the city.
Build Dams. A dam is placed along a hexside of the hex the campesino is currently in, and makes it so that the river can never travel in that direction (though the three southernly edges of a hex can never all be dammed up). If the river was currently flowing in that direction, the current player then reroutes the river past the dam according to the "Build the River" rules from setup, with one addendum: if the river returns to its immediately previous river bed, it stays in that river bed for the rest of its path. A dam is useful because the course of the rivers determine where production occurs.
Build Casas. A casa can be built for $500 in a hex which doesn't currently have a building, where you have a campesino. It's useful for: production, keeping other players from ending in the space, and winning the game.
Build Hacienda. A hacienda can be built for $1000 in a hex which doesn't currently have a building, where you have a campesino. It's useful for: quick movement, production, keeping other players from entering the space, protecting from desperados, and winning the game.
Resolve Harvests: Having finished his action, the player now looks at the first (of several displayed) harvest cards, and decides whether to use it or not. If he doesn't it goes to the end of the line and the player's turn ends. If it does, a harvest occurs, then a new harvest card is drawn.
The Harvest. There are three types of harvests: crop harvests, lumber harvests, and river harvests.
Crop (wheat, tobacco, or corn) harvests cause a harvest in that type of field. All players with a campesino, casa, or hacienda in a field of that type which is fed by one of the two rivers earn $100 per hex.
Lumber harvests cause harvests in forests. All players with a campesino, casa, or harcienda in a forest which is fed by one of the two rivers earn 1 dam per hex.
River harvests affect an entire river. All players with a campesino, casa, or hacienda on a field or forest along that river earn either $100 (for a field) or 1 dam (for a forest), as appropriate.
Replace the Card. The used harvest card is then discarded and a new harvest card is drawn. If it's a harvest, it's placed at the end of the line. However, it could also be a desperado.
There are two desperados, which each list one of the two rivers. The desperados run down the river in question, starting from the source. For each hex they enter that has one or more campesinos and no hacienda, they chase off one of the campesinos, forcing him to return to the city. After they have chased off three campesinos, or reached the end of the river, the desperados depart.
Afterward the desperado card is replaced (and, yes, two desperado attacks can happen in a row).
Winning the Game. The game ends immediately when someone has placed all five of his buildings (four casas, one hacienda), or, alternatively, when he has placed three casas and a hacienda, if they're currently all on the river.
Playing the Game
Dos Rios is a highly tactical game. Most frequently a player is making immediate reactions to the harvest card he'll be using at the end of his turn. If it's a brown river, for example, he'll do his best to use his 6 APs to chase other players off the brown river, and put himself in those positions. Likewise, a player could try and tactically monopolize one of the crop types or the forests.
Sometimes, if a player feels like his harvest is bad, he'll instead set himself up for the next player's harvest; this can sometimes work, and sometimes put that other player in a position where he decides not to play the harvest because it'd help the current player too much.
Between your turns, things tend to change a lot. You can usually expect to find a number of your campesinos back in the city before you start every turn.
The dams become increasingly important as casas and haciendas start to be placed. At this point players will increasingly try and change the general flow of the river so that certain casas and haciendas are either always or never on the river bed.
Toward the end of the game, players will be trying their best to get the last Rios necessary to build their final building. It'll probably be obvious who's going to win a couple of turns before he does.
Relationships to Other Games
Dos Rios (2004) is a fairly standard resource-management game. It falls closest in style to Klaus Teuber's classic The Settlers of Catan (1995). They're each good games with slightly different demographics: Catan is more strategic while Rios is more tactical; Catan is more random while Rios is more analytical; and Catan is more varied while Rios is more concentrated. I personally think that Catan is a better game with more replayability, but I can see that a more serious set of gameplayers might like Dios Rios better.
Dos Rios also uses a very simplistic action-point/movement system. Action points really first appeared in modern designer games with Wolfgang Kramer's Tikal (1999) and Torres (1999); they've also appeared in more complex forms, with abilities to carry over points from round to round, in recent games such as La Strada (2004) and Hansa (2004). Dos Rios is action points at their simplest: they're used to move multiple figures, who can then take additional actions in places they move to.
The Game Design
Dos Rios is a fine resource-management game. Here's some of the high points:
Very Unique River System: The ability to dynamically change the rivers, and the fact that they're the control for the resource-production system together form a very original and introducing game mechanic which helps the game to shine.
Good Strategy in Harvest Tile Display: The game is mostly tactical, but the fact that you always get to see the next several harvests does offer a little bit of strategy, which slightly offsets the otherwise tactical nature of the game.
Very Thoughtful: Overall, the game is very thoughtful and contemplative, with the ability to engage in very meaningful tactical moves based on careful study of current board positions and upcoming harvests.
Here's some of the deficits of the game:
Some Downtime: Because of the thoughtfulness of the game, there's some possibility for notable downtime between your turns (to the tune of 5-10 minutes, not anything huge). This is made worse by the fact that you often don't really care what your opponents do, because the board will be so changed before your next turn.
Some Limitations: The game ultimately feels somewhat limited in its strategy. Most tactical decisions are along a single axis, without multiple paths to victory; the only significant long-term strategy decision is whether you build your hacienda early or late.
Boring End Game: The last round or so of the game can be boring, as it's often obvious already who has won, based on money already in hand. It's also possible for other players to get to a fairly untenable position, even before the end-game, based on extensive dam building.
Overall, Dos Rios is a fine game, but not an extraordinary one. Based on its innovative river system, I'd give it a high "3" out of "5" for Substance: just slightly above average.
Conclusion
If you enjoy resource-management games, this is a fine one to add to your gaming arsenal. It'll be particularly enjoyable to players who want a bit more thoughtful depth in their games and find The Settlers of Catan too random.
