Players: 2-6
Playing Time: 60-120 minutes
The Components
The Market of Alturien comes in a large box with a batch of high-quality components.
Board: A very large linen-textured six-panel board. It centers on a 7x9 grid, which is the Market of Alturien. The Market is divided up into six colored sections and has specific paths where customers can walk and large buildings where they can't. The grid could be very simple, but it's actually laid out with very attractive art which helps to make everything more appealing.
Plastic Bits: The game's plastic playing pieces are all simple but attractive molds which help add to the appeal of the game. There are 12 "trade houses" in each of the six player colors, which look more like Oriental temples than anything else and are stackable. They look quite neat when stacked all around the board.
There are also seven customer figures: 1 gold grande, 2 silver marques, 3 bronze condes, and one black thief. These are more complex molds that look very nice, though the gold and bronze pieces look a little too similar.
Cards: There are several different types of cards in the game. They're all medium to heavy weight, have a gloss finish, and feature high-quality artwork. The card types include market leader cards, investment cards, prestige cards, and a guards card. All of the cards include text that accurately describes what they do. The investment cards additionally feature icons, which are generally useful.
Game Summary Cards: Light cardboard cards which provide a very extensive description of setup and gameplay, most importantly including a list of how much everything costs.
Dice: Two wooden dice, each with sides labeled 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 1-3.
Money: The only false step among the components. This plain paper money is not only flimsy, but is also largely undecorated, making it stand out among the other components like a sore thumb.
Overall, the components of The Market of Alturien are high-quality, entirely beautiful, and feature above-average usability. I've given them a full "5" out of "5" for Style.
The Gameplay
The object of The Market of Alturien is to be the first player to gain enough money to buy 3 prestige cards.
Setup: The players place the six customers (1 grande, 2 marques, and 3 condes) on the board. Each player places four of his trade houses in four different street spaces, one of which may be a dark gray corner business. Players then take market leader cards, as appropriate. Each player starts the game with $6.
Market Leaders. These are bonus cards which go to the player with the most trade houses in each of the six colored districts on the board. Initially a player takes the market leader card if he has at least 2 trade houses in a district. A new player can take it when he has more trade houses.
Order of Play: On his turn a player:
- Moves a Figure
- Collects Money
- Spends Money
Move a Figure: The player rolls a die, and gets a result of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 1-3. He then moves one of the figures on the board exactly that many spaces in the direction he's pointed. When a figure comes to an intersection, the active player gets to decide which direction he moves in.
The figure moved could be one of the customers or the thief (which only comes into play after some player has $10 or more). Moving the thief has a special bonus, as the active player gets to immediately roll the die again and move a figure again (but only one extra time).
Collect Money: Now the figure that just moved earns money for the space it landed on if there is a market stall there. The money earned is equal to the value of the figure (1-3) times the number of market stalls in the space (1 or more), plus $2 if the owner of the space is the market leader of its district. Note that this money is earned by whichever player owns the market stalls, which may not be the active player.
In addition, any figures on dark gray "corner" spaces pay off for the active player at the same rate.
The Thief. Gustavo the Thief works much the same, but in reverse. He costs the player of the space he landed on 2x the number of market stalls, and if the player doesn't have the cash he must sell things until he does, at the value of $1 less than he paid for whatever he's selling. However, there's a small benefit to getting hit by the thief: unless you have the most money, you then get the guards, which means that you'll be protected from the thief until those guards move to someone else. The player who moved the thief gets to take the money from the player who was hit, so there's considerable incentive to move the thief, since you get a second move and cash.
Spend Money: Now a player can spend money on a wide variety of things.
Market Stalls. A player can pay to place a market stall on an empty space ($3 or $5), add a market stall to a business he already has ($2 or $3) or to move one of his market stalls from one space to another.
Prestige. A player can buy a prestige card ($12). These are the goal of the game, but only one can be bought each turn.
Investments. Finally, a player can buy investment cards, to a maximum of two in a game. There are four types: additional workers ($5), which let you roll two dice and select one when moving customers; a wagon maker's shop ($5), which lets you optionally add +1 to your die roll; a business office ($7), which increases the value of each of your businesses by 1 when determining the results of customers; and a ship ($7) which increases the values of customers by 1 when determining their results.
Ending the Game: The game ends on the round when a player gets three prestige cards. The round is finished out, and the player with the most prestige wins.
Relationships to Other Games
I've seen some people refer to The Market of Alturien as Monopoly Light. That's not a bad shorthand, because you're similarly building up spaces on the board, then rolling dice and hoping people land on your spaces, so that you can earn money. The difference is, of course, in the details. Herein there's much more opportunity for tactics, as you can choose between moving many pieces and you can decide how to build up the patterns of your business, in relation to other positions on the board. It's still a pretty light game, mind you, but you can engage in some good play as well.
More specifically The Market of Alturien is a logistical game, all about spending money to make money.
The Game Design
The Market of Alturien is clearly a game intended for families or more casual play. It's light and there's a lot of randomness to it (despite the increased control allowed by the fact that you have multiple figures to move).
However, there's clearly some strategy as well; I knows there's strategy because we all played awfully when first we tried it out. We all overspent and then consistently got hit by the thief, which required us to constantly sell purchases at a loss. It took us several rounds to figure out that you always needed to maintain a cushion, and this added 30-45 minutes to the game as we struggled around our starting position.
Though a powerful leader was hard to stop, there are some good catch-up mechanisms in the game, since moving the thief helps you earn cash based upon the success of other players, rather than your own success.
With all that said, The Market of Alturien is a fairly average game, though families may enjoy it as a considerable step up from mass-market fair.
I've given it a "3" out of "5" for Substance.
Conclusion
The Market of Alturien is a fairly average logistics game by Wolfgang Kramer. It may appeal to casual players and to families, who are doubtless the intended demographic for the game.
