California is a logistical tile-laying game by Michael Schacht, published by Uberplay.
Players: 2-5
Time: 45-60 minutes
Difficulty: 3 (of 10)
The Components
California comes with:
- 5 mansion boards
- 1 stores board
- 1 bank board
- 88 tiles
- 11 bonus cards
- 30 gifts
- 5 loan markers
- 6 guests
- 50 coins
- 1 bag
Boards: The boarded are all printed on thick linen-textured cardboard.
Each player gets a mansion board which depicts his home, the attic, and the extra costs to build at various locations. Each one is presented in isomorphic view, to give a consistent, slightly 3D look to the whole game. The boards are all double-sided: one side is used for 2/3 players and the other for 4/5.
The stores board holds tiles for sale and the bank board holds coins that are available. They're each decorative, but at core pretty simple.
More Cardboard Bits: Almost every other piece in the game is full-color, linen textured cardboard too. They're all simpler in style than the board, but they're nonetheless each attractive and clear.
The tiles each either display a color of room that you can build, or else a color of room with a piece of furniture on top of it. The bonus cards each show two or three items that you need to collect a bonus, plus the value of the bonus. The gifts are pretty small markers which just show some red ribbon. The loan markers meanwhile show a "3/4" to remind you that you get 3 and must repay 4.
Each of the 6 guests matches the color of a room type. They each have a plastic stand so that they stand out when placed on the table.
Finally, the coins are cardboard too. Printed in gold and silver they're pretty distinctive (though why you're using gold and silver to pay for renovations in California ... who knows?).
Bag: The bag is a simple cloth with draw string. You can use it to pull tiles from.
Overall the components are all good quality, easy to use, and fairly average in attractiveness (except the boards which are quite pretty). As such I give California a solid "4" out of "5" for Style: above average.
The Gameplay
The object of California is to renovate more rooms, get more furniture and generally do a better job of rebuilding your mansion than any other players.
Setup: Each player takes a mansion board and 6 silver (1 gold coin--which is worth 5 silver--and 1 silver coin). The bank is setup by placing four gold in it. The two stores are set up by placing four tiles in each store.
The eleven bonus tiles, the six guests, the loans, and the rest of the money are all laid nearby.
Tiles. Tiles come in three broad types. Some are "rooms" which are just blank tiles of one of the six colors. Some are "furniture", which show the appropriate room color and then some piece of furniture atop it.Some are "attic expansions" which give the player the opportunity to add a second space to his attic.
Coin or Tile: There's one simple choice on each player's turn: coin or tile. A player can either take a coin from the bank or else purchase a tile from a store.
Purchasing a Tile: To purchase a tile the player must pay a number of silver coins equal to the number of gold coins currently in the bank (e.g., 1-4). He then chooses where to place the tile.
If the tile was a room the player places it in his mansion. If he already has rooms of that color he must place it orthagonally adjacent to one of those existing rooms. Most spaces in a house cost either 1 or 2 extra silver to build on. This additional fee must be paid.
If the tile was an attic expansion, it's placed in the second, unfinished space in the attic.
If the tile was furniture it's placed on an unoccupied tile of the appropriate color. If the player has none he may place it in an unoccupied attic space. It'll then move down into a room as soon as one appears.
In all cases a player can't buy a tile if he can't legally place it.
Loans. At any point a player may take a loan for 3 silver or repay a loan for 4.
Guests. There are six guests, one per color, who all like to look at new furniture. Whenever you place a piece of furniture the guest in that color comes over to your house (if you didn't already have him). If you already have at least one guest in your house, the new one brings a present (which is worth a victory point).
Bonus Tiles. There are 11 bonus tiles which give bonus victory points for various collections of two or three pieces of furniture. If you meet the criteria for one (or more) of these tiles, you can immediately take it. Six gives 3-point bonuses to the first person to place three pieces of furniture of the same color. There's one per color. Two gives 3-point bonuses for placing three different colors of furniture. Three give 2-point bonuses for placing specific pairs of furniture (e.g., a piano and a pool).
Ending a Day: A day ends when either the bank is emptied or either of the two stores is emptied. Then the stores are cleared and new tiles are put on the stores and new coins are put on the bank.
After the 11th day, all the tiles have been cycled through the stores. Now the remainder are remixed and eight tiles are drawn from the set for the 12th day.
Ending the Game: After the 12th day, the game ends.
Each player gets 1 point per space in his house that has at least one tile on it. Each player also gets the value of their bonus tiles and 1 point per gift. Any unpaid loans are worth -2 points. The player with the most points wins.
Relationships to Other Games
California is mainly a logistical game. It's all about figuring out how to get the best prices on the items which will bring you victory points, and at the same time about getting the most victory points by beating your opponents to the punch. It's got some pretty unique elements for a logistical game, mainly centered around the fact that if you decide not to purchase an item, then you implicitly make everything cheaper for everyone else (which gives it a sort of dutch auction feel much like Queen's Necklace.
There's also some tile-laying in California, but it's relatively minor. You can start to get a bit hemmed in toward the end of the game, but that just becomes an issue of deciding what to focus on.
Overall, the gestalt of California reminds me quite a bit of Alhambra, primarily because of the focus of both games on an open store which everyone can buy from. In both cases you're trying to make plans to purchase the best items up for sale, and are trying to manage things so that you get them just before your opponents.
I've written elsewhere that Uberplay's best product line is the one containing their exclusive Reiner Knizia publications. This is the third Michael Schact game that Uberplay has published in these long, thin boxes, following Hansa and China, and Uberplay's Schacht publications are my second favorite line. Although California isn't quite as good as the others, which I gave top ratings, it's nonetheless a good match in levels of strategy and time and I'll be happy to have it on my shelf in a pile with them.
The Game Design
I thought that California looked pretty shallow when I looked over the rules, but I was pleasantly surprised by the depth when I actually got into things. The tile purchase and placement is fine; it's about what you'd expect: logistics with some strategy.
What impressed me more, however, was the player interaction. You always have to keep track of your opponents, looking at what they're going to want and how that might interfere with your plans. This might lead you to make an expensive early purchase or to not do so and later regret it. This competition involves not just the tiles for your house, but also the bonus tiles that are still available. There are also some neat ways to hose your opponents, by buying something you know they want or by ending the round quickly so that they don't get the opportunity.
It's also worth noting that the mechanic of taking a coin or buying a tile is very clever, for exactly the reasons noted above: you're not just deciding what's optimal for you, but how it might affect your opponents too.
My only real concern with the game is that there's some potential for kingmaking in which guests you take and in when you decide to end the game. However, this a relatively small issue, particularly if a player continues to try and work in his own best interest.
For player numbers, I suspect this game works best with 3, not the higher player numbers advertised on the box. Much like the similar mechanic in Alhambra if you crank up the player numbers each player loses control, can't plan as well, and has worse downtime. I suspect playing with 5 might drop the score of the game a full rating point.
However, at it's ideal player number of 3 or so I give California a "4" out of "5" for Substance. It's not Schacht's best game, but it's enjoyable, interesting, and an above average offering.
Conclusion
California is a logistical game by Michael Schacht that supports interesting resource management in a similar style to Alhambra. It allows for good strategy and good player interaction, and is generally an interesting game to play.
Review Summary