VILLAGE
Stronghold Games - 2011
picture from BoardGameGeek.com
My friends Joe, Bryan, and John were my go-to crew for playing board games. It never took much convincing to get them to come over to try any new board game. Everything was great until both bars where Joe worked were shut down. With no job and no prospects for more work, Joe sought greener pastures out west in Los Angeles working for his friend’s entertainment company. Bryan also felt the call of the Golden State and left to join our friends in the world of film and television. John, also in work limbo, was often heading back to Massachusetts to pick up short term work from people he knew there when he could. Just like that, my board game group exploded. I love board games but, unlike video games, you need people physically around in order to enjoy them. Luckily for me, I happened to know some people who knew some people who were also in to board games. I was surprised to find we had many of the same tastes. I think on our first encounter we play Betrayal at House on the Hill, by this point it had become a classic in my mind. We also played Battlestar Galactica which is a great take on the secret identity social deduction types of games, which I normally dislike. They also introduced me to Village.
Village is a game that I absolutely love but have played only a few times and have never owned myself. It’s one of those games where when we do have a game night it’s always at the top of my list. Unfortunately, the folks who owned it moved thousands of miles away, so I haven’t played it in years, but it’s still one I think about frequently. Much like Agricola, it is a worker placement game, in a way. You have workers you place, yes, but most of the actions are acquired by taking cubes from the board. You then can spend cubes later to trade in for resources. The most interesting option is placing one of your family members on one of the actions and spending time, instead of resources, to obtain goods. Village is all about time and family generations and how they’re remembered.
I called Village a worker placement game, and it is, but only partly. Taking an action doesn’t require you to place a worker there, the action is drafted. How you pay for that action is where your workers come in to play. The central board is the village in which the player’s families ply their trade and sell their goods. On the central board, all of the actions are split up in to zones. There’s the craft zone, the trade zone, the town council, and a small map of neighboring towns. If you want to take one of the available actions you must take a cube from that zone. Want to get some grain? Take a cube from the silo. Want to build a wagon? Take a cube from the wainwright. There are also resources you must pay to gain these things but all actions are first initiated by taking a cube, if available. If no cube is available you cannot take the action. You can also place a family member in one of these zones to gain knowledge in that skill. So when you take a cube from the wainwright, you can place a family member there to train them. This way, when you take a cube from the wainwright in subsequent turns, instead of spending resources to gain a cart you can instead pay time.
Each player has a small board in front of them where they have their family members, resources, and influence cubes. Most importantly, there is a series of hour glasses around the edge of the board. Starting at the 12:00 position the hour glass is full. Continue clockwise and you will see your hour glass drains until it is depleted and resets back to full. When you reset your hour glass= enough time has passed for one of your family members to kick the bucket. You choose any of your family members, whether they be in a location on the central board or back at home, and they are removed from the game permanently. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing! If you decide your family member who has been training to be a wainwright should die then they are placed in the town chronicle. This is a great way to score points for the end of the game. There are limited spots in the chronicle so filling it up with your family may be your ultimate goal. Working your family to the bone quickly and filling up those pages isn’t a terrible strategy. If the chronicle is out of pages for tradespeople, for instance, your family member is instead interred in the church graveyard which, unfortunately, is unremarkable and not worth many, if any, points.
The death mechanic one of the most fascinating aspects of any game I’ve come across. I’m sure there are games with a similar mechanic, but the story within Village is what makes it special. When we played, we’d often come up with names and histories for our little meeples. When mass was called, we’d break out in to monk-like chanting. The town council was always filled with nasty politicians greedy for power. Running in to a rival family member on the roads outside of town was met with vitriol and expletives. So when one of those meeples died, so did the character. If that character didn’t make it in to the chronicle, you felt bad you couldn’t end their life sooner. It’s an odd sensation.
I think I may have played Village only 5 or 6 times but it left a lasting impression on me. Even now I was just looking to see how much it is online and wondered if I should make space for it on my shelf. Honestly; I should make space for it. Once this pandemic is under control maybe I’ll finally add it to my collection. It would be a shame if it never made it in to my own personal chronicle.