Clans (board game)

Game of the Year 2003: Nominations List German Games Award 2003: 3rd place Game of the Year 2003: Games Hit ( family games) Dutch Games Award 2003: Nominated

Clans - the first villages, often abbreviated clan, is a building designed by Leo Colovini board game for two to four players aged ten years. A game lasts between 30 and 45 minutes. Clans released in late 2002 in Publishing Winning Moves, was nominated for the 2003 Critics' Prize game of the year and reached number 3 on the German game prize.

Theme of the game and equipment

Relatives of five clans roam a primeval landscape and live through five epochs of the founding of villages. Usually they settle peacefully with members of other clans, but not always.

The Winning Moves for typical six-part game board is color- plus lakes clearly divided into 60 areas of 4 habitable landscape types ( grassland, steppe, forest, mountain ). Links runs a scoring track to a designated as an epoch summary column.

The pieces are small huts made of wood, painted in the colors of the five clans. There is also the dials in wood and bonus marker from cardboard.

Game play

There is only one way train: There are always dragged all the huts of an area on a non-empty, neighboring area. Arises in a populated area, surrounded only by empty fields, a village was established; represented the clans get rating points and the player on the train can also get a bonus marker, if the type of landscape of the new village coincides with that of the current era.

Interestingly, the competition is the fact that is kept secret, which player plays with which color. The players are in turn the train and each player can move huts of all colors. So you have found the villages so that their own clan color does not go empty, but may not be too obvious about doing this.

The game ends when twelve villages were founded. The players reveal for which clan they have played and add their bonus marker to score points in their clan.

Target group and assessment

The simple gameplay with only one kind turn facilitates entry also for less experienced players or rounds with changing participants. With two players outweighs Clans strategic moment, with four players take the intuitive to share.