Ventura is an area-control/combat game, and all the time spent creating the board feels tedious the first time you play. However, once the troops start moving around, it becomes immediately clear how much impact that initial setup has on who wins the game. 45 reviews of Seth's Games and Anime 'This is the place in Ventura County to find the best board and card games out there. I'm a big fan of German-style games (Settlers of Catan, Dominion, etc.), and this store has tons available for sale, or they'll order in whatever they're missing. If you're a little 'iffy' about buying a game, ask the staff for a demo-chances are they own it, or there's.
First of all, Ventura is not as complex as it is said to be. Sure, the hexagonal board system and the truly great variety of cards help, but when I bought it from the shop, the vendor told me this game has both a military part AND a strategic, resource management part. Truth be told, it hardly does. This is a war game, period.
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45 reviews of Seth's Games and Anime 'This is the place in Ventura County to find the best board and card games out there. I'm a big fan of German-style games (Settlers of Catan, Dominion, etc.), and this store has tons available for sale, or they'll order in whatever they're missing.
The few reviews that are available online always mention how wonderful the components are. But the army and troop markers have numbers on them, numbers that are important, and they are virtually invisible when you unbox them. Four colors are available: blue, yellow, red, black. On three of them, you can just grab your black marker and be done with it. But what about the black pieces? Not everybody has white paint just lying around the house…
And yes, they are nice, but they are hollow inside, at least the territory markers. Wood pieces or full plastic ones would've been appreciated more. I mean… they're nice, but not that great.
When we first started the game, the game gave us a really positive feedback. The player's board (family board) has some small sketches that remind you what step comes next, the battle boards fit perfectly over your board so you don't always have to clear up a section of the table when a battle occurs… And all in all, all the steps seem rather logical.
Now, the manual says its a 90 minutes game, so being the first time we were playing it and hearing about how 'complex it is', we were expecting a 2-3 hours games.
Problem is, it was done in an hour. One player got a small army, attacked the undefended city of another player, and that was it. Game over.
We thought it was because of our lack of experience, but the second time we played, same thing happened. And even if it wouldn't have happened, all 3 players had 25-30 victory points, meaning the game was going to end that turn either way, and it was turn 5 or six…
My point is that the game seems a couple of fine tweaks away from being a truly great game. I feel that some rules are missing, and so there are ways to cut corners, there are moments where it is to easy.
Another thing that I find weird is that you can buy victory points at the beginning of the turn, and for 5 florins you will get 7 VP. This is a game that ends at 30 VP! And 5 florins are easy to get by.
Another thing that I find annoying is that players have to be of REALLY appropriate values and level of experience. Otherwise you risk having the game end in turn 3-4, and there is really no fun in that.
Last but not least, it's just a 4 players game. Granted, this can also be a good thing, but seeing how most games give you a maximum of 5, some will find this as a drag as well.
All these being said, in a couple of hours I'm seeing my friends for a game of… Ventura. It really is a great game, and I'm not sure how, but they do manage to give you the medieval-Europe feeling. The armies are great, there are interesting event-cards that randomly mess up your plan… And you can always add 2-3 extra rules that you see fit and balance the game.
So today I'm writing a review about a game I now have managed to play a few times now and have quite enjoyed. The game is called Ventura.
Overall Gameplay
The box states, 2-4 players and 60 minutes playing time. We have found that it is best played with 4 as this allows the most opportunity for varied strategy. Also as it is a strategy game we wondered how you managed to play a game that looks like complicated risk in an hour, the answer to this is that the way you win is by being the first to score 30 victory points – which is almost annoyingly easy for the first few games as this time limit restrains you to about 15 turns with one person in control of the central territories. We found that this game has a quite high learning curve due to the large quantity of rules you need to even start playing but gladly none of these rules are fairly complicated and during play work together to make the game flow quite nicely.
Presentation
Ventura Board Game Review 2019
The game is well presented with the flavour text and images on the cards being top notch and well suited to the theme of 14th century Italy. The illustrations on the terrain hexes are simple and leave room for all the icons representing it's attributes, the only issue we had with these is that the difference between a city and town – both grey bordered hexes – is on the illustrations and there is no textual way of knowing the difference (See below image that I found online that shows the difference – note that there are only 4 cities, your home city tile). My last issue is that the numbered army counters, thou nicely modelled, make the numbers on them difficult to see in anything except broad daylight without painting the raised numbers white. On the plus side your ‘family' board doubles as a reference sheet for the phases of the game (which there are a lot) which becomes a much needed aid when learning the game.
Gameplay
The gameplay it's self is simple enough when you get past the sheer quantity of what you need to know and the number of steps to a turn. In a nutshell (and not quite in order but close to):
- You get points and money based on your board position.
- You get 1 free card or territory to place and then can buy extra cards if you have the cash left.
- You modify your territories if needed (there are 2 troop types, one (the army) consolidates a conquered territory at the end of a round meaning it gives you an income next round, or the other (a company) which consolidates it after the income phase meaning you have to wait 2 rounds to get income after conquering it).
- Deploy new troops by paying the cost and playing the cards on your family board.
- Moving around the board and fighting other players troops.
Not too tricky, but you have about 12 A4 pages of text for all the possible difficulties – it was written by a rules lawyer I'm sure!
Conclusion
And yes, they are nice, but they are hollow inside, at least the territory markers. Wood pieces or full plastic ones would've been appreciated more. I mean… they're nice, but not that great.
When we first started the game, the game gave us a really positive feedback. The player's board (family board) has some small sketches that remind you what step comes next, the battle boards fit perfectly over your board so you don't always have to clear up a section of the table when a battle occurs… And all in all, all the steps seem rather logical.
Now, the manual says its a 90 minutes game, so being the first time we were playing it and hearing about how 'complex it is', we were expecting a 2-3 hours games.
Problem is, it was done in an hour. One player got a small army, attacked the undefended city of another player, and that was it. Game over.
We thought it was because of our lack of experience, but the second time we played, same thing happened. And even if it wouldn't have happened, all 3 players had 25-30 victory points, meaning the game was going to end that turn either way, and it was turn 5 or six…
My point is that the game seems a couple of fine tweaks away from being a truly great game. I feel that some rules are missing, and so there are ways to cut corners, there are moments where it is to easy.
Another thing that I find weird is that you can buy victory points at the beginning of the turn, and for 5 florins you will get 7 VP. This is a game that ends at 30 VP! And 5 florins are easy to get by.
Another thing that I find annoying is that players have to be of REALLY appropriate values and level of experience. Otherwise you risk having the game end in turn 3-4, and there is really no fun in that.
Last but not least, it's just a 4 players game. Granted, this can also be a good thing, but seeing how most games give you a maximum of 5, some will find this as a drag as well.
All these being said, in a couple of hours I'm seeing my friends for a game of… Ventura. It really is a great game, and I'm not sure how, but they do manage to give you the medieval-Europe feeling. The armies are great, there are interesting event-cards that randomly mess up your plan… And you can always add 2-3 extra rules that you see fit and balance the game.
So today I'm writing a review about a game I now have managed to play a few times now and have quite enjoyed. The game is called Ventura.
Overall Gameplay
The box states, 2-4 players and 60 minutes playing time. We have found that it is best played with 4 as this allows the most opportunity for varied strategy. Also as it is a strategy game we wondered how you managed to play a game that looks like complicated risk in an hour, the answer to this is that the way you win is by being the first to score 30 victory points – which is almost annoyingly easy for the first few games as this time limit restrains you to about 15 turns with one person in control of the central territories. We found that this game has a quite high learning curve due to the large quantity of rules you need to even start playing but gladly none of these rules are fairly complicated and during play work together to make the game flow quite nicely.
Presentation
Ventura Board Game Review 2019
The game is well presented with the flavour text and images on the cards being top notch and well suited to the theme of 14th century Italy. The illustrations on the terrain hexes are simple and leave room for all the icons representing it's attributes, the only issue we had with these is that the difference between a city and town – both grey bordered hexes – is on the illustrations and there is no textual way of knowing the difference (See below image that I found online that shows the difference – note that there are only 4 cities, your home city tile). My last issue is that the numbered army counters, thou nicely modelled, make the numbers on them difficult to see in anything except broad daylight without painting the raised numbers white. On the plus side your ‘family' board doubles as a reference sheet for the phases of the game (which there are a lot) which becomes a much needed aid when learning the game.
Gameplay
The gameplay it's self is simple enough when you get past the sheer quantity of what you need to know and the number of steps to a turn. In a nutshell (and not quite in order but close to):
- You get points and money based on your board position.
- You get 1 free card or territory to place and then can buy extra cards if you have the cash left.
- You modify your territories if needed (there are 2 troop types, one (the army) consolidates a conquered territory at the end of a round meaning it gives you an income next round, or the other (a company) which consolidates it after the income phase meaning you have to wait 2 rounds to get income after conquering it).
- Deploy new troops by paying the cost and playing the cards on your family board.
- Moving around the board and fighting other players troops.
Not too tricky, but you have about 12 A4 pages of text for all the possible difficulties – it was written by a rules lawyer I'm sure!
Conclusion
Ventura Board Game Review Xbox One
An excellent fun game, my recommendation for learning this is allow time for 2 games and one player briefly skims the book in advance (so he/she knows where to look for each bit). To explain the game he/she reads out the phase list, referring to the icons on the family board, giving a brief description of what happens. Then he/she should read out the aim of the game and the 'How To Win' section on the last/second to last page, which tells you how to get victory points, briefly cover combat, then go through setup and start playing muddling your way through your first game. Then play a second game which shall be more enjoyable as you know what's happening. Florida gambling age.
