Stonemaier Games Viticulture: Tuscany Expansion Essential Edition, 1-6 Players, Ages 14+, 150 Mins, New Board, Cards, Workers

Game designers do not always take player feedback with the careful ear that Jamey Stegmaier has. This is the 3rd edition of Viticulture and its expansion in just a few years, but they have taken a great game with a few bugs and made an A++ game that needs to be in any serious board gamer's collection. Viticulture Essential Edition is a fine game on its own, but adding the Tuscany Essential Edition expansion makes it one of my favorite games of all time. The Tuscany board truly expands the game, giving you more choices in each season, and making turn order matter so much more than it did before. The game is elegant, fun, thinky, and, to quote Inside The Box, "classy as @#$%".In case you somehow don't know, the idea is to run a wine business in Italy. You have some land, some workers, some seed money, and some leads (cards) on how you might want to sell wine and earn victory points. On the surface it looks like your goal is to plant some grape seeds, harvest/squeeze grapes, bottle wine, age it, and sell it. However, that is ONE way to run a wine business. You might want to buy your grapes from other places instead of growing them. You might want to invite guests to come and do wine sampling and run your business on tourism. You might want to bring influential guests to help you compete with others. You might want to sell specific type of wine to a small audience, or you might want to mass produce cheap wine and sell it in a larger market. There are many ways to manage a wine business, and each way MIGHT be the best way for you this time around.This equally viable multiple paths to victory is a Stonemaier Games staple that make their games so much more interesting than other types of victory point race games. Because there are so many ways to accumulate points, you cannot ignore what other players are doing. You may have to change up your play as you go, either because someone is blocking you from doing what you want, or possibly because other players are fighting over limited resources and ignoring the low hanging fruit that you can come in and just take (pun intended).Viticulture EE would be in my top 50 games, but with the Tuscany EE expansion, it is easily in my top 10. What a world we live in where games like this exist. Say what you will about the strides video games have made. Board games just keep getting better and better. Keep it up Stonemaier.

Adds just enough to change the base game without really changing the base game. Need the base to play this expansion. Expands the board and the people who can help you out. Viticulture is fun and this adds a little more to the game. We play with these additional rules more now than we did the original base game.

I normally refuse to buy expansions for board games because I figure if a board game isn't good on its own, there's no sense in spending more money on it when there are hundreds of other games I could purchase. I'd heard so many great things about Tuscany, however, I decided to try it out. I have to admit, it turned an enjoyable if somewhat forgettable game into a great game. The components are numerous and of good quality, the rulebook is easy to follow and a snap to get into, especially if you're already familiar with Viticulture gameplay, and it adds several new and interesting decisions to the base game. If you're short on shelf space, with very little finagling everything in the expansion fits into the base game box, which is a nice bonus. I am not going to make a habit of buying the expansions for my board games, but I absolutely do not regret this purchase.

I loved adding the Tuscany Expansion to the already excellent Viticulture. If Viticulture is not your favorite game, this expansion may help with some issues that you had in the base version. It adds three separate modular expansions and you can pick and choose which to play with.It addsStructures - additions that give different benefitsLocations - Send out messaging about your vineyards wines to get more VPNew grid for waking up - my personal favorite addition as it makes the decision of starting more important.I think this is a great expansions that is easy to learn if you know how to play the base game. I said it isn't super giftable just due to you need to know if the people you want to give this to own Viticulture and if they like the game. If yes to both those questions it is a great gift.Note: the base game is needed to play, this is not a standalone game!

If you’re a viticulture fan, this is a must have expansion.It adds a new extended board that is broken into 4 seasons. Overall, it adds a few modules to the game that you can use separate or all together. I recommend starting with one and learning it and then adding one and repeat.Once I learned them all I haven’t played without them. They add so much depth to your strategy and the game.You have the extended board. Four full seasons and a new reputation mechanic.You now have some star tokens that you place in regions on the reputation map. They earn you immediate rewards when placed and, possibly, victory points at the end of the game.There’s special workers. You can recruit this type of worker for 1 Lira more than the regular price and they have special abilities. When you set up the game you select two out of the deck of workers and place the cards next to the board. Those are the special powers for this game. So it adds variability there.Then there’s “structure”. It’s a whole deck of special building cards that you can build on your playmat. These buildings are for your use only and they give you something special that nobody else can do and vice versa.

An excellent addition to the world of Viticulture! Very smartly designed to allow you to add new elements the game as you like, giving this set an almost "legacy light" feeling. While the original Viticulture certainly stands brilliantly on its own, the Tuscany expansion modules allow for even more variety and replayability in a game that already has an incredibly high replay value. Highly recommended!