Stonemaier Games Viticulture Essential Edition Board Game, for 156 months to 9600 months

I was looking for a board game to de-stress with after work and happened upon Viticulture. In this game youve inherited a vineyard and youre trying to make it productive by building structures, planting vines, making and selling wines, and welcoming guests for victory points.

I wasnt too excited to play this game. The theme at first glance despite it being about wine, seemed like it would be dry (winemaking?). Also the agriculture aspect of the game was not appealing, as any board game about agriculture is immediately going to be compared to Agricola (and rightfully so).

Its a very nicely put-together worker placement game, with economic development at the heart of it. The mechanics are simple enough, clearly explained, for the most part, and with the bonus feature of a very good 2-page rules summary included. Physical components are of good, durable quality, with fair sized cards (in a tray that allows for the thickness of any sleeves to be used). The game scales well, in that additional places for ones workers become available as player numbers increase. There is also an automaton (cards) to play against, should the need arise; Ive yet to try that. Ive only played with three, but I didnt feel that there would be an excessive downtime with 5/6, largely because ones own plans have to continuously be updated in the light of others placements.

Perfect condition. Great euro game!

This game has similarities to other worker placement games such as Agricola, but the two things I like more about Viticulture are 1) you dont have to feed your workers on a regular basis, and 2) growing and harvesting grapes to make wine is a much more fun theme in my opinion. The summer and winter visitor cards add a ton of variety to each game too. My only minor gripe is if you are unlucky enough not to draw any red grape vine cards, you pretty much have zero chance of winning. Also, it will take you at least 60-90 minutes to set up and play, so you have to be in the mood (not one of those you can knock out in half an hour like Splendor). But otherwise this is a very good game that my family and I enjoy playing any chance we get.

I was so excited for the game and was disappointed by the damage on the box when it came in the mail

Very fun game. Every time Im at a game night now I want to play this game.

We love this game! If you like games Catan you will enjoy this one as well. We did get the Tuscany expansion to go with it and it made the game even more fun. When we opened the game it did have a broken piece, it was the small warehouse, we didn’t want to send the game back so I got online and Stonemaier games replaced it free.

Really happy with the game and detail, but some of the glass tokens had chipped, which was disappointing.

Great strategy game! If you like Catan or similar games this is a good one.