Cascadero
2-4 Players, 45 Minutes
The kingdom is shattered, its towns are divided, and its people are distrusting. The newly crowned ruler, El Cascadero, seeks to reunite the land, but he can’t do it alone. Thus, he appoints four ministers to visit the people and restore civil harmony. While the ministers are obligated to bring prosperity to the entire land, each of them also has one dedicated responsibility: Farming, Crafting, Mining, and Markets. El Cascadero also records in his book the successes of his ministers…
Cascadero is the next epic tile placement strategy game from acclaimed designer Reiner Knizia. Ministers visit towns by placing their envoys adjacent to them; but towns are distrusting of single envoys, so newly placed envoys will only trigger town scoring when they are part of an established group or carry an official seal from El Cascadero himself. Towns with royal heralds at them or a history of envoy visits are even more valuable, as they willingly collaborate for even greater successes.
Players must decide between two competing strategies: build long chains of their envoys to achieve synergies and objectives, or establish smaller, separate groups of envoys to trigger timely town scoring. Both will award victory points, yet your victory points will mean nothing if you don’t also reach the end of your appointed success column.
By triggering town scoring, you’ll advance along that town’s matching success column, gaining bonuses as you pass over them. Bonuses include earning victory points, advancing further on any success column, claiming an official seal, repositioning an envoy, or even acquiring an additional turn. Through careful timing and clever plans, players can trigger a cascading combo of exciting bonuses that swing momentum in their favor.
Cascadero provides a wealth of replayability through emergent player interaction, variable board and tile setups, and an advanced player mode featuring traveling heralds. Yet the game will always end in one of two ways: when one player reaches fifty victory points or must place a tile but has no tiles left. The players who reached the end of their appointed success column qualify for victory, and whoever among them has the most victory points wins.
Cascadito
1-4 Players, 30-45 minutes
The kingdom is reuniting, but the work of El Cascadero and his ministers has only begun. Many challenges and opportunities await the kingdom. Bandits threaten to overwhelm the towns, rivers present new modes of travel, trade continues to grow, and the borders must be defended.
Cascadito is the smaller spiritual sibling to Reiner Knizia’s big box tile placement strategy game, Cascadero. Each player receives their own sheet and a pencil. 6 dice are rolled, and players take turns drafting a die used to fill in a space on their map. The dice display 5 colors, representing the 5 town types on the map. When a colored die is chosen, the player fills in a space adjacent to a matching colored town.
By reaching towns with groups of filled in spaces, players will trigger town scoring in the book of successes on their sheet. If players plan their routes wisely, these escalating successes can trigger a cascade of combos to give them a competitive edge in earning the public achievements and private bonuses.
The game ends immediately when all the public achievements have been claimed or when one player gains all the private bonuses. Players will then tally up their successes and achievements to determine the winner.
Cascadito retains the challenging, combotastic core of Cascadero — the interplay between the map and book of successes — while providing a refreshingly unique and complimentary experience:
- Players are limited to the dice options on the table, and they must watch their opponent’s plans and routes carefully when drafting a die on their turn.
- Features 4 dramatically unique sheets with different maps, tracks, achievements, strategies, landmarks, and bonuses. These sheets are (1) Rural Beginnings, (2) Raiding Bandits, (3) The Two Rivers, and (4) Trade and Defense.
- Contained within a smaller and faster package, great as a filler game or travel companion.
- Includes a solo mode for each sheet with a standard and advanced difficulty.
If you want learn more about these games, then check out the Predicted FAQ Post for both Cascadero and Cascadito on BoardGameGeek. Or, if you simply want to follow the Kickstarter campaign (launching in October), then you can subscribe to the pre-launch page here.