Louis XIV

Louis XIV is an "area control" game for 2 to 4 players. The box states the playing time at 75-100 minutes and the games I've played have been in accordance with this.

On opening the box you are confronted with quite a few contents, including 90 cards of average quality, 64 nice wooden influence markers, and over 100 various cardboard pieces which need to be punched out. The most intriguing parts however are the 12 delightful game boards which each show a contempory picture, on both sides, of a person who held some influence at the court of Louis XIV. The rulebook contains a brief history of each of these people. Speaking of the rulebook, this is 16 pages, which may seem quite long, but I found it to be well written and very clear with plenty of good examples. I also went onto Boardgamegeek and downloaded a nice player aid contained in one of the files there.

The initial layout of the game can seem quite complicated, and I suggest having a dry run first before actually playing the game. The layout is quite logical, but I found I saved a lot of time with my playgroup by having already set it up previously at home.

I found the gameplay itself quite simple to understand, but like all good games difficult to master. Points are scored by completing mission cards, and also collecting shields of coats-of-arms. From the games I have played so far, the best strategy seems to be getting the right mix between these two elements. Although missions score higher, ignoring the shields can be a fatal mistake, but you won't win without completing a few missions either.

Another aspect of gameplay is managing your influence markers. Keeping a sufficient number in your personal supply can be quite tricky, and can sometimes mean that you may even want to lose a board or tie, rather than win, so that you can get markers back rather than lose them to the general supply.

I've played the game with 2, 3 and 4 players, and can safely say that it works well with each, which is always a sign of a good game. I would have to say that it is a game which would be better for the more serious gamer, I wouldn't use Louis XIV as an introductory game. It looks to have good replayability though and I can see Louis XIV being a favourite of our gaming group for a long time to come.