Kendahl Johnson
United States
Bonaire
Georgia
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With Masons being available for $10 at Amazon, I thought I’d write a quick review.
Gameplay:
The mechanics of the game are simple. Players place a wall on the board. They then roll dice to place a tower (one of three colors) and houses (one of five colors) on either side of the wall. Walls that are placed to enclose an area become a town. Whenever a town is created, players can then play cards to score points. Player with the most points wins.
Rules:
This game explains in less than 10 minutes. You may have to refer to the manual to understand the cards, but only the first few times of playing. Rules are pretty straightforward and don’t require an advanced degree to understand. The game scales well from 2 to 4 players. I really don’t see why 5 players couldn’t play this game, although it would add to the length.
Length:
I’d guess this is a 45 minute two player game, adding about 15 minutes for each additional player.
Luck:
You would think the biggest element of luck is in the dice rolling. Yes, this does provide a random element, but it’s enjoyable. The real downfall of the game is in the cards. Some are not valuable while others are. They just aren’t balanced. I realize that not every card is equal, but a few cards are likely to give you only 5 points in a best case scenario, while others are likely to give you that many points in a worst case. Some cards are pretty powerful early in the game and pretty useless late in the game. If certain colors aren’t rolled, then cards awarding points based on those colors will be entirely useless. If you get dealt a few guild cards early on, you’ll be able to get a nice lead.
Strategy:
Really the only strategy in the game is to play walls that will give you the most points based on the cards in hand. It’s not too tricky, but does provide opportunity for some decision making. Often, the toughest choice you have will be in a scoring phase. Do you play a card that doesn’t score too many points or discard it and draw two new ones? (If you opponent scores points and you discard and draw two useless cards in exchange, then you will have a pretty big deficit to overcome.) Some cards will also provide you the decision of playing it now for sure points or holding it for later, when it could score more but also could score less.
It might be interesting to play with the cards face up because it’s pretty easy to create a town and score a handful of points only to realize you’ve set an opponent up for much higher scoring. But that’s part of the fun of it as well. I like to look for opportunities to set myself up for later plays, or set up my opponent to make a play that will benefit me as much or more.
Catch the leader:
If you are in last place, in a scoring round you can discard some or all of your cards and replace them with new ones. This is a great idea, but since there are no guarantees you’ll improve your hand it doesn’t work too well as a catch the leader mechanism.
It’s light and not too long; don’t expect a real brain burn. It looks great as it plays out. I do think that whoever draws the best cards will ultimately win, but strong play can mitigate this and making opportune choices. Plus, that’s a problem common with a lot of card games. One idea is to begin the game with a card drafting element, although this would add some time. But you would know what your opponents have and you could plan better, at least in the beginning. There’s no way to mitigate poor draws.
Overall I enjoy this game, even if I don’t think it’s Colovini’s best effort. (For the same amount of time, I’d much rather play Carolus Magnus). It’s definitely worth $10, if you can still get it for that price. If I didn’t already have this in my collection, I’d buy it and be happy to own it.
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Tomello Visello
United States
Reston
Virginia
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I’ll offer some friendly Counterpoint:
kendahlj wrote: Strategy:
Really the only strategy in the game is to play walls that will give you the most points based on the cards in hand. Make a city and do the discard (and increase your hand) instead of scoring. Very early in a recent 3-player game, I held cards better suited to end-game formations. I made a city as quickly as I could just to swap my cards. And build my hand for leverage later. Be alert to hand-management.
kendahlj wrote: (If you opponent scores points and you discard and draw two useless cards in exchange, then you will have a pretty big deficit to overcome.) Using the same example game above, I’d only have scored weakly, anyway, if I hadn’t discarded.
kendahlj wrote: Some cards will also provide you the decision of playing it now for sure points or holding it for later, when it could score more but also could score less. The respected element of “press-your-luck.” OK, so that’s not counter-point, that’s reinforcement.
kendahlj wrote: Catch the leader:
If you are in last place, in a scoring round you can discard some or all of your cards and replace them with new ones. This is a great idea, but since there are no guarantees you’ll improve your hand it doesn’t work too well as a catch the leader mechanism. I use the term, “Loser Trade-in” for this step. It is a key element in my appreciation of the game. It very nearly harmed me late in the same 3-player game I mentioned. Late in the game three of my five cards were not very useful (due to your point about, “Some cards are pretty powerful early in the game and pretty useless late in the game.”), so I’m really playing with only two. One or the other, or even both of my opponents were taking advantage of “Loser Trade-In” after almost every City. I was leading but I was also both crippled and losing ground.
OK, I did win in the end, but just barely: 129, 127, 126. I should have written a session report but I didn’t get around to it.
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Tomello Visello
United States
Reston
Virginia
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 Glad you presented a soapbox for me.
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Kendahl Johnson
United States
Bonaire
Georgia
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I appreciate the comments! I think more playings will bare out some of these ideas. It is a good game and I enjoy playing it.
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Alexander Portland
Germany
Worms
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I would prefer more italian story for this game, so only reading the dry rules, the game loose a litte of its charm. Something like the three nobles (green, blue, yellow territory) of the tuscany have some new tasks for their builders, to protect the new estates and palaces of their villages with thick walls. It´s a sad thing, that this game has no expansion, cause it´s easy to find 10 new ways of different scoring, the VP-cards dealing in a more balanced way or to establish a very small resource management to build up the houses and walls.
Whatever, it is a nice game with massive fine wooden game material and a short playing time and a low entry level, so Masons score 7 points personally here on BGG.
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