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Cacao is a tile-placement game that immerses players in the exotic world of the "fruit of the Gods". As the chief of your tribe, you must lead your people to prosperity through the cultivation and trade of cacao — and to do that, you'll need to put them to work in the best way possible. In the game, each player has an individual deck of square worker tiles, with the number of workers on each side of the tile varying from tile to tile. The playing area starts with only a couple of jungle tiles in play: a cacao field and a small market; two jungle tiles are laid face up, and the remaining jungle tiles stacked as a draw pile. On a player's turn, he places one of her worker tiles on the board adjacent to one or more jungle tiles already in play, then (if two worker tiles are next to an empty space) adds one of the jungle tiles to the playing area in this space. Her workers then get busy and deliver the results of their effort: If you placed workers next to a cacao field, you receive one or two cacao markers per worker; if they're next to a market, you can choose to sell one cacao marker per worker at the listed price; if next to a well, you receive water; if next to a temple, they stand and look good until the end of the game; and so on. He then refills her hand from her personal deck to three worker tiles. Once all players have used all of their worker tiles, the game ends. Players score (or lose) points based on their water supply, and each temple rewards whichever players sent the most workers to it. In the end, whoever has collected the most gold wins.
| Year | 2015 |
|---|---|
| Designers | Phil Walker-Harding |
| Artists | Claus Stephan |
| Publishers | 999 Games, ABACUSSPIELE, Korea Boardgames, Devir, Z-Man Games, Lautapelit.fi, Albi, uplay.it edizioni, Filosofia Éditions, G3, cutia.ro, Fantasmagoria, Gémklub, White Goblin Games, Cranio Creations, GoKids 玩樂小子 |
| Players | 2–4 |
| Time | 45 min |
| Status | Played or rated only |
| BGG Rating | 7.0 |
| Categories | Economic, Territory Building, Farming |
| Mechanics | Area Majority / Influence, Hand Management, Income, Tile Placement, Open Drafting, End Game Bonuses, Map Addition, Layering |
| BGG Rank | 790 |
| Complexity | 1.82 / 5 |
| Language | No necessary in-game text |
| Date | Location | Duration | Qty | Players | Scores | Winner | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
2015-10-09 | – | 1 | – | – | – |
My BGG Comment
Played in Essen (2015). A light-weight tile-laying game with a Cacao (plantation) theme. A little bit reminiscent of Carcassonne (tiles are the same size) but the actual mechanism is a bit turned around, since you do not place your meeples on the tiles but they are printed on your tiles. Let me explain. The game starts with a Cacao plantation and temple tile placed diagonally. Each player has a stack of personal tiles with workers on the sides, three of which are in his hand. The jungle tiles are in a common stack, and two of them are visible. The goal is to place your tiles in the jungle in such a way that you earn the most gold. The game ends after all players have placed their personal tiles. In each round a player places one of his tiles so it borders on jungle tiles. If any then he checks if he created a "corner space" (two player-tiles bordering diagonally with an empty space between), if created (one or two) such spaces, he can then pick jungle cards to place there. After that worker activation is checked. Any workers on any player tiles that face jungle cards this turn are activated and perform whatever jungle tile they border on: get Cacao beans, bring water, worship at temples (this is only counted at the end of the game), sell Cacao, dig for gold ... It was a fun light game, that would make a good filler or gateway game. We didn't buy it but we did buy the fair special tiles, just in case.