Author Topic: Cacao board game with similarities to Carcassonne (Read 72776 times)

franks · « **Reply #90 on:** June 09, 2016, 06:27:49 AM »

Happy Birthday SRBO!

Can't really help with more than 2 players either. We've only had the chance for one or two 'teaching' games with our daughters, (who live away), so didn't get a good sense of the game with more than two. I could guess that there would be more play choices as there are more areas of the board opening up. Temples might also get more interesting.

dirk2112 · « **Reply #91 on:** June 09, 2016, 06:51:39 AM »

We have 3 players in most games. We have played 4 as well. The biggest difference is the sun chips. In a 2 player game, the sun chips aren't worthwhile. In a 4 player game, they are vital. In a 3 player game (which to me is the sweet spot), the sun chips can be helpful, but not as much as good water and cacao management.

The best tips I can give in a 3 or 4 player game is to save cacao for the $4 store and get a sun chip so you can hit it again later. The water scale is important too. If you can max out water, great. If not, at least get to -1.

jungleboy · « **Reply #92 on:** June 09, 2016, 08:34:57 AM »

I was going to make the same comments that have already been made. With 3-4 players, the sun disks come into play more, and the battles for the temples and the water track become more interesting (and with more sun disks at the end, more interesting still).

Paul · « **Reply #93 on:** June 09, 2016, 09:28:23 AM »

4 player games without expansions a few times was played in my group.
Felt decent flow of the game and opens up the possibility to ally with another player if you like that sort of play.

The design of the game is pretty much the same regardless how many players but I'd love to see a mega expansion for 8 players and more in depth with the possibilities of the mechanics.

One example is the Babel expansion for 7Wonders which I got to play a 5 player game yesterday. Basis (in Babel exp) is to stack tiles on top of one another to cancel out an effect and apply a new one which affects all players.

franks · « **Reply #94 on:** August 01, 2016, 03:35:07 PM »

Quote from: Decar on April 04, 2016, 10:23:32 AM

Top Row:
Trading Post (Cacao)
Chocolate Trading Post (Chocolat)
Cacao Plantation (Cacao)
Back of Tile (Cacao)

Bottom Row:
Cacao Milking Thing (Chocolat)
Mine (Cacao)
Irrigation (Chocolat)
Back of Tile (Chocolat).

Excuse my yellow light, the bulb hadn't had time to warm up fully. I think it's most obvious from the back of the tiles, the black is darker - like it had more toner in the printer when it was printed!

Two part post on the Cacao expansion. This first piece takes another look the tile comparison that Decar posted.

I finally received the Cacao expansion (Abacus Spiele) from a Canadian on-line retailer that brings in a good amount of Imports. What's interesting is I have the Zman copy of Cacao and the tiles look to be a better match. At least I could barely determine a difference, which makes me wonder what edition Decar has of the base game? There might be a slight difference here but it is almost imperceptible at least for me, (thought there seems to be a bit of difference in the back of the tile). We draw the tiles from a bag so that won't matter much. It would seem odd that they would colour matched to the Zman edition, though as mentioned perhaps the edition above was near the end of a print run.

Decar · « **Reply #95 on:** August 01, 2016, 03:40:31 PM »

Nice photo franks!

Both of mine were from Abacus Spiele. It looks to me like the printer was running low on ink when my base game was printed. It may also be some kind of production change between the AS and Zman releases. It's good to know they seemed to have resolved the issues though!

franks · « **Reply #96 on:** August 01, 2016, 04:29:12 PM »

Played our 1st game of Cacao with the Chocolatl expansion using 3 of the 4 mini expansions in the box, (not immediately keen on the Watering module for a few reasons). So far we really like what the other expansions in the box bring to the game!

Cacao needed a boost and there is enough here to elevate it a good notch. I especially like addition of the huts module. Very loosely, these remind me of the little building expansions for https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/119890/agricola-all-creatures-big-and-small, (if your familiar with those). Basically huts can be purchased during the game, which provide a good variety of bonuses. I thought this would be too much for our first game but they played just fine. I think I purchased 5 of the huts in our game and ended with 100 points on the dot.

With the chocolate module, Cacao can be converted in the new chocolate kitchen tiles. This new resource nets greater amounts of Gold at the market, which in turn gives the needed funds for the aforementioned huts.

The map module is the easiest to incorporate and adds another nice touch of seeing more upcoming tiles. My wife and I both took double advantage of jumping the queue.

The general balance of the game is very well maintained with these expansions but at the fiddly expense of swapping out and replacing tiles for the set up. (This is the main reason we didn't use the Water module, there was even more tile switching!!)

This tile swapping is also an issue if you wanted to include the Volcanoes mini expansion with the Chocolate module. Both these sets instruct players to replace the exact same (limited) Gold mine tiles, thus making them incompatible. I asked on BGG if there was intended or an oversight, here was the response from (AS) Matthias Wagner:

When we thought about expansions for Cacao we quickly realized that there might be issues with game length and general balance of the game by just adding more tiles. Replacing certain groups of tiles with new tiles was a much better idea. Generally the easiest part to remove was the gold mines as it has little impact on the balance.

Phil designed a lot of different modules in the process but due to the replacement they couldn't be included all at the same time. Actually a lot of modules would replace the gold mines. For Chocolatl we chose a set of modules that worked very well together and the chocolate module had to replace 6 tiles total. We didn't focus on making it compatible with the Volcanoes but focused on a smooth package for Chocolatl instead. If you want to include the Volcanoes you could also try to replace 3 of the temples – I never tested it but it should work.

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1610266/volcanoes-and-chocolatl-dont-mix

In the end and unfortunately, this nuisance might just keep Cacao from hitting the strides and audience the Carc has. I don't want to be to harsh here because this is still a enjoyable game and (AS) are very supportive and responsive with their games, in my experience.

Regardless we like the overall game more than ever. Other than playing with Noobs, I don’t think I would play Cacao without the expansions!

Decar · « **Reply #97 on:** August 02, 2016, 02:04:07 AM »

I tend to agree. I don't think the game length is ok, but it's not adjustable, that reduces the strategic impact for me.
I'd like to see more player tiles to support large boards. I'm not really a fan of swapping things in and out for every game; as you said it's kind of fiddly (even with my cheat sheet - shamless plug).
I think some people have said they play with 2 player-sets.

It is good to see the designer contacting people on BGG though, it's very easy for designers to shy away from questions thinking they're criticism, sometimes explaining the process make it make more sense.

Elfew · « **Reply #98 on:** August 11, 2016, 11:49:53 AM »

Hi guys,

any info about this new promo expansion (New storage spaces)?

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameexpansion/206188/cacao-chocolatl-new-storage-spaces

jungleboy · « **Reply #99 on:** November 12, 2016, 09:56:15 AM »

I finally picked up the expansion in Rome today.

Paul · « **Reply #100 on:** November 12, 2016, 10:05:38 AM »

I love how they wrote "expansion 1" indicating that we might see more in the future!

jungleboy · « **Reply #101 on:** November 12, 2016, 10:13:49 AM »

They must have learned from the original title of Inns and Cathedrals, which was simply: The Expansion. And I believe it's still called that in the Dutch version.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

dirk2112 · « **Reply #102 on:** November 12, 2016, 12:21:44 PM »

Thanks for bringing this up again. It appears as though Zman is finally going to release this in the US.

Decar · « **Reply #103 on:** November 14, 2016, 11:53:00 PM »

Quote from: jungleboy on November 12, 2016, 10:13:49 AM

They must have learned from the original title of Inns and Cathedrals, which was simply: The Expansion. And I believe it's still called that in the Dutch version.

But 'An Expansion' would have been much more accurate!

jungleboy · « **Reply #104 on:** December 02, 2016, 01:35:54 AM »

A few Cacao bits and pieces have appeared in the BGG Store. These are: the big market and golden temple (from last year's Advent calendar?), and the new storage spaces mentioned by Elfew a few posts up, which looks to be especially useful if playing with the chocolate module of the expansion. I have the first two but I'll probably pick up the storage spaces.