Each player takes the role of a member of the powerful Stroganov family. In all four rounds of play, you travel further and further east into Siberia, exploring the land on the hunt for fur and establishing outposts.
1-4 players, age 12+
Playing time: 90 minutes
Designer: Andreas Steding
Artwork: Maciej Janik
Publisher: Game Brewer (NL/FR retail version by Geronimo Games)
https://gamebrewer.com/
A game round stands for one year, divided into 4 turns that represent the seasons. During spring, summer and autumn you will perform actions, while in winter you’ll return home to tell your stories and obtain income.
You start your turn by moving your Cossack meeple to the right over the landscape tiles, and perform a basic action like taking a coin or horses, extra movement, trade, or go hunting and collect fur.
Then you perform up to 2 main actions, both of these can either be basic or advanced ones; these are more powerful and allow you to visit a village or use a yurt to gain bonuses, start a new task for the Tsar, build an outpost or claim the landscape tile.
In addition you also may perform extra actions, whenever and as many times as you want, to buy or trade fur or to fulfill a Tsar’s Wish card.
You’ll quickly notice fur is the key resource in the game, as you need it to collect landscapes and fulfill tasks, for your trophy track, and for taking additional actions.
After each player has played 3 turns, we enter the winter and players can convert their story points into bonuses and gain their income.
Stroganov comes with a large game board with clear iconography and a game overview, which comes in handy as there’s a lot of different actions to choose from. It’s a game that certainly causes a bit of AP for some players, as the free actions to trade or buy fur give a lot of flexibility and a bit of planning ahead certainly pays off.
Big plus for me is that the rules are short and easy to grasp, especially for this type of game. Games with a lot of depth and possibilities don’t always have to come with a huge rulebook, and Stroganov is a good example of this. If you love eurogames, then this one’s worth checking out!
Tabletopping 