I love how the Red Cathedral’s rondel works! So far, I’ve only ever played it solo, but it’s so fun!! A highly recommended game! Thanks for this video!
I like that you included Patchwork on this list. I never looked at it as a rondel game, but it really makes sense to do so, and overall it’s just a great game. 🙂
Just ordered Glen More! I think the crucial element in a rondel is for some actions to feel MUCH better than others for a player at that particular moment so there’s loads of tension on whether to press ahead for a particular spot before someone else gets it. If there’s loads of equal value spots it takes all the interest out for me.
Cool list! Gotta check some of them out. Imperial was my gateway to medium weight euro games. A rondel-based “war game” that really behaves like a stock market game. It blew my mind.
Props on including "The Red Cathedral", it's one of my favorites. I would also like to mention "New York Zoo". The rondel has all players share the same meeple, which adds a nice sense of interaction and competition for tiles in a game that is otherwise focused on puzzling your own zoo.
I certainly would not be able to make a list of rondel designs without including Mac Gerdts. In fact, all my choices top choices would likely be Gerdts designs, Imperial 2030, Antike, Hamburgum, Navegador.
There is a really simple one we enjoy playing called Space Park from Keymaster. I wouldn’t call it our favorite but the production value, art, and ease of play I think is what makes it stand out for us. The rondel is randomized each game and you are just going around performing various set collection actions. We discovered it at PAX Unplugged one year and kept it in our rotation (pun intended) ever since!
When I think of a rondel game, my first thought is always Navegador. The decision of when to pay to advance further on the rondel is one that I love. And the goods market works really well ... unless you're playing three-player.
I love Red Cathedral and GWT! A very simple/quick rondel game I also like is Sovereign Skies from Deep Water Games, you move around the six planets taking actions and can manipulate how many spaces you move or even the direction you're moving and the winner is usually determined by how efficiently you take the VP-earning actions. Good stuff.
Great list!!! I totally agree with #1. Of my favorite games, three of them are on this list (Glen More II, GWT, and Maracaibo) and none of those felt repetitive at all to me. It makes me want to play them all again to try and put my finger on the "why". Or maybe I don't mind the repetition because as the game progresses, I feel like I'm running out of time and finally figuring out what I want to do? Good excuse to play a game this afternoon!!
I never thought of Patchwork as a rondel game, but I can see how it could considered one. My favourite rondel game is Crown of Emara. It has two rondels where you move your workers to gain resources and to do actions. Great euro and an enjoyable solo.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trajan It's TRAY-JEN TAY-OH-TEE-WAH-CON Great video. I just played viscounts recently and what I really liked was how there was the interior and exterior rondels that you could swap back and forth for different actions and to adjust speed. I played Heaven and Ale for the first time yesterday and really liked it. Reminded me of Egizia actually where you really have to weigh hanging back for scraps vs rushing forward for just the snippets of good stuff
I like the rondel(s) in Patchwork. You could think of the track where you track the time you spent as a rondel in the way that Glen More uses it: whoever is furthest behind, gets a turn. Although you never return to the start, so maybe that disqualifies it as a (second) rondel. I'm often confused when people call Ora et Labora a rondel game. Sure, it has a round component, but a rondel for me has to be a track where you move a piece a number of spaces and gain the benefit of where the piece lands. My favorite rondel game is Great Western Trail, for all the reasons you mentioned.
Really cool topic! As for my recommendations, I'd suggest looking into Merlin, by Stefan Feld (same guy from Trajan), it's really fun and not too complex, with some shenanigans that make you feel cunning when you manage to pull them out (for example, there's a space that if you stop there you can switch to the position at the complete opposite side of the rondel). Another game I know of is Transmissions, which was kickstarted and should be arriving to backers this summer. I backed this one because it feels really replayable, light but still with meaningful decisions, and the table presence/theme is really cool, with some big miniatures (you can check out the campaign at kickstarter) and tableau-building. Lastly, if you have access to a Nintendo switch, I'd suggest Mario Party - The game is essentially players moving around and stoping by locations to gain instant bonuses or to trigger mini-games. Each time a player triggers a mini-game, all players get to participate, and so in general everyone is engaged.
I really enjoyed this topic, as well. While we're mentioning Stefan Feld, I'd think that Amerigo would also be a rondel mechanism where players take action cubes from a color on the circular rondel and chuck them into the cube tower and the resulting cubes that come out (maybe that color, maybe others) will determine the number and type of actions that each player may perform that turn. The number of actions corresponds to the quantity of the most populous cube and the type of action corresponding to which cube colors came out. Maybe worth an honorable mention like Crusaders, but another interesting rondel use.
I would like to second Garrett's recommendation of Space Park, designed by Henry Audubon (he did Parks the next year) and also published by Keymaster Games. It's a short and very easy to learn game, making it one of my go-to's as a "gateway" game for friends who don't normally play board games. I also *love* the art style and component quality. The "board" is composed of destination cards randomly arranged during setup, and then there are three rockets that travel around the destinations that determine the available destinations for each turn. Highly recommended!
Cool topic, Jamey. Good luck with your game! I recently did some research on rondels since I considered incorporating one into my civ game. Here are some questions I gleaned that may help as you think about how to make the experience less repetitive: 1. Is the track fixed within a game? Several games have modular setups, like Teotihuacan, Sovereign Skies, or Finca, but this doesn’t vary the experience within the game. Having action options grow (Great Western Trail), shrink, oscillate between the two (Nova Luna), or move around (Shipyard, Kraftwagen) can make for a less repetitive experience. Another way to have a non-fixed track is to have forks the road, like in Viscounts or Maracaibo. Another wrinkle to throw in here is whether there is a single rondel or multiple (like in Shipyard, Scorpius Freighter, or Crown of Emara). 2. How does movement work? Can players freely choose their movement (either any number of spaces or up to a fixed number, like in Patchwork)? Or does interacting with a mechanism determine movement (whether it’s the card-driven movement of Scorpius Freighter and Crown of Emara or the dice pip-driven movement of Red Cathedral and Finca)? Is movement determined by turn or time track? Is movement one-way or two-way (Merlin and Sovereign Skies incorporate counterclockwise movement that involves restrictions/costs)? Finally, can players use the rondel to rush the endgame (like in Scorpius Freighter)? 3. What determines a space’s benefit? Is the benefit of a space fixed or does it vary based on movement (Scorpius Freighter), how many markers are on the space (Finca, Teotihuacan, or Crusaders), or something else entirely? Just my two cents. I hope that helps! Good luck.
I really like this type of thinking! With respect to Jamey's game (he said it was feeling too repetitive), with Rondel games, I don't think it's the RONDEL that feels repetitive, it's the actions you're doing. If you have some actions that are good early, and some that are good later, but all of those actions are on the rondel, then even though the spaces are the same, the pattern/order you want to land on them in is not the same, and the game can still have an arc.
@@sethjaffee7104 Thanks for the compliment and for weighing in, Seth! Big fan, by the way. And not just because you're a fellow Arizonian. You make a good point.
Something that’s not a rondel but that gives me a very similar vibe are games like Concordia where action selection is based around cards in your hand and as you use your cards they’re discarded and the only way to get them back is resting/taking the return cards to your hand action. Feels similar to rondel games where you’re only getting to do each action on a rondel once until you lap back around. It’s got the same push and pull of “do I slow play and use all my actions or do I speed through and skip some actions so I can get to the actions that are really important to me right now?”
Thanks for the quick Crusaders mention at the top of the video! For those who don't know, Crusaders is kind of the OPPOSITE of Trajan. In Trajan, you choose a bin, mancala the pieces from that bin, and wherever you place the last piece - that's the action you do. In Crusaders, you instead choose whatever bin you want (as long as it has pieces in it), do the action of that bin (the more pieces, the better), then mancala them around to the following bins. As a result, Crusaders feels lighter because it's less taxing to figure out what you're able to do than it is in Trajan. Both Trajan and Crusaders are sort of Rondel-Adjacent, because some of the key aspects of a Rondel (in my mind) are that this turns choice defines next turn's options, and that the actions are cyclical. The 1st point there is technically true in Trajan, in a non-obvious way. The 2nd kind of isn't. In Crusaders, that 1st point is more subtle - most actions are available every turn, but some are not strong enough to be useful yet. I haven't played The Red Cathedral, but it sounds cool -- I wonder if, like Trajan, it is tricky to parse what actions are even available, having to count out X spaces for each die to see where it'll land. I got Maricaibo, but haven't been able to play it yet -- it sounds awesome to me! I really enjoyed Teotihuacan (like TEH-oh-ti-hua-CON, I think) for the most part, I've heard it might be better balanced with the expansion I haven't tried. I was bummed to learn (after trying it a bunch of times) that the masks are a red herring, and that locking dice is like, the worst thing you can do. I haven't played Glen More II, but I love Glen More, and I also enjoy (maybe even more) Lunarchitects, which is like a fan-made Glen More variant, with a lot of neat tweaks. Great list! For my money, the best Rondel games are Navagador, by the granddaddy of Rondels, Mac Gerdts (I like it best of his many rondel games), and Shipyard, by Vladimir Suchy, which has a bunch of rondels in it!
From the list, I've played Maracaibo, GWT, Red Cathedral, and Patchwork. Maracaibo and Great Western trail are so much fun because you personalize the rondel yourself. You shape it the way it works for your strategy. In Patchwork, I think the rondel is not the main focus. It does add variability in a perfect information game. And finally, in the Red Cathedral (if i recall correctly) you can move any die you want, so the decision space is quite big but still manageable. There are always things you want to do for your strategy, but then there are also actions that taunt you away from that strategy by giving you so much more, even though you maybe don't need it. The difference between a personal and a shared rondel is also interesting.
Parks is a Rondel game in almost every way, except that you don't move in a circle. I like it a lot, it has the 'last moves first' mechanic, combined with 2 workers, which I think adds a lot. Another interesting rondel game is High Rise, which also has the 'last moves first', but you can also leave a legacy behind, for you to use on the next lap.
I probably should have included High Rise--I forgot that you go around the track multiple times. I put Parks in the "time track" category since you aren't looping: th-cam.com/video/BFJie6q2Y4M/w-d-xo.html
Finca is a very good rondel game. The way the workers move on the rondel makes for a very good game. Outlive is another good game. I have heard it being called a worker displacement game before, but I consider it a rondel game.
My favorite Rondel is Finca, and a much lesser known one is For Crown and Kingdom by Rio grande but only play it with 2 but excellent! For a single track that changes every round like you mentioned for Heaven and Ale is Francis Drake.
Navagador is one of my favorites in this genre. Love the added economic feature in that game. But we enjoy trajan even more, both are fantastic games. GWT feels more of a deck builder and the rondel mechanism is secondary, but also love it!
Rondels have lots of juicy possibilities. I’m tinkering with a design where the player token flips to its opposite side when you pass a point; one side is blank and the other is a +1 effect.
My favourite that you mention is Patchwork. I haven't played many of yours on the list, so I am intrigued. My favourite that you didn't mention is Kraftwagen. I love the theme and flow of the game.
My favorite one that isn't on your list would be Navegador. My favorite that you mentioned was Teotihuacan. What makes a rondel a rondel? Is it only the circularity? To me, Patchwork doesn't feel like the same kind of rondel as, say, Teotihuacan. You're not really selecting an action in Patchwork based on where you go, you're selecting a tile. The action is always "place a tile on your board". (To me, Patchwork is a very repetitive game, and I've never had the feeling like I was getting anywhere while playing - just round and round until it ends.) Anyway, if that counts as a rondel, I much prefer the kind of rondel that is linked to actions. Kraftwagen is another good one.
Patchwork is cool, and it feels like a Rondel to me, even if the action is always "put this tile on your board" because this turns choice defines next turns options - for me that's probably the biggest aspect of a rondel. In Patchwork it's neat because the actions you're defining are for your opponent! My biggest beef with Patchwork is that it appears to be a game about making a quilt, but really it's a game about accumulating buttons. That's fine, I guess, but if it were up to me I'd make the quilting portion more rewarding so you don't so often have the winning quilt looking less big/good/full than the losing quilt!
To offer variability, it would be cool to have different meeples/powers you could choose each turn. I'm not sure if I have seen that in a rondel. I currently love GWT, Maracaibo, and GlenMore II. Love the idea of the chronicles in GlenMore!
So, technically the mancala mechanic would be a sub category of Rondel, but I really don’t feel they are the same as they really don’t have to same feel at all. I love both of them. Trajan is one of my favorite games and I really love Viscounts. A light game that is so underrated is Dark Seas with the Rondel system. It didn’t do very well but I really like it. You have your own rondel that you add action spaces over the course of the game. but you have to pay for your movement with dice that you roll each round. You have some agency in this though and you have two pawns that move differently. A ship and a captain. Another really good game with the Rondel system is Francis Drake. You play three rounds around a rondel. Which has two stages, the first stage is a one way resource gathering trip, then you set sail to commit raids. Funny thing - your list has 3 games that I have played. Really like Viscounts but it’s replay-ability is meh. Love Trajan! Tight decisions every turn and every turn feels rewarding. Don’t like Patchwork for the polyomino part of it, but I really love the time mechanic associated with the rondel. You keep talking about Glen More II. This seems like a must own for me. And there’s some 4-5 others on your list that I have to try.
I hadn't considered it, but as you described Glenmore II I thought of another game with a similar turn order indicator: The Search for Planet X. Would this be considered a rondel? It is an excellent game. My favorite rondel is probably GWT. The cow hand management is too cute. Perhaps in Kansas City you are sending them off to college, and nothing bad is happening to them.
The first game I thought of was Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done, but Jamey doesn't want to include games with a mancala component. A nice 2p rondel game is Glasgow. A 2-4p rondel game is Murano, which bears a resemblance to Maracaibo.
I've been looking for this one because the theme sounds cool and its by Brent Povis, the designer of Fungi/Morels, one of my favourite quick games. Seems a bit hard to find, at least in the European market
Listening to this, I tweaked that Lancelot by Mario Papini is a rondel game. You go around the same track four times, IIRC. I could never figure out where the game was in this one, so abandoned it. But I guess it's a bit like Heaven & Ale - go far and pick up the good benefit, but miss out on the ones between. Might dust that off again. Loved his De Vulgari Eloquentia and Siena. Could not get the point of Lancelot.
Have you tried Trails (mass market cut down version of PARKS)? You hike back and forth on the same trail (made of tiles). The tiles start with a day time side, but they have a night time side too. When a player reaches the end of the trail, the daytime tile closest to the trail end is turned over to the night time side. Benefits vary depending on the round, or if the tile is day or night. Not a rondel per se, but players continue hiking back and forth on the trail until all tiles are on the night time side.
Trajan is a Latin name, but its usual English pronunciation is Tray-jan. I guess Trayhan would be the Spanish pronunciation. In Latin it would be Trah-yah-nooss.
I really like the rondel as a mechanism and own Red cathedral, Crown of Emara, Glen More, and Patchwork in that genre. I think I would also categorise Le Havre as a rondel style game, albeit one that has a one way track where each round players are given a choice of how far to move.
@@MatthewJohnsonA haha you are quite right. I haven’t played it for a few years and after quickly skimming through the rule book now I agree that it most definitely is not a rondel game. I do remember what a great game it is though, so now I want to play it…
Hey Jamey have you played Crown of Emara? Wonderful Euro that uses a double rondel and a great action selection mechanism. One of those games that really slipped under the radar.
English pronounciation of Trajan is OK, but if you want to make in more "Roman" or German (it's German game, after all), you should pronounce it like "Tra-ian" or "Tra-yan". His name in Latin was "Caesar Nerva Traianus". I giggled when you used Spanish pronounciation XD
Jamey. I was excited and confused about something you said regarding Maracaibo, specifically the ability to decide not to move but instead move on the explorer track. I wasnt aware of this and cant find it in the rules anywhere. Did i interpret what you said incorrectly. The explorer track has always been hard for us to use and perhaps this is why.
I checked the rulebook, and it looks like Exploring is under the "City Action" category, which means your ship needs to be on a city with the Explore action if you want to take that action.
I’ve been playing a lot of Parks recently and I’m really enjoying it. I’d be curious to know your thoughts on whether it can be considered a rondel game.
I like Parks too! It has a one-way action selection track (one of my favorite mechanisms), but because you aren't going around and around, it isn't a rondel (in my opinion).
Another great video, Jamey - I love the rondel mechanism too - what would you say is it's main difference from a time track - latter is simply 'one lap' ?
Do you consider Scythe to be a rondel game? A size 4 Rondel with Movement 3? :P I'm currently trying to design a rondel game too, so this video has been useful research! Thanks! :)
I'm always confused about what makes a game a rondel game. Is it just action selection spaces designed in a circle? If Parks was designed with the tiles placed in a circle, it would be a rondel game then. And if Glen More was designed with just a one-way track, then it wouldn't?
I still have friends and co-workers that have not played anything past Monopoly so this could be a genre to get them into modern board games! Are any of those in the gateway-game category?
@@jameystegmaier Thanks. I just watched a walkthrough with Pat and Glai over at All Aboard Boardgames and you are right! It looks like a lot of fun and is not complicated. I like the puzzle piece fitting and end scoring. I gave you a plug over there as well.
I don't think I've played Navegador, but it sounds like I need to. Ark Nova has rewards on a track, but you're not going around and around the track in Ark Nova.
@@jameystegmaier but the action selection is kind of circular. You can choose any action but using the ones that are furtherest to the right are more powerful of cheaper.
So is NY Zoo missing from the list because you don’t like it or because you didn’t want 2 Uwe Rosenberg games on your list? I played Patchwork before I played NY Zoo and I immediately felt like NY Zoo is the better game
Oh Jamey! How dare you mispronounce Teotiwakamaka --- Teohuakamanooloo --- Tokaido --- Teohuaticaman -- well, you know what I mean! Have you ever tinkered with designing a game with a rondel?
The Red Cathedral has one of the most fun rondel mechanics I have ever played and quickly became one of the favorite games of my group.
I love how the Red Cathedral’s rondel works! So far, I’ve only ever played it solo, but it’s so fun!! A highly recommended game! Thanks for this video!
I like that you included Patchwork on this list. I never looked at it as a rondel game, but it really makes sense to do so, and overall it’s just a great game. 🙂
Just ordered Glen More! I think the crucial element in a rondel is for some actions to feel MUCH better than others for a player at that particular moment so there’s loads of tension on whether to press ahead for a particular spot before someone else gets it. If there’s loads of equal value spots it takes all the interest out for me.
Totally agree on this. Having to make this kind of decisions each turn is what make them son fun.
Cool list! Gotta check some of them out.
Imperial was my gateway to medium weight euro games. A rondel-based “war game” that really behaves like a stock market game. It blew my mind.
Props on including "The Red Cathedral", it's one of my favorites.
I would also like to mention "New York Zoo". The rondel has all players share the same meeple, which adds a nice sense of interaction and competition for tiles in a game that is otherwise focused on puzzling your own zoo.
I certainly would not be able to make a list of rondel designs without including Mac Gerdts. In fact, all my choices top choices would likely be Gerdts designs, Imperial 2030, Antike, Hamburgum, Navegador.
There is a really simple one we enjoy playing called Space Park from Keymaster. I wouldn’t call it our favorite but the production value, art, and ease of play I think is what makes it stand out for us. The rondel is randomized each game and you are just going around performing various set collection actions. We discovered it at PAX Unplugged one year and kept it in our rotation (pun intended) ever since!
I have it! simple, nice and funny
When I think of a rondel game, my first thought is always Navegador. The decision of when to pay to advance further on the rondel is one that I love. And the goods market works really well ... unless you're playing three-player.
Great list! Rondel games that I think are great, too, are 'Porta Nigra' and 'Navegador'. They are older, but very good designs.
I love Red Cathedral and GWT! A very simple/quick rondel game I also like is Sovereign Skies from Deep Water Games, you move around the six planets taking actions and can manipulate how many spaces you move or even the direction you're moving and the winner is usually determined by how efficiently you take the VP-earning actions. Good stuff.
Glad to see Heaven and Ale prominently mentioned, I feel like it doesn’t get mentioned enough!
Red cathedral is a great game, nice, good production, small box....But i love too: Teotihuacan and GWT.
Glad to see Teotihucan on the list! Just played Red Cathedral for the first time recently. Really like it!
Great list!!! I totally agree with #1.
Of my favorite games, three of them are on this list (Glen More II, GWT, and Maracaibo) and none of those felt repetitive at all to me. It makes me want to play them all again to try and put my finger on the "why". Or maybe I don't mind the repetition because as the game progresses, I feel like I'm running out of time and finally figuring out what I want to do?
Good excuse to play a game this afternoon!!
I never thought of Patchwork as a rondel game, but I can see how it could considered one.
My favourite rondel game is Crown of Emara. It has two rondels where you move your workers to gain resources and to do actions. Great euro and an enjoyable solo.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trajan
It's TRAY-JEN
TAY-OH-TEE-WAH-CON
Great video. I just played viscounts recently and what I really liked was how there was the interior and exterior rondels that you could swap back and forth for different actions and to adjust speed. I played Heaven and Ale for the first time yesterday and really liked it. Reminded me of Egizia actually where you really have to weigh hanging back for scraps vs rushing forward for just the snippets of good stuff
Glen More 2 is one of my favorites as well. Need to get into the expansion. Still chronicles in the base set that I haven’t played.
I'm in the same boat--as much as I enjoy the game, I haven't played all the chronicles, and the expansion is sitting unopened on my shelf! :)
So many great games! Teotihuacan is one I adore on the list.
I like the rondel(s) in Patchwork. You could think of the track where you track the time you spent as a rondel in the way that Glen More uses it: whoever is furthest behind, gets a turn. Although you never return to the start, so maybe that disqualifies it as a (second) rondel.
I'm often confused when people call Ora et Labora a rondel game. Sure, it has a round component, but a rondel for me has to be a track where you move a piece a number of spaces and gain the benefit of where the piece lands. My favorite rondel game is Great Western Trail, for all the reasons you mentioned.
So many great games on this list.
These games are not flashy but I really enjoy the Rondels in Seeland and Finca.
Really cool topic! As for my recommendations, I'd suggest looking into Merlin, by Stefan Feld (same guy from Trajan), it's really fun and not too complex, with some shenanigans that make you feel cunning when you manage to pull them out (for example, there's a space that if you stop there you can switch to the position at the complete opposite side of the rondel). Another game I know of is Transmissions, which was kickstarted and should be arriving to backers this summer. I backed this one because it feels really replayable, light but still with meaningful decisions, and the table presence/theme is really cool, with some big miniatures (you can check out the campaign at kickstarter) and tableau-building. Lastly, if you have access to a Nintendo switch, I'd suggest Mario Party - The game is essentially players moving around and stoping by locations to gain instant bonuses or to trigger mini-games. Each time a player triggers a mini-game, all players get to participate, and so in general everyone is engaged.
I really enjoyed this topic, as well. While we're mentioning Stefan Feld, I'd think that Amerigo would also be a rondel mechanism where players take action cubes from a color on the circular rondel and chuck them into the cube tower and the resulting cubes that come out (maybe that color, maybe others) will determine the number and type of actions that each player may perform that turn. The number of actions corresponds to the quantity of the most populous cube and the type of action corresponding to which cube colors came out. Maybe worth an honorable mention like Crusaders, but another interesting rondel use.
I would like to second Garrett's recommendation of Space Park, designed by Henry Audubon (he did Parks the next year) and also published by Keymaster Games. It's a short and very easy to learn game, making it one of my go-to's as a "gateway" game for friends who don't normally play board games. I also *love* the art style and component quality. The "board" is composed of destination cards randomly arranged during setup, and then there are three rockets that travel around the destinations that determine the available destinations for each turn. Highly recommended!
Ouch! I expected at least one Mac Gerdts game! When I think about rondel, my first thought goes to Imperial 2030. :)
Cool topic, Jamey. Good luck with your game! I recently did some research on rondels since I considered incorporating one into my civ game. Here are some questions I gleaned that may help as you think about how to make the experience less repetitive:
1. Is the track fixed within a game?
Several games have modular setups, like Teotihuacan, Sovereign Skies, or Finca, but this doesn’t vary the experience within the game. Having action options grow (Great Western Trail), shrink, oscillate between the two (Nova Luna), or move around (Shipyard, Kraftwagen) can make for a less repetitive experience. Another way to have a non-fixed track is to have forks the road, like in Viscounts or Maracaibo. Another wrinkle to throw in here is whether there is a single rondel or multiple (like in Shipyard, Scorpius Freighter, or Crown of Emara).
2. How does movement work?
Can players freely choose their movement (either any number of spaces or up to a fixed number, like in Patchwork)? Or does interacting with a mechanism determine movement (whether it’s the card-driven movement of Scorpius Freighter and Crown of Emara or the dice pip-driven movement of Red Cathedral and Finca)? Is movement determined by turn or time track? Is movement one-way or two-way (Merlin and Sovereign Skies incorporate counterclockwise movement that involves restrictions/costs)? Finally, can players use the rondel to rush the endgame (like in Scorpius Freighter)?
3. What determines a space’s benefit?
Is the benefit of a space fixed or does it vary based on movement (Scorpius Freighter), how many markers are on the space (Finca, Teotihuacan, or Crusaders), or something else entirely?
Just my two cents. I hope that helps! Good luck.
I really like this type of thinking!
With respect to Jamey's game (he said it was feeling too repetitive), with Rondel games, I don't think it's the RONDEL that feels repetitive, it's the actions you're doing. If you have some actions that are good early, and some that are good later, but all of those actions are on the rondel, then even though the spaces are the same, the pattern/order you want to land on them in is not the same, and the game can still have an arc.
@@sethjaffee7104 Thanks for the compliment and for weighing in, Seth! Big fan, by the way. And not just because you're a fellow Arizonian. You make a good point.
Something that’s not a rondel but that gives me a very similar vibe are games like Concordia where action selection is based around cards in your hand and as you use your cards they’re discarded and the only way to get them back is resting/taking the return cards to your hand action. Feels similar to rondel games where you’re only getting to do each action on a rondel once until you lap back around. It’s got the same push and pull of “do I slow play and use all my actions or do I speed through and skip some actions so I can get to the actions that are really important to me right now?”
Thanks for the quick Crusaders mention at the top of the video!
For those who don't know, Crusaders is kind of the OPPOSITE of Trajan. In Trajan, you choose a bin, mancala the pieces from that bin, and wherever you place the last piece - that's the action you do. In Crusaders, you instead choose whatever bin you want (as long as it has pieces in it), do the action of that bin (the more pieces, the better), then mancala them around to the following bins.
As a result, Crusaders feels lighter because it's less taxing to figure out what you're able to do than it is in Trajan.
Both Trajan and Crusaders are sort of Rondel-Adjacent, because some of the key aspects of a Rondel (in my mind) are that this turns choice defines next turn's options, and that the actions are cyclical. The 1st point there is technically true in Trajan, in a non-obvious way. The 2nd kind of isn't. In Crusaders, that 1st point is more subtle - most actions are available every turn, but some are not strong enough to be useful yet.
I haven't played The Red Cathedral, but it sounds cool -- I wonder if, like Trajan, it is tricky to parse what actions are even available, having to count out X spaces for each die to see where it'll land.
I got Maricaibo, but haven't been able to play it yet -- it sounds awesome to me!
I really enjoyed Teotihuacan (like TEH-oh-ti-hua-CON, I think) for the most part, I've heard it might be better balanced with the expansion I haven't tried. I was bummed to learn (after trying it a bunch of times) that the masks are a red herring, and that locking dice is like, the worst thing you can do.
I haven't played Glen More II, but I love Glen More, and I also enjoy (maybe even more) Lunarchitects, which is like a fan-made Glen More variant, with a lot of neat tweaks.
Great list!
For my money, the best Rondel games are Navagador, by the granddaddy of Rondels, Mac Gerdts (I like it best of his many rondel games), and Shipyard, by Vladimir Suchy, which has a bunch of rondels in it!
From the list, I've played Maracaibo, GWT, Red Cathedral, and Patchwork. Maracaibo and Great Western trail are so much fun because you personalize the rondel yourself. You shape it the way it works for your strategy. In Patchwork, I think the rondel is not the main focus. It does add variability in a perfect information game. And finally, in the Red Cathedral (if i recall correctly) you can move any die you want, so the decision space is quite big but still manageable. There are always things you want to do for your strategy, but then there are also actions that taunt you away from that strategy by giving you so much more, even though you maybe don't need it. The difference between a personal and a shared rondel is also interesting.
Parks is a Rondel game in almost every way, except that you don't move in a circle. I like it a lot, it has the 'last moves first' mechanic, combined with 2 workers, which I think adds a lot. Another interesting rondel game is High Rise, which also has the 'last moves first', but you can also leave a legacy behind, for you to use on the next lap.
I probably should have included High Rise--I forgot that you go around the track multiple times. I put Parks in the "time track" category since you aren't looping: th-cam.com/video/BFJie6q2Y4M/w-d-xo.html
Finca is a very good rondel game. The way the workers move on the rondel makes for a very good game. Outlive is another good game. I have heard it being called a worker displacement game before, but I consider it a rondel game.
My favorite Rondel is Finca, and a much lesser known one is For Crown and Kingdom by Rio grande but only play it with 2 but excellent! For a single track that changes every round like you mentioned for Heaven and Ale is Francis Drake.
Navagador is one of my favorites in this genre. Love the added economic feature in that game. But we enjoy trajan even more, both are fantastic games. GWT feels more of a deck builder and the rondel mechanism is secondary, but also love it!
Great Western trail is almost a rondell-building game. Outsanding mechanism overall !
I've played some of the games you mentioned and enjoy that mechanic. Some other ones not on your list include Iki and Finca.
Finca was one of the earliest and probably the best use of a rondel.
Rondels have lots of juicy possibilities. I’m tinkering with a design where the player token flips to its opposite side when you pass a point; one side is blank and the other is a +1 effect.
My favourite that you mention is Patchwork. I haven't played many of yours on the list, so I am intrigued. My favourite that you didn't mention is Kraftwagen. I love the theme and flow of the game.
Kraftwagen is my fave Rondel game! It is absolutely brilliant. Just realized it's the same designer as Glen More. Will def have to check it out
My favorite one that isn't on your list would be Navegador. My favorite that you mentioned was Teotihuacan.
What makes a rondel a rondel? Is it only the circularity? To me, Patchwork doesn't feel like the same kind of rondel as, say, Teotihuacan. You're not really selecting an action in Patchwork based on where you go, you're selecting a tile. The action is always "place a tile on your board". (To me, Patchwork is a very repetitive game, and I've never had the feeling like I was getting anywhere while playing - just round and round until it ends.) Anyway, if that counts as a rondel, I much prefer the kind of rondel that is linked to actions.
Kraftwagen is another good one.
Patchwork is cool, and it feels like a Rondel to me, even if the action is always "put this tile on your board" because this turns choice defines next turns options - for me that's probably the biggest aspect of a rondel. In Patchwork it's neat because the actions you're defining are for your opponent!
My biggest beef with Patchwork is that it appears to be a game about making a quilt, but really it's a game about accumulating buttons. That's fine, I guess, but if it were up to me I'd make the quilting portion more rewarding so you don't so often have the winning quilt looking less big/good/full than the losing quilt!
To offer variability, it would be cool to have different meeples/powers you could choose each turn. I'm not sure if I have seen that in a rondel. I currently love GWT, Maracaibo, and GlenMore II. Love the idea of the chronicles in GlenMore!
So, technically the mancala mechanic would be a sub category of Rondel, but I really don’t feel they are the same as they really don’t have to same feel at all. I love both of them. Trajan is one of my favorite games and I really love Viscounts.
A light game that is so underrated is Dark Seas with the Rondel system. It didn’t do very well but I really like it. You have your own rondel that you add action spaces over the course of the game. but you have to pay for your movement with dice that you roll each round. You have some agency in this though and you have two pawns that move differently. A ship and a captain. Another really good game with the Rondel system is Francis Drake. You play three rounds around a rondel. Which has two stages, the first stage is a one way resource gathering trip, then you set sail to commit raids.
Funny thing - your list has 3 games that I have played. Really like Viscounts but it’s replay-ability is meh. Love Trajan! Tight decisions every turn and every turn feels rewarding. Don’t like Patchwork for the polyomino part of it, but I really love the time mechanic associated with the rondel.
You keep talking about Glen More II. This seems like a must own for me. And there’s some 4-5 others on your list that I have to try.
I hadn't considered it, but as you described Glenmore II I thought of another game with a similar turn order indicator: The Search for Planet X. Would this be considered a rondel? It is an excellent game. My favorite rondel is probably GWT. The cow hand management is too cute. Perhaps in Kansas City you are sending them off to college, and nothing bad is happening to them.
The first game I thought of was Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done, but Jamey doesn't want to include games with a mancala component.
A nice 2p rondel game is Glasgow. A 2-4p rondel game is Murano, which bears a resemblance to Maracaibo.
A lesser known one I quite like is Agility. It doesn’t look like much but it’s a fun little rondel game about dogs and agility courses.
I've been looking for this one because the theme sounds cool and its by Brent Povis, the designer of Fungi/Morels, one of my favourite quick games. Seems a bit hard to find, at least in the European market
Shipyard! More is better right?
Listening to this, I tweaked that Lancelot by Mario Papini is a rondel game. You go around the same track four times, IIRC. I could never figure out where the game was in this one, so abandoned it. But I guess it's a bit like Heaven & Ale - go far and pick up the good benefit, but miss out on the ones between. Might dust that off again. Loved his De Vulgari Eloquentia and Siena. Could not get the point of Lancelot.
Have you tried Trails (mass market cut down version of PARKS)? You hike back and forth on the same trail (made of tiles). The tiles start with a day time side, but they have a night time side too. When a player reaches the end of the trail, the daytime tile closest to the trail end is turned over to the night time side. Benefits vary depending on the round, or if the tile is day or night. Not a rondel per se, but players continue hiking back and forth on the trail until all tiles are on the night time side.
That's cool! I've played Parks but not Trails.
Trajan is a Latin name, but its usual English pronunciation is Tray-jan. I guess Trayhan would be the Spanish pronunciation. In Latin it would be Trah-yah-nooss.
Great list! I'm surprised how high Merchants of the Dark Road is.
The Anglicised pronunciation of Trajan is definitely Tray-jun, not Tray-an ☺️
I really like the rondel as a mechanism and own Red cathedral, Crown of Emara, Glen More, and Patchwork in that genre. I think I would also categorise Le Havre as a rondel style game, albeit one that has a one way track where each round players are given a choice of how far to move.
No judgement or antagonism meant here, I think you might need to refresh your memory on how Le Havre plays.
@@MatthewJohnsonA haha you are quite right. I haven’t played it for a few years and after quickly skimming through the rule book now I agree that it most definitely is not a rondel game. I do remember what a great game it is though, so now I want to play it…
Hey Jamey have you played Crown of Emara? Wonderful Euro that uses a double rondel and a great action selection mechanism. One of those games that really slipped under the radar.
I haven't, but I think a friend has it--I'll have to check it out!
English pronounciation of Trajan is OK, but if you want to make in more "Roman" or German (it's German game, after all), you should pronounce it like "Tra-ian" or "Tra-yan". His name in Latin was "Caesar Nerva Traianus". I giggled when you used Spanish pronounciation XD
Thank you! I'll try to remember that. :)
Jamey. I was excited and confused about something you said regarding Maracaibo, specifically the ability to decide not to move but instead move on the explorer track. I wasnt aware of this and cant find it in the rules anywhere. Did i interpret what you said incorrectly. The explorer track has always been hard for us to use and perhaps this is why.
I checked the rulebook, and it looks like Exploring is under the "City Action" category, which means your ship needs to be on a city with the Explore action if you want to take that action.
@@jameystegmaier thanks Jamey.
I feel like glenmore isn’t really a rondel except in physical space. I think it’s more like a giant line.
I’ve been playing a lot of Parks recently and I’m really enjoying it. I’d be curious to know your thoughts on whether it can be considered a rondel game.
I like Parks too! It has a one-way action selection track (one of my favorite mechanisms), but because you aren't going around and around, it isn't a rondel (in my opinion).
Another great video, Jamey - I love the rondel mechanism too - what would you say is it's main difference from a time track - latter is simply 'one lap' ?
Yes, I think the difference in a rondel is that you're going around and around multiple times.
I think my favorite rondel game is FINCA.
Do you consider Scythe to be a rondel game?
A size 4 Rondel with Movement 3? :P
I'm currently trying to design a rondel game too, so this video has been useful research! Thanks! :)
Thanks! I do not consider Scythe to be a game where you're moving around in circles to activate actions/benefits. :)
I'm always confused about what makes a game a rondel game. Is it just action selection spaces designed in a circle? If Parks was designed with the tiles placed in a circle, it would be a rondel game then. And if Glen More was designed with just a one-way track, then it wouldn't?
I view it as action-selection or benefits in a circle, though I can see some nuances to any game with a one-way track and rounds.
I still have friends and co-workers that have not played anything past Monopoly so this could be a genre to get them into modern board games! Are any of those in the gateway-game category?
Indeed, Patchwork is an excellent gateway game! :)
@@jameystegmaier Thanks. I just watched a walkthrough with Pat and Glai over at All Aboard Boardgames and you are right! It looks like a lot of fun and is not complicated. I like the puzzle piece fitting and end scoring. I gave you a plug over there as well.
Tortuga 2199 is another deck builder that requires you to move to specific areas to buy cards.
Thanks! I'll check it out.
Crown of Emara is a great rondelle game to
No Matt Gertz! Navegador is great and even though it is cards Concordia is essentially a Rondel. Is Ark Nova essentially a Rondel?
I don't think I've played Navegador, but it sounds like I need to. Ark Nova has rewards on a track, but you're not going around and around the track in Ark Nova.
@@jameystegmaier but the action selection is kind of circular. You can choose any action but using the ones that are furtherest to the right are more powerful of cheaper.
So is NY Zoo missing from the list because you don’t like it or because you didn’t want 2 Uwe Rosenberg games on your list?
I played Patchwork before I played NY Zoo and I immediately felt like NY Zoo is the better game
I’m glad to see Great Western Trail on this list as it is my favorite rondel game
I think New York Zoo should have been on the list as an honorable mention.
It's pronounced, Trohon ;)
Teotihuacan the H is silent.
Oh Jamey! How dare you mispronounce Teotiwakamaka --- Teohuakamanooloo --- Tokaido --- Teohuaticaman -- well, you know what I mean!
Have you ever tinkered with designing a game with a rondel?
I have indeed! And I haven't gotten it to work for my games. :)
How about Perdition's Mouth? Great use of rondels.
I'll have to try it--I haven't played it.