Louis XIV

Louis XIV – Review

Louis XIV is an area control game designed by Rudiger Dorn in 2005 and is currently published by Rio Grande Games. Mr. Dorn also designed Goa and Jambo.

Louis XIV:

Designed by: Rudiger Dorn
Published by: Rio Grande Games
Number of players: 2-4
Playing time: 100 min
Player ages: 12+

A Quick Overview

Each player is a member of Louis XIV’s (also known as the Sun King) Court and carry out missions and goals at Versailles.

Players, through the careful playing of influence cards, secure favours from other members of the Court. Each of these 12 members of the Court provide various items to the players which help fulfill missions and thus earn victory points.

Securing favours from these 12 courtiers (represented by 12 board tiles) is determined by the player with the most influence markers.

The player with the most victory points wins.

Game Play

On a player’s turn, he plays an influence card. The influence card can either be a curtain (wild) or indicate one of the 12 members of the Court.

Each courtier card is worth up to 3 influence markers which the player places on the board from his personal supply. Instead of playing on the board, the player can choose to add 3 influence markers to his personal supply from the general supply.

The wild influence cards are valued at 2 influence markers.

When placing influence markers on the board, the player places markers starting on the character on the card. The wild influence cards allows the player to start at any courtier.

The round ends after all but one of the influence cards are played. Then the winner of each of board tile is determined and receives their reward.

Play lasts for four rounds. The winner is the one with the most victory points after four rounds.

Observations

I like Rudiger Dorn’s games and this one is no exception.

Louis XIV can easily be played in about 45-60 minutes by experienced players and provides a lot of enjoyment. Setup time for this game may take a couple of minutes or so but it is worth it.

In the game play above, I didn’t mention anything about Louis XIV but his presence is very subtle. You see, Louis visits one of the 4 courtiers closest to him every round and grants a gift to the winner of that courtier.

This provides yet another way to obtain tokens to fulfill mission cards.

So you see, there are quite a number of things that a player has to keep track of in this game. And that is something that I find quite enjoyable.

I have played this game with all the player counts and I enjoy each one of them. A 2 player game is great fun and a 4 player game provides much angst.

What a delight!

Happy gaming.