Archipelago Board Game Review - Still Worth It?

Archipelago Board Game Review. We take a look at the 2012 game from Christplophe Boelinger publishes by Ludically and tell you how it plays, what we like what we don’t like and if it’s still worth playing in 2019.
The rules overview goes on a bit as the game is quite complex so skip over if you already know the game 👍
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[@BrettspielSnob]

One of the greatest games I've played. Never gets old and everyone I show this to they love it.

[@yair1010]

Great, great job of covering this fantastic yet sinfully underrated game!

[@graypistachio4141]

How refreshing! Subscribing right after this. Music gets a little anoying... Some music might be nice, just not all the time. Still great review

[@BoardGameBollocks]

I’ve ditched the music in my newer videos. Too much trouble with fake copyright claims. Thanks for the kind words!

[@omnivoid0776]

This is an old video I know, but I was wondering how you felt about the game now as I’m considering picking it up. Apparently the game contains some misprints. Did you feel they had much of a negative effect on the game? Would you play with the expansion from the get go? Do you still rate it so highly?

[@BoardGameBollocks]

I like Archipelago more now than back then. Fell out of favour for a while but it’s back on the table. I’d grab the war and peace expansion and chuck it in after a few games with the core characters. Depends if you fancy a tear up with your opponents or whether you prefer a more laid back experience. The game offers both. Archipelago is still getting flack because of its content and this is even more apparent today. The game itself though is one of our absolute favourite games. It’s a true masterpiece of design. Theme, depth, strategy, variable play length, hidden objectives, semi co-op...it’s literally has everything. I don’t remember seeing and printing errors though. Any idea whereabouts in then game they are?

[@omnivoid0776]

I must admit I was wary of posting about this game in the current situation so thanks for replying. If I pick it up and play it with my kids, I’ll certainly be discussing the context of the game and how it relates to recent events. After a bit of research on BGG, it seems that the misprints in the first version of the game were confined to the starting tiles. The water tile and the land tile should be on opposite sides of the same tile but they’re not. In the second printing of the game there’s also some of the cards that had extra currency symbols printed on them in the wrong places, making them look messy. The tile mix up can affect the game slightly but the card misprint is just annoying.

[@ImperialGit]

@@BoardGameBollocks The fact that it's catching flak for its contents is making me want to find it even more, and I've just now heard of its existence XD (Same reason I wanted the old Kemet instead of the new one :P)

[@pm71241]

5-6 hours isn't long. A game you can play without sleeping isn't long. With 6 hours, You don't even have to pause for eating.

[@BoardGameBollocks]

Try telling my wife that...

[@felix900]

Waaaa that was painful to listen 😅 I love the way your chanel evolve from 2019 Thanks and keep going

[@BoardGameBollocks]

Please don’t…embarrassing to say the least.

[@benanderson46]

Which is he, a bloke or a geezer? Just found the channel; subbed!

[@BoardGameBollocks]

Bit of both, moosh 👍🏻

[@laurencehoslet349]

Hi ! Excellent review. Just a few tips when you play the long game: unlike the medium game, you normally end the long game because you want it to end. The 10 possible end conditions are known, and you certainly know your own. So, the long game normally doesn’t take much more than 2 or 3 hours when you’re experienced.

[@BoardGameBollocks]

I wish we could cram it in to two hours but alas it always seems to go on and on...

[@odenwalder83]

Great summary, you really make some good points about the pros and cons of the game. Just wanted to throw in two questions: For the people who don't know the game yet, I can't imagine they will get a grasp if how the game works roughly from this. Why not show some of the relevant components, cards, or a fitting game state during your rules summary? And second: Why did you need so much editing? If the jump cuts are not there to skip over interruptions or digressions, I had the impression it was unnecessarily twitchy and nervous overall. Just my opinion, but fewer jump cuts could help here.

[@BoardGameBollocks]

This is an old video. At the time we weren’t interested in secondary footage as tbh we didn’t know what it was or how to do it. We’ve improved the way we do things through experience and mistakes and we now add b-roll to the videos and try to do less jump cuts but I personally like the j cut style as it adds pace to the flow of the video as well as eliminating unnecessary pauses. Thanks for watching 👍

[@odenwalder83]

@@BoardGameBollocks Oh, it's already a year old, I see. Came here from BGG. I agree some cuts switching between a close and a medium close shot can be useful, in this one it's just a bit too often, and the two shot sizes are too similar.. Will definitely check out your more recent videos, keep up the good work!

[@BoardGameBollocks]

Oh and we edited on an iPhone so fancy transitions and other effects we unavailable. It’s funny revisiting old videos and seeing how basic they are when at the time we thought it was great...🤣

[@andrewjohnston2586]

This game always feels like a flawed masterpiece to me. It has quite a few faults but I can forgive them all.

[@BoardGameBollocks]

I think Christophe Boelinger was trying to cram as much in as he possibly could. The rule book is full of anomalies

[@andrewjohnston2586]

Yes, I think I re-read it multiple times before first play and still didn't understand it. As you say though, so many good ideas in it. It feels like a sandbox Euro to me.

[@BoardGameBollocks]

It’s one of my favourite games. Looks incredible and has an epic feel. Loads of characters. Been playing it since release and still discovering stuff. Grab the war and peace expansion if you can find it.

[@andrewjohnston2586]

@@BoardGameBollocks I have it. As you mention in your review, Earth Reborn is another of his that I feel similarly about. Flawed, but brilliant. The graphic design on ER is appalling, but it's just such a great game, thematically and mechanically (and the manual is really well done). Have you covered that on your channel? Would be a good one to do, but I think is out of print now.

[@BoardGameBollocks]

I have earth reborn but is a bastard to teach so it doesn’t get played as much as I’d like. It’s an ambitious game for its time and Boelinger doesn’t take these sorts of risks anymore it seems.