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Troyes is a cutthroat euro builder that relies on careful management of workers and dice to outvalue the other players competing against you. You are representing a great family from France during the building of the Cathedral of Troyes. You will have to outwit the other players, playing into your family’s goal whilst attempting to find out what other families are in play as in the end. It’s a game of resource management, cat and mouse, and captivating art style that breathes some fresh air in the oversaturated builder game market.
Rules
The rules can be tough to learn, with the sheer number of actions you can do on your turn being a little overwhelming. Once you start to play a few rounds, the game will play quick and easy. Before you know it, you will be engaging with the strategy rather than worrying about tiny rule details.
To play a round of Troyes, you will flip over the activity cards of each building. These are then randomised at the start of the game and behave as the jobs you can assign to your workers. Then you will collect income and pay your workers varying salaries. Then you will flip over the event card placing it outside the city, these will throw obstacles in your way that may be defeated to be removed.
Next, you each roll the number of dice associated with the workers in the principal buildings. Red for Nobility, White for Clergy and Yellow for Peasantry. Then keeping the numbers on the dice face up you place them in your city district. This then represents your workforce. You will then resolve a variety of events before engaging in the core of the gameplay. These events are all bad but can range from combating bandits, workers striking and the Cathedral collapsing.
Progressing onto the player phase, a plethora of options awaits you. The core of the game revolves around using groups of 1-3 dice (of the same colour but with rare exceptions) to accumulate victory points. Now you can use dice from your own district for free, to then combat events to get rid of them, reap the fields, place a worker in a principal building, build in the Cathedral or utilise activity cards. Yet, you won't always have the dice you want. How to get around this? You can buy dice from other players (and the neutrals) districts! And they cannot stop you. The silver lining to this is you give them the money, fuelling an economic backlash against you, so be careful!
Components
Where the pieces shine is the art of the cards. They replicate the art of medieval tapestries and paintings, immersing you in the theme of the game. Helpful is the small deniers that look like ancient coins and victory points represented by family shields. There are also family cards that represent ancient, prominent figures from the time period such as Henry 1st and Thibaut II. These give a much-needed air of realism and help tie the game to its historical roots.
Final Thoughts
Troyes is a breath of fresh air in the euro builder market. Its distinct art style alongside a nice variety of cards help to make every game feel fresh. Your strategy, and the strategy of others, all bounce off one another as every player's choice is important in determining the final victor!
I also like to keep my game pieces nicely organised with some inserts which you can find here!
Troyes is a rewarding game that offers enough for the experienced master architect to sink their teeth into whilst being a good stepping stone for beginners to engage with a game that has rules with minor exceptions that make grand differences in gameplay.