TORRES BOARD GAME REVIEW

TORRES BOARD GAME REVIEW

 Torres was developed by Michael Kiesling and Wolfgang Kramer (Tikal, Java, El Grande, Wandering Towers, Pueblo, etc.) and was first released in 1999. A year later, it won Games Magazine's Game of the Year award, as well as a minor award called Spiel des Jahres.

 The game of Torres, played over three short rounds, is about trying to outscore your opponents by expanding your castles upwards and outwards. Sounds simple enough, right?

 Let's put Torres on the table and see how he plays.

PREPARATION

 Place the castle tiles on the board, placing individual castle tiles on the indicated squares. Players then place one of their Knights on an empty castle tile. The last player to place a Knight also places a King on an empty castle tile. (We'll come back to His Majesty later.)

 Before the first round begins, take a deck of ten action cards. Shuffle them and set them aside, face down.

 Finally, at the beginning of each round, collect a certain number of castle figures, depending on the number of players. After all, these castles will not build themselves.

GAME PROCESS

 Each turn you have five action points (AP) that you can spend. The actions themselves and their costs are as follows: place another of your Knights on the board orthogonally next to any of your other Knights (2 AP); add a castle token to the castle (1 AP); move a Knight orthogonally one space (1 AP); move your token one space along the scoring track (1 AP); or deal yourself the top three action cards and choose one to keep. You then place the others back on the top or bottom of your deck, your choice (1 AP).

 Action cards allow you to perform one-time, rule-breaking actions. For example, one card lets you move a knight diagonally, another gives you seven actions this turn, and yet another lets you build a castle piece directly under a knight. Even better, from the perspective of your five action points per turn, playing an action card is a free action.

FIRST THING

 Throughout the game, you'll need to do two things. The first is to expand your castles outwards and upwards. The reason for this is because of how the scoring system works: at the end of each round, you score points for the castles your knights occupy by multiplying the number of pieces that make up the base of your castle by the level your knight is on. So, if you increase the base of your castle to five pieces, but you're still on level one, you'll only get five (5 x 1) points. Expand your castle and move your knight to level three, and that same castle will now be worth 15 (5 x 3) points.

 Of course, there are some limitations to building castles. While castle pieces can be diagonally adjacent, they can never be orthogonally adjacent. This would connect or merge two castles, which is not allowed. Also, the size of your castle base determines how high you can build it. If you have built your castle base to only three squares on the board, you cannot build higher than the third level.

SECOND THING

 The second is to expand and invade. You don't win Torres just by building and scoring points in your starting castle. You'll need to bring a few extra knights onto the board and move them to adjacent empty castle pieces to start a new castle. Another option is to bring an extra knight onto the board and have him move to another castle. It turns out that these castles lack defenses, and the knights are all pacifists. You can move a knight into one of their castles (and they can do the same to you) and at least partially participate in the scoring.

 You can spend action points to move a knight from the board to the first level of your opponent's castle—the one your opponent is building.

 This is because, in addition to moving one square orthogonally on the board, Knights can also move up one level per action point. (Say, from the board to the first level of a castle; from the second level of a castle to the third, etc.) Note that you can add castle pieces not only to the castle(s) you have started building, but also to any castle on the board. This comes in handy when you have invaded an opponent's castle and want to move up a level or two to increase your score for that castle.

HIS MAJESTY, THE KING

 One castle you will definitely want to build and capture is the one where the King resides. If you have a Knight in the King's Castle at the end of the first round and you are both at the same level, then in addition to the standard castle point count, you also get an additional 5 points.

 After all the first round's calculations are complete, the player who finished last can move the King to another castle on any available level. At the end of the second round, if you are on the same level as the King in that castle, you will receive an additional 10 points. At the end of the third round, you will receive an additional 15 points.

 For the player in last place, strategically moving and placing the King is an important way to win back. If you can deny your opponents the opportunity to be in the same castle and on the same level as the King, you will be the sole winner of those nice bonus points.

CONCLUSIONS

 Aside from the action cards, Torres is an abstract game, which is probably why I like it so much. Each of the three rounds begins with players receiving the same number of castle pieces and five action points per turn. The question is, what will everyone at the table do with those pieces and their action points?

 Given the action cards, while not required, they add an element of rule-breaking that I enjoy. (Unlike the gods cards in Santorini, which I skip every time I play.) In my last game, we each played a card in the final round at the right moment. Each one created an unexpected, point-winning move—the kind where you just nod your head in approval at a really good move (and then wait to make your own, equally unexpected and successful move).

 For those who may be concerned there is a large math aspect to Torres that may seem off-putting, rest assured the math is limited to the lower bound of standard multiplication and addition tables. The board also has a point tracker along the edge, making it easy to tally up points at the end of a round.

 Torres is an easy game to learn and plays fairly quickly. The board size and action point selection are large enough to make each game different, but intense enough to keep players from falling into analysis paralysis. While there is no direct interaction with the players, you will be paying attention to what your opponents are doing during their turns. Knowing when to build, when to add and move knights, and when to invade will require a balance between your five action points. You will need to constantly monitor your opponents' actions to make the best moves for your turn.

 There's something so satisfying about building your own castle, and then invading your opponent's castle to grab some much-needed extra points. Of course, it's not so satisfying when they crawl into your carefully constructed castle. But that's life, isn't it?