Fall is in the air. The vineyards on the east end of Long Island are in full swing with tours and tastings. In the spirit of this time of year what better way to jump into the season than to take a look at Viticulture World, the co-op expansion to Viticulture. For those that are not familiar with the base game, Viticulture is a wonderful worker placement game about making wine. While the base game is a competitive affair with a race to 25 points, Viticulture World has players working together to achieve victory as a team.

Viticulture World Overview

Viticulture World, designed by Mihir Shah and Francesco Testini and published by Stonemaier Games takes 6 wine makers and has them work collectively over 6 rounds to achieve victory. By the end of the 6th year, each player must have 25 victory points and achieve 10 influence to win. For those that have played base Viticulture before, the expansion will play similar but is not without some cool extras.

Setup

Game setup is similar to base Viticulture. Each player gets a Mama and Papa card which represents their starting configuration. There now are sets of Mamas or Papas that are paired together, a thoughtful touch that does not go unappreciated. Card and board set up is the same and there is a flip side if you are using Tuscany with the expansion. There are really 3 main changes in the set up of the expansion.

Your initial worker set up has changed. Now you will get your grande worker and 4 normal workers to start the game. For each of the 4 workers you will put either a blue or yellow hat on them, this will dictate what season you can deploy them in. The second is the addition of an event deck. Pick one of the continents and place on the board. It is recommended for your first game to start with Greengully. The last is the addition of innovation tiles. These tiles are shuffled and placed along side the board with the first 2 of each flipped over and placed in the designated slots on the board.

Viticulture World Gameplay Changes

For the purpose of this review I will mostly be covering the differences in game play and will not really be going into the core game play of the base game. At the start of the year in addition to choosing your wake up time, you also reveal an event card and innovation tiles. The event card can best be described as a special set of rules that apply for just this year. It may be a discount on buildings or innovation tiles or something that may be more challenging like limited worker placement. All players must adhere to the event deck rules until a new card is revealed next spring.

Accessorizing

After spring set up is on to the summer phase. Just like in normal Viticulture players are placing their workers in the summer spots on the board and taking the respective actions. This is where those little hats come into play. During summer, you can only place workers that have yellow hats or no hats at all. Workers with the blue hats are reserved for the winter phase. Training a worker will allow you to remove the hat so that the worker can be placed in either summer or winter seasons. There are limits initially to how many workers can occupy a single space, this is where those innovation tiles have an impact.

Innovating

During summer, a new space on the board is the innovation space. When a worker activates this space, they can purchase an innovation tile and augment the game board. These tiles come in rectangle and oval shapes. When innovating, pay the cost, choose one of the tiles in the market and place it on the board. A rectangle tile will upgrade the action that the worker takes when moving to that spot. An oval tile it will not only give an added bonus when placing a worker there but will also open up the ability to have an unlimited number of workers occupy that space.

Trading and Training

Having an unlimited number of workers occupy a space feeds into another gameplay change, trades. When a grande worker is placed on a spot that is occupied by another player, those 2 players can take part in a trade. The trade can be for cards, coins, grapes, wine and can only be for one of those item types for another. Teamwork makes the dream work!

Fall will play out very similar to the base game and winter adds a new spot and a twist on worker training. The new spot that is added is the influence spot. This spot is used to increase one of end game objectives, influence. Place a worker, here pay the cost, and move the leaf up one space on the track, pretty simple. The worker training space also changes. Instead of players adding an extra worker to use, you remove a hat off of a worker of your choice.

This worker can now be placed between winter or summer seasons. Once fall is complete and all players have passed it is back to prepping for spring and the start of the next year. After 6 years have passed, if each player has managed to get 25 victory points and the group have moved the influence marker up to 10 they win!

Viticulture World Impressions

I am a fan of Viticulture. I like the idea of co-op for this game and it has some cool changes that I would not mind seeing in the base game. Maybe is just me but this expansion is tough to beat. I have played several times so far and have only managed to win once. I think the event deck is cool but can be a bit hard to keep track of in the beginning. Often times we found ourselves playing through a season only to realize we completely forgot the event card. I think if you are used to the base game it makes it a bit harder to remember because it is a big change that can get overlooked whereas the other changes are all printed on the board and very procedural.

The innovation tiles and changes to the worker placement really help this expansion out. When a worker is placed on that innovation spot, it leads to a lot of table talk for where to innovate, same with trades. This is completely different from the base game where the table for the most part is just doing their own thing, progressing up the point track.

You are truly working as a team to succeed in this expansion. Really any time a worker was going to be placed it was discussed among the group to make sure other players that may need that spot more were not blocked and alternatives that could be taken. Some plays saw players specialize in things like harvesting grapes so they could trade later and help players out. Like I mentioned before the game is challenging and we have not really found a strategy that consistently works yet to beat the game.

Because of all that is going on, quarterbacking is limited. The fact that each player has to hit 25 points and there is also a shared goal really helps to mitigate this problem that can be found in some co-op games. Add in the different event decks and the innovation tiles and you could play through this expansion hundreds of times and never see the same board set up. The game advertises a 95 min play time and I would take this with a grain of salt. The playtime really swung for us based on the group and the discussion that was going on especially at higher player counts and honestly I don’t think I would play this with more than 4 players again. It just goes too long for 5 and 6 players, at least with our group.

Final Verdict on Viticulture World

Do I think this expansion is essential? Well that really depends on your play style. I think if you like co-ops this is worth a purchase possibly even if you have never played Viticulture before. Getting Viticulture with this would be a good choice for players that like co-ops in general. I think if you are a classic Viticulture player and are not a fan of co-ops it may still be worth a look just to check out the new mechanics. In the end, while not essential, Viticulture World is worth taking for a spin.