Viticulture Essential Edition – Setup and How to Play

Ever wanted to drift away and own your own vineyard in Europe? Well that dream could be a reality should you choose to pick up Viticulture Essential Edition and being creating your own vineyard that will be the envy of all your neighbors. In Viticulture, players will build up there vineyards by growing grapes, crushing grapes and creating wine, and selling that wine for profit, all while performing other tasks and operating money making ventures. The person with the most victory points at the end of the game is the winner. Let’s dive into the setup.

Setup

Players can choose any side of the two sided game board to play with. Both sides of the board function the exact same way, but one side provides in-depth information about the various locations workers can visit, while the other side focuses on the games artwork, and is meant for more experienced players. Each player then chooses a colour and collects all the pieces designated to them.

Players will also set a play board in front of them as well. This will be the vineyard for the entirety of the game. To begin the game, players only have access to their crush pads, small cellar, and three fields. The other locations on the board will become available as players build them. Each player should look through the green Vine deck, and choose a Pinot card to add to their starting resources.

The remaining Vine cards, as well as the Summer Visitor, Winter Visitor, and Wine Order card should all be shuffled and placed on their designated deck locations on the main game board. Beside the board, place the glass bead tokens, as well as the Lira – in denominations of 1, 2 and 5.

You are almost ready to play! Each player will be dealt one Mama Card and one Papa Card, and the information that is present on the card is what you will start the game for. The other workers will need to be purchased later in the game. The cork pieces from each player should be placed on start space of the victory point track, and the wine bottle piece should be placed on the Residual Payment dial in the bottom right hand corner of the board.

Collect the rooster token from each player and use them to determine a starting player. That player will receive the grapes token which designates them as the starter player, and the rooster tokens are placed on the Wake Up tracker on the left hand side of the board. The gray worker token should also be placed on its designated location on the Wake Up track. And now you are ready to play!

How to Play

The game is broken down into a summer and winter phase, and therefore, worker managment is incredibly important. If you use all your workers during hte summer phase, you will have nothing to do during the winter phase. Understanding the various locations on the board, and what they do, is incredibly important. Players should review the various options before beginning the game.

Summer Actions

Give a tour of your vineyard and gain 2 Lira. An additional Lira can be earned if you are the first to use this location.

Add a Vine card to your hand. An additional Vine card can be earned if you are the first to use this location.

Plant a Vine card in your vineyard. An additional Vine card can be planted if you are the first to use this location. Remember to reference any building requirements on your card. For example, the Pinot grapes that you obtained to begin the game cannot be planted until you have build the trellis.

Sell one or more of your grape tokens. If you are the first player to use this space, you can obtain a victory point as well. The amount of money you earn for the grapes you sell is indicated near your crush pad, based on the value of your grapes.

Play a Summer Visitor card. An additional Summer Visitor card can be played if you are the first to use this location. Summer Visitor cards are resolved the moment they are played.

Build one structure. Players may build one of their structures on their vineyard, and can do so for less 1 Lira if they are the first player to utilize the location. The cost and use for each structure is indicated on each players personal board, so refer to that to determine which buildings you want to build, and how much it will cost you.

Send a cart to town. Anyone can play on this space in Summer or Winter, and there is no limit to the number of workers who can be placed here. Players will receive 1 Lira for taking this action.

Winter Actions

Pay 4 Lira to train a new worker. This cost can be reduced by 1 Lira should you be the first person to use this location. Newly purchased workers cannot be used until the following years turn, so set it aside for now.

Harvest one of your fields. An additional field can be harvested if you are the first to use this location. When harvesting your field, refer to the cards on your personal player board. The total value of red grapes and the total value of white grapes are added together separately, and glass beads are placed on the crushing pad representing those numbers. If grape tokens are already on those numbers, move down to the next available number.

Add a Wine Order card to your hand. An additional Wine Order card can be earned if you are the first to use this location.

Play a Winter Visitor card. An additional Winter Visitor card can be played if you are the first to use this location. Winter Visitor cards are resolved the moment they are played.

Turn up to 2 of your grape tokens into wine tokens. An additional wine token can be created if you are the first person at this location. Reference your personal player board to determine what types of wine you can make.

Fill a Wine Order. You can earn an additional victory point for filling a wine order if you are the first to use this location. To fill a Wine Order card, you will need the required wine in your cellar as dictated by the card in your hand. When an order is filled, you gain the number of victory points on the card, and move your residual payment piece forward on the track as indicated by the card.

Summer and Fall Phases

Beginning with the starting player and going clockwise, players decide where they want to place their rooster on the Wake Up track, with the understanding that only one rooster can go on each space. Where you place your marker on the track determines the turn order for the next round. The lower you go on the track, the better your reward, but you likely give up the opportunity to go first. Perks along the track include drawing a Vine Card (spot 2), drawing a Summer or Winter Visitor card (spot 5), or gaining an additional worker for that turn (spot 7).

Once every player has determined their position and collected their perk for that round, the starting player begins the round by placing his worker on one of the various spots around the game board. Outside of the cart space, each Summer location has three worker spots and each Winter location has 2 worker spots. The number of spots you can use is determined by the number of players in the game. That being said, once a spot is taken, it can not be used by someone elses regular worker, but can only be used by the Grande worker.

The Grande workers allows players to use a location that technically has no spots free, allowing players to use that action anyways.

Once you’ve decided that you want save your remaining workers for the Winter season, you can choose to pass, ending your involvement in that current seasons phase. When all players have passed, the Fall phase begins. In Wake Up track order, players choose either a Summer or Winter Visitor card, and add that card to their hand.

Winter Phase

The Winter phase follows the same rules as the Summer phase, as players will place workers on the board and resolve the actions. This again happens in Wake Up track order, and goes clockwise around the table. Once all players have passed or placed all their workers, this round ends and you move to Year End.

Year End

Once the Winter phase has ended, players will perform a number of year end actions. All grapes on the crush pad will age by one value, therefore making a 3 grape a 4 grape, and so on. Wine tokens are also aged by a value of one. Players will gather up all their workers from the board – including purchased workers during the Winter phase – and place them in there available workers space on the player board.

Players who have shipped wine orders in previous turns will now gather Lira equal to the number their wine token is on when looking at the residual payment track. This Lira is added to their personal supply. Before beginning the next year, all players will need to discard down to 7 cards, placing discarded cards in their appropriate discard piles. The start player token is passed counter clockwise, and you begin a new year.

And that is how you play Viticulture Essentials Edition. Our full review of the game will be available soon, so keep your eye on GamesReviews.com for that article!