Adam has been writing about video games since 2014 and board games since 2018. If he's not rooting for the Toronto Maple Leafs or Toronto FC, he definitely has a controller in his hand - probably playing on a Nintendo platform - or is sitting at a table playing a board game. Adam also has firm opinions on a few key topics: there are much better board games than Settlers of Catan, and Nintendo doesn't need to compete with Sony and Microsoft.
When people think of winemaking board games, generally one game comes to mind: Viticulture. Viticulture, from Stonemaier Games, is one of my favourite games of all time, and it has made me pass over other winemaking games.
When I saw Vineyard: A Winemaking Game at a convention, I knew it was something I had to try. From the fantastic production to the unique gameplay experience, it looked and felt like something my gaming group would enjoy. Can it compete with the mammoth that is Viticulture, though?
Fantastic table presence, unique gameplay experience
If you are new to the board game hobby, you might not realize that how a game looks is actually pretty important. If a game looks bad or has poor iconography, it might not matter how good the actual game mechanics are; it’s going to be a barrier to me playing your game.
Vineyard is a vibrant, colorful game where players will be playing action cards to their player board, and assigning them to specific workers on the board. These characters can perform a number of actions: growing grapes, harvesting grapes, crushing grapes, putting wine in barrels, and loading barrels on trucks. The catch here is that the workers are shared amongst the players, and the workers are required to move to new locations on the board each time they move.
Here is where the strategy of Vineyard comes into play. Each player board is unique and provides each character on the board with specific bonuses if they perform certain tasks. For example, character A for player 1 might be best at harvesting grapes, so ideally player 1 will use their Harvest action card on that character.
As players use these cards to make workers take action, they will add little hearts – or adding love – to the wine they are creating. As other players also contribute to these barrels of wine, they will add love as well, and when these barrels eventually get loaded onto trucks, you will earn points based on how much love you added to the entire process, based on the scoring conditions of the truck the barrels ended up on.
Hard to explain, easy to visualize
How Vineyard works is a bit hard to explain. Everything on the board is being done collectively, yet this is a competitive game. I might be the one who harvests the grapes and delivers them to the crushing bin, but it might be my wife who crushes them and decides what type of wine to make, and another player who ultimately barrels the wine and loads it on the trucks.
To simplify the explanation, ideally you are moving wine that has the most of your love (hearts) in it towards the finish line, and making sure you’ve at least contributed to every barrel of wine that gets made so you are always scoring some points.
Strategically deep, but everyone feels accomplished
Getting love (hearts) into wine isn’t actually all that difficult. The trick isn’t always having the most in each barrel either, as some scoring conditions want you to have a specific amount of love in each wine barrel. The best players will balance their use of player powers and action cards to be as efficient as possible, diversifying their love to potentially get it included in future barrels of wine.
That said, Vineyard is a game where everyone at the table is going to feel like they’ve accomplished something, whether they win or not. This game has learned strategies, so players who have played a few times have a massive advantage over those who are playing for the first time. New players won’t feel crushed, though, as they will still contribute and earn points, just perhaps not as efficiently as others.
Is this game for you?
If you enjoy worker placement and action selection, Vineyard is probably going to be something you love. There is a bit of negative player interaction in the game as players decide which love (hearts) move along in the winemaking process. That said, love is never lost, so if it doesn’t make it into one barrel of wine, it just might make it into the next.
If you don’t like worker placement, especially when locations can get blocked, Vineyard is likely to be an incredibly frustrating experience. Because this is a shared worker placement game, there are no bumping players and taking spaces that were previously occupied. For many, this is going to be a big problem as it can ruin plans you made.
Ultimately, the choice to play is yours.
What you might want to know
Does Vineyard let me use worker placement locations that other characters are on?
What does shared worker placement mean?
