We are big fans of Final Frontier games. A Fistful of Meeples and Drawn to Adventure are great “sub games” that go along with the larger published games Coloma and Merchants Cove respectively.
However, before those four games came to be there was the first game in The Five Realms series which was Cavern Tavern (a favorite of my wife’s) an easier dice worker placement game.
Next in the series is Rise to Nobility that is, in a sense, a true style Euro dice/worker placement game that steps up the story from Cavern Tavern to the next level.
Merchants Cove is the third game in the series which is saved for a future writeup because we haven’t tabled it yet and it is also on our 10x10 for this year. And the fourth full game in the series is being made as we speak and that one is Bardwood Grove.
Anyways, let get back to the game at hand….Rise to Nobility.
BGG Description
Five years after the events of Cavern Tavern, where a fragile peace was brokered between The Five Realms, the High Queen Tabita Orestes has ordered a new city to be built. The city of Caveborn will be the capital of the Five Realms, a place where all the races will learn to live together in harmony, with the main purpose being to bring them closer and prevent another war.
The Queen needs to keep the alliance between the races and ensure that Caveborn is peaceful and prosperous. To that end, a Settlers Council has been formed with Berk the Town Clerk as its chairman — but Berk is getting old and needs a successor. Are you that person?
Rise to Nobility is a worker (dice) placement game set in the same fantasy world as Cavern Tavern. You each own a small piece of land in the newly built city, and your job is to rise from anonymity, make your way to the title of lord, and take over the head seat at the Stone Council.
You can achieve this by upgrading your land and increasing its value, satisfying the demands of the settlers' council, attracting and housing as many settlers as you can, accommodating their needs, finding them jobs, and helping them develop from apprentices to guild masters, thus insuring you have people in high places all around the city of Caveborn.
Weight 3.28/5
A Little More Info
I need to tell you right away that we have the collector’s box that was available with the expansion which we love. In that box we have the rules from the 1st printing and the 2nd one along with the main expansion, Beyond. There are differences between the two core rule books such as the number of resources you start with, number of rounds you play, the amount of reputation you begin with, and a few other variances.
The few games we already have is based on the rules in which you play ten rounds instead of seven, start with less reputation and resources. We have also played both a 3 player and 4 players games as well which does help with forming our opinion of the game.
What we like about the game
The first thing to note, like most worker placement games, we like that each turn you have choices to make about where to place your dice. In this case the most common options are: do you want to raise your reputation level, go to a guild and use a workshop, go to Cavern Tavern to get a new settler, or build a new home.
Next thing we like is that everyone gets to roll all of their dice and based on your reputation level and the numbers rolled on the dice is how many workers you can place. If you raise your reputation level and have can manage to place the leftover dice, you can in that round.
What we also like is that action blocking is a minimum because of the number of places you can go to. Yes, sometimes people will stop you from getting what you may need for the immediate time but that just means you could be delayed a turn or two. There is no reason why you should be holding onto dice at the end of each round.
The last thing I want to mention is that we love that the same artist is doing the artwork for each game in the series. This keeps a very nice aesthetic and continuity. We love all the different races of creatures in the game. Plus, you can choose the day or night side of the board to use (no difference in gameplay).
What we don’t like about the game
For me, I feel it is a solid game as is (based on the original rules). The only thing I don’t like is the Stone Council spot on the board doesn’t seem to be a good value for what you can get. There are other ways to gain victory points which are not as costly. Losing two reputation points though, isn’t really a problem.
What my wife doesn’t like is that you cannot stack the dice on a spot like you could in Cavern Tavern. In this game, each guild spot has three available workshop spots to place your dice (1-2, 3-4, 5-6) and based on the spot you can gain X amount of that specific resource.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Cavern Tavern use to be my wife’s favorite game, that is until we played Rise to Nobility. For those who do like dice/worker placement games, I would say this is a keeper. Some other well known reviewers are “meh” about the game but as for us, this game will certainly hit the table more often than not.
One last thing, this coming week The Family Gamer Facebook Group turns two years old. I just want to thank everyone who have joined us in the group and keep us going. We are a small but mighty group.
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