Cacao
Review Table Top

Cacao – Give Me Chocolate

This isn’t an official Board Game Arena review at least for my game a week. But it’s one that I was introduced to on there, and that I now own in person. This is a tile laying game about getting chocolate and then selling the cacao beans. But it’s a fun one because it’s really simple to play, but a lot of interesting choices on how you set-up your opponents. But even though it’s fun, is this game a good game?

How To Play Cacao

Cacao is a tile laying game where you are trying to get the most points for selling cacao beans at the various settlements. And you gain points for also having workers adjacent to water, temples and more. But for the most part your turn is very simple.

On you turn you take one of three tiles that you have and you add it to the grid of tiles out in front of you. There are very few rules for placement, the main one being that you can’t put a worker tile adjacent to another worker tile. You can rotate your worker tile any way you want. The tile is always going to have four workers on it.

Then after you place if there is a empty spot adjacent to that tile and another worker tile, so the two tiles form a right angle, you fill in that spot, or spots with scoring tiles. The scoring tiles might be villages where you can sell cacao or it might be spots where you can get your crop. As I mentioned as well there is water, temples, and more that give other scoring opportunities.

Then you activate the workers on the tile you just placed. And you decide which order to activate them. So you might want to harvest cacao beans first so that you have something to sell. Or you might want to sell first so you have room harvest more cacao beans.

The game ends once every player has placed all of their tiles. It’s possible at the end of the game that someone might not be able to place a scoring tile because they are all already out. In that case, just place the tile and activate the worker. Whomever, at the end, has the most points, wins.

What Doesn’t Work

The game plays differently at different player counts. Mainly at lower player counts, two or three, it’s going to be more strategic. I play a tile out in a way that is going to benefit me greatly and maybe will be hard for you to come and get to it. Higher player counts it’s going to be more random. More on the board will change between. It only plays up to four, which is nice it won’t be too random, but as compared to two players, it’ll be way more random. I think for some people it might limit how many players they want to play with.

What Works

The turns are fast-ish and simple. Yes, you need to really think about where you want to put things. But the decision space is limited. It does grow as the game goes on because there are more spots to play. The decision space, though is never too bogged down. And often times, if you don’t have cacao beans or you do, that is going to help make your determination for you as to where you want to go.

The game is also not too long, but it’s not too short either. This could be a game where it goes on and on and you make a giant map of tiles. But it’s not like that, the game plays quickly. But it’s also not too short. I feel like I have a good amount of time to make decisions and get points in the game. If I do that well or not is on me. But the time is there for me to try and do that.

And I like that the tiles are different. On a tile, for your workers, you might have two on one side, and one on either side flanking it. Or one it might be one worker on each side. Or even three and one for a few of the tiles. So when do you play that really powerful action? Because two workers means that you could sell two cacao beans to a village. But maybe I want to get that many instead. The choice is always good.

Who Is Cacao For?

This is for people, I think, who like a game like Carcassonne. I think this one is easier in some ways. And that’s not a bad thing. Carcassonne can sometimes be challenging to teach farmers and there’s a bit going on in there. This one it’s just that little bit simpler and there isn’t the worker management, at least not in the same way. So it’s going to be a game that is very welcoming and friendly to people who are maybe newer to board games.

My Final Thoughts on Cacao

I enjoy this game quite well. I own it now so that fact should be pretty obvious. There are certain elements that really draw me towards this game. In particular, I like the different workers on the tiles. And I didn’t mention it, but some of the cacao “fields” have two beans on them, so you get two for one worker. I think there is a good amount of emerging strategy in the game as well.

The water is interesting as well. If you don’t get water, you get negative points. So that is rough, and it means that you need to think about that. I like how it can block people out as well from water. So now they need to be more effective on the temples having worker majority there to get the higher of the two points. So Cacao while simple is not a game that is devoid of some really good decisions.

Let me know your thoughts on Cacao.

My Grade: B+
Gamer Grade: B-
Casual Grade: B+

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