It’s time for another bout between board games. This time we have three of them facing off in the ring to determine which one stands out. Grove and Orchard are siblings but Sprawlopolis is trying to drive a wedge between them. Which one of these card layering games is going to come out on top? Who will win this Board Game Battle?

Basics of the Board Game

Let’s talk a little bit about how each one is played. As they do all do things differently but there are also some similarities. We’ll get to those in a minutes.

Grove

In Grove you are growing fruit trees to get as large a crop as you can. To do this you start with a base card and then you layer on other cards to cover it. You want to match fruit symbols to raise the value of the fruit you are getting from it. If you overlap the wrong type of tree you place a squirrel that is worth negative points.

Grove offers two things upon that idea. First the idea of a glade, an open spot on a card. This can cover anything. Of course, it does cause the fruit to fall to the ground. Unless you match the right color again. And then there’s the point cards, which basically give you goals and a target for your scoring. You can play just to see how high you score or you get a target to score.

Orchard

In Orchard you also layer cards so that you build out an orchard. But it is slightly different. There are no open spots, instead you get two bad apples you can put on your board that are bad matches. It doesn’t hurt you as much, just with where you can layer out the cards. And you try and get the best score possible as you layer the cards.

Sprawlopolis

Sprawlopolis has nothing to do with fruit, it is about building a town instead. You gain points for building large residential, commercial, industrial, or green spaces. And lose points for roads that go nowhere. But you layer the cards, if you want, as you play them down to create these areas.

You also need to pay attention to how you place them out because there are objectives which will give you more points that you play with for each game. This will add to the basic scoring that you do every game.

Similarities

Most obviously, all of these games have you layering cards. Though, while the symbol on the card matters for both Grove and Orchard, most of the time, it doesn’t for Sprawlopolis. But by layering the cards, you are trying to optimize your scoring in each of the games.

They are all also games that come in very small packages. Sprawlopolis is a Wallet Game from Button Shy Games, and with both Grove and Orchard you use 9 cards, plus dice in a given game. And while all of them don’t need to be played solo, they are small enough that people tend to play them solo more often than not. It is just easy to put them into a pocket and take them with you.

Differences

Firstly, both Grove and Orchard have to be specifically matched and use dice. Those are two things that aren’t part of Sprawlopolis. So Orchard and Grove are more restrictive on card placement. You have ways to “cheat”, but it is limited.

Also in Sprawlopolis, it is possible to play without layering any cards. Now that might not work out too well for you in the long run. Because you’ll see every bit of the town and every bit of the roads which might give you negative points. But it is possible.

And finally, Orchard doesn’t have goal based scoring. While all of them do give you points that make up how well you did in a game. Grove optionally offers goal based scoring. And Sprawlopolis always has that target that you are trying to reach.

Board Game Battle

Let me start out by saying, I think they all do things differently. I have all of them in my collection and I don’t foresee getting rid of any of them in the near future. So they are different enough, but there is also a lot of overlap, all word play intended, in these games. Mainly around the basic mechanic of the game. Layering cards to get your best score possible.

For me, it comes down between the two of Orchard and Grove. Sprawlopolis is very solid, but it offers you more choices in that you don’t have to overlap, but you probably want to at times. And you have more cards in hand that you need to think about. So it just takes a short and snappy game premise and stretches it out.

And when I talked about Grove, in it’s review, I said that I think without the goal scoring, I prefer Orchard. That is still true. Orchard offers a better card layering puzzle if you don’t have a target number. It’s friendlier in it’s card layering.

But the winner is Grove. I was worried originally that the objectives were going to bog down the game somehow. It doesn’t. Now, you don’t always focus on the objectives. Because they might not give a lot of points. But it is in the back of your mind that those scorings might just be able to push your over the threshold.

Which one of these is your favorite?

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