- Publisher : Ludonova
- Designer(s) : Germán P. Millán
- Artist(s) : Laura Bevon
- Players : 1–4
- Playing time : 60–120 Min
- Weight BGG : 3.86
What's this?
Sabika is a strategy game for 2 to 4 players set during the Nasrid dynasty in Spain, where players take on the role of nobles contributing to the construction of the Alhambra.
Le but est d’obtenir le plus de points de prestige en construisant des tours, des jardins, des palais, en gravant des poèmes dans l’Alhambra, en établissant des relations commerciales et en exportant des marchandises le long des routes.
How do you play?
Players move their workers on three pucks to choose the actions to perform:
gathering resources and building on the first,
establishment of commercial relations and export on the second,
engraving of poems on the third.
The game takes place over five rounds, where prestige points are awarded for each building, garden, business relationship and specific objective completed.
The player with the most prestige points at the end of the fifth round wins the game.
Is it good?
After enjoying Bitoku, the author offers us another expert game with Sabika.
The mechanics of the three pucks for collecting resources and executing our different actions are deployed very efficiently. Careful planning of movements is necessary to optimize each action as much as possible.
The decisions are plethoric: the expansion of our warehouses, which will allow us to accumulate a large number of resources and gain victory points over time; specialization in minor and major constructions, providing bonus actions and victory points; adopting a strategy focused on exports and trade relations through our ships, generating income in each round as well as bonus actions; without forgetting the major poems, sources of victory points at the end of the game and guidelines for our strategy.
I’m emphasizing bonus actions, because the satisfaction in this game comes primarily from creating action combos. The constraints in terms of total actions make the experience rewarding, and chaining together bonus actions is truly enjoyable.
However, it is possible to criticize it for an almost imperceptible theme. For example, the construction phase of the Alhambra boils down to a simple collection of cards and hex tiles. Not really convincing.
It also has some flaws such as texts written in relatively small characters on the cards, excessive use of icons and ergonomics subject to questioning. However, none of this really spoils the experience. Sabika remains a quality expert game, where the intellectual exercise is most pleasant.
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Review Sabika
Positives
- Puck mechanics
- Many strategies
- Combos to do
Negatives
- The non-existent theme
- Nothing really innovative
Breakdown
- Components and illustrations 7.5
- Mechanics 8.5
- Thematic 7.0
- Replayability 8.5
- Handling 8.5
- Interaction 8.5
- Originality 8.0
