Praga Caput Regni: Rapid Review
Information:
Mechanics: Euro, Rondell, Tile Placement
Player Age: 13+ Player Count: 1 - 4 PlayersTime to Play: 45 - 140 Minutes
Game Designer: VladimÃr SuchýGame Artist: Milan VavroňPublisher: Rio Grande Games, Delicious GamesYear Published: 2020BGG Weight: 3.74Disclaimer: A review copy for the game was provided by the publisher.
Player Age: 13+
Game Designer: VladimÃr Suchý
Rundown:
Praga Caput Regni is a euro tile placement game that has players selecting an action tile from the rondel each turn. Praga Caput Regni has a lot of information to learn so this review is not going to cover every aspect of the game but will explain the majority and essence of the game.
Each action tile has two options available the player will choose one of these actions for their turn (explained further in the action paragraph). If an action is chosen earlier in the rondel (red section) a player will have to pay extra gold to take the action, if the action is taken later (in the blue zone) the players are appetised to take this action by gaining points from picking this action.
Each rondel spot will also have a bonus action available, this is the only way to gain a special tile by choosing an action spot with a special (s) bonus.
At the end of every turn, the rondel will be rotated and the action tile you used will be placed on the first empty red space. Every complete turn of the rondel will move the round marker up when this occurs enough times there will be a final round consisting of 11 turns.
Actions:
Manage Mines:
With this action, you can either gain gold and move your mine up one or produce all the gold that is in your mine.
When producing gold you will gain gold equal to the number on the track as well as gain any benefit shown to the left of the marker. For example this would award one gold, one VP, and one technology (book).
There are two benefits you can gain once by simply moving up the mine track. The first one is the production token shown in the sixth space on the track. This allows you to take one production token and place it at the start of the mine or quarry gaining a new benefit every time the resource is produced.
If a player reaches the last space of the track they can either immediately or on a later turn gain a seal. This is a scoring opportunity (with a chapel cost sometimes) that can only have one player claim each seal. This may be immediate points or allow the player to trade resources at the end of the game for points.
Manage Quarries:
Quarries work the same as mines however the track is focused on stone instead of gold which is used when building walls among other things.
Upgrade an Action:
This action allows you to place an upgraded action over an existing action. Allowing a new benefit to occur whenever you choose this upgraded action on a future turn.
Construct a Wall:
Walls will have a cost in red and a benefit in green. When using this action a player can choose any wall in the display to build (the special tiles may only be built with a special action). When building this tile, the tile will be placed surrounding your action board.
Construct a Building:
Buildings have the same cost and gain as a wall but they will instead be built on the board, some locations award points but have an additional gold placement cost.
After constructing a building, there are two typed of scoring conditions; firstly score one point for every building around the plaza including the one you just placed. Secondly, there could be a cube spot to place one of your cubes, this will work towards claiming a plaza. Whenever a plaza is surrounded the player with the most claims to this plaza will gain both benefits of the plaza. Everyone else with a claim will gain one benefit.
Construct the Kings Road:
Using the kings road action will move you further along this road track. Whenever you move along the road you will gain both actions shown. The first action will always require the player to spend an egg.
At the end of the road, there will be a Silver and Gold bridge token. When you move across this space and spend the egg token you will be able to place a bridge token. Both of these tokens will gain the bonuses shown where you are playing the token and the player will also gain the benefit on the token. The gold bridge tokens will award the player a different end-game scoring condition.
Placement:
Whenever any tile is placed during the game first off you will gain a movement on the university track of either 1 or 2 based on the age of the tile. 
The adjacency bonus on all tiles works different in this game than normal. You aren't trying to match the symbols the bonuses on both sides are gained if there are simply two bonuses touching each other.
The other element to factor in when placing a tile, is the corner bonus. When a coloured corner is connected to another of the same colour the player will gain one bonus token of that colour, if three connect the player will gain two tokens. The value of the red and blue tokens will based on the column players are on the hunger and cathedral tracks. An example of this is shown below with three blue tokens worth three points each based on the column. So the player will gain nine points.
The challenge of gaining these tokens is that the red-coloured corners only appear on walls and upgrade tiles.
The blue-coloured corners only appear on buildings and the board.
When playing certain buildings or walls there will be a blue or red bonus. This will move that player up on the track. This means if you want the blue tokens you gain by playing blue corners. You must play buildings with the blue bonus to create value for these tokens. As you are trying to achieve a lot in this game this can be a very challenging balance act.
Intricacies:
There are two elements I have not fully explained so far, technologies and chapels.
Chapels:
Chapels will be gained throughout the game in many ways both silver and gold. At the end of each turn, a player can only have two chapels in their possession. Two silver chapels can be used to move up the hunger or cathedral track. A point bonus of higher return awaits the player based on which row the game ends on. At higher rows, players may also have to spend gold and stone to move up.
The player may spend one silver and one gold or two golds for an extra action on a turn. This isn't an extra action tile simply, the player may choose another action to perform.
Technologies:
During the game, players will gain book symbols. These book symbols will advance the technology track. When the technology gains the 1,2,3 or 4 technology symbol three technology tiles of that level will be drawn one will be played and the other two will return to the top of the deck. Technologies one and two are ongoing benefits. Whereas Technology three and four are one-time bonuses that could be used immediately or saved for a later date.
Determination:
-A lot to understand in the first game but intuitive gameplay once learnt.
- Determining the action you want while factoring in the bonus and cost/reward makes for a crunchy rondel decision.
- A lot of bonus rewards to be gained through building your engine.
Praga Caput Regni is a very different game than I am used to as I haven't delved into too many euro games, especially any with a rondel. Once I got past the initial volume of information, I learnt that the core engine for the game is very intuitive. You simply take one action tile from the rondel each turn choose 1 of the actions on the tile and gain any bonus associated. The decisions come from the vast array of bonuses you can gain from doing certain actions at certain places or in a certain order.
For me, the real challenge in the game comes from the balance of the hunger and cathedral track. The more you build walls and upgrade your actions the more you gain tokens for the hunger track. To make these tokens have any value however you need to place certain buildings. This balancing act also applies to the opposite and moving the cathedral track. This balance is not an easy challenge. If you enjoy the optimisation puzzles that Euro games offer then I believe Praga Caput Regni is what you are looking for. Once playing this is also a fairly easy euro game to understand it just has a steep learning curve if you are not used to this genre.
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