Golem

This game is so much fun! It has elements of multiple games that I love; including Lorenzo il magnifico, grand Austria hotel and wingspan

I was thoroughly excited when I saw review videos for this, but getting it to the table was even more satisfying. I love that you have 3 primary methods of generating points, and you can choose which ones you want to focus on. I'd been in the market for a crunchy euro, and this is definitely it. Lots of interesting choices with how you want to move up what track, and what upgrades you want to invest in. There's A LOT of iconography, and you will have to reference the rulebook for your first few plays regarding what certain icons are, but once learned, it's surprisingly smooth balancing the usefulness of the Golems vs. the penalties if they are alive for too long.

I've been a fan of Golem's design team for several years now, having played Newton, Grand Austria Hotel, The Voyages of Marco Polo, Lorenzo il Magnifico, Coimbra, and Barrage and loved them all. These designers *know what they're doing*. After two plays of Golem, I admit I'm a little underwhelmed. Granted, I need to explore more strategies and avenues for advancement, and I'm still very excited to do so, especially through the solo game, but all the same, it wasn't as exciting and fresh as I had hoped. Keep in mind, though, that I say this in the context of very high expectations. Despite my early misgivings, Golem is a very solid game, and I'm still giving it 5 stars. I expect that, like my experience with Viscounts of the West Kingdom, a few solo plays will help me discover its nuances and appreciate it more. A few notes on the good: Where Golem shines is the payoff for actions. There's a lot of opportunity for combos and building toward threshold benefits. For instance, when you build an artifact, you get the income for the artifact immediately and again at the end of the round. One artifact upgrade allows you to reactivate the artifact when you build a golem. So by grabbing the right upgrade for your golems, you can build a golem and reactivate the artifact while also using the golem for an immediate bonus action. I wasn't able to pull it off in my last game, but with just a tad more clay, I could have built a golem, reactivated my artifact, and activated an action space to build *another* golem, reactivating my artifact again and then one more action space. This is just one example of how effects can cascade through a careful ordering of actions to obtain upgrades and trigger bonuses. I'm looking forward to exploring other aspects of Golem, including fully upgrading my golems and sacrificing them for benefits, as well as the market for buying books, which provide both immediate and ongoing benefits. This is a game I expect to appreciate more as I explore it, and I would very much like to see an expansion for it in the future to add another layer of depth and more combo opportunities. 5 Stars - Eager for my next play.