Die Trodler aus den Highlands

• Designer: Carlo Rossi
• Publisher: Zoch
• Players: 2-4
• Age: 10+
• Time: 45 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

”Isn‘t there any vase here?“ The mayor of Cragganmore is upset. Certainly, the neighbors from Knockando and Macallan have once again kept all the vases for themselves! And now you are even getting short of chairs for the festive banquet! Good thing that there are traveling dealers in the Highlands who transport such indispensable items from one village to another. No mountain trail is too steep for them, no moor path too muddy, and no ferry too unsafe. Only with a feel for passable routes can they get where they can pick up or deliver something. If you dawdle, you will be left stuck somewhere in the middle of nowhere with your bric-a-brac. Now then… get a move on!

As second-hand dealers from the Highlands, players travel from village to village to collect and sell goods because what is useless old junk for one person is very useful old junk for another — and therefore worth its weight in gold.

In Die Trödler aus den Highlands, the players use their carts to transport their junk over mountains and among villages. To set up, each player starts their cart in a different village with a starting route card, a goods request card, and a special feed card in hand. Goods are placed at random in other villages, the number equal to what is printed on the board in that village.  9 Goods Request cards and 9 special feed cards are shuffled to form a face up discard pile.  The rest of the cards form a deck of route, goods request, extra good, and special feed cards and it is shuffled. 

At the start of a round the dealer creates piles of four face-up cards, one more than the number of players.  The bottom cards of each pile is dealt to the table and all players should closely pay attention to the cards, because as soon as the N+1 bottom card is dealt, the second card to each stack is placed on top. This continues until each stack has 4 cards, though only the topmost card is visible.  Each player, starting with the player to the left of the dealer, chooses a pile and adds it to his hand.  The final pile that was not chosen is discarded.

In the card playing phase, play begins with the dealer, and each player gets a single turn.  On a turn, you play as many cards from hand as desired. Play a route card to move your cart over the matching path (mountain, bridge, etc.), then optionally pick up a good from that village. If you play an extra good card, you can take a second good. If a village has no goods, you can play a goods request card and the matching goods from your supply — placing those goods in the village — then placing the card face down in a personal “value” pile. You can even do this in a village that you just emptied — that’s a testament to your powers of persuasion!

Each time you play a special feed card, you can travel on the route of your choice, pick up an extra good, or fulfill a goods request card with a mismatched good. All of these played special feed cards go into your value pile.  Any fulfilled goods request cards are also placed in your personal pile.  At the end of the turn, the player may keep 4 cards from their hand. All other cards go into the general discard pile. One exception –  You may never discard a special feed card! 

When a player has completed a certain number of goods request cards (5 in a 4p game), the game ends — then players add up how many special feed cards they used plus half of the goods cards they have left over. Whoever has the most has exhausted their horses and busted their cart and cannot win.  Of the remaining players, whoever has the most points from completed goods cards and remaining goods wins!  Ties broken in favor of the player with the fewest goods in front of them.

My thoughts on the game

Die Trodler aus den Highlands is a bit of a different take on the pick up and deliver genre.  Here, you still have contracts that tell you what you need to deliver, but the destinations are a bit more open – you just have to find a town that doesn’t already have the good(s) that you are delivering – even if you’ve just taken the last such good from them!

There is a bit of rapid memory going on in the card dealing phase – and this can be made more difficult if the players choose to deal out the cards as fast as possible.  When it goes fast, it’s definitely hard to see everything, and the game is played more on feel (or just blatant guessing).  Otherwise, you just try to see what you can and choose the pile that maybe has the cards that you want.

The game revolves a lot around good/lucky timing.  You’ll need to have the right goods request cards in your hand at a time that the board allows you to fulfill them.  If you’re able to set up a pick up and delivery at the same town – you’ll get a definite leg up on the rest of the table.

The win/lose condition is a bit convoluted, and it has taken me multiple attempts during each teach to make sure people understand it – because, after all, someone is automatically disqualified for their damage score, and everyone needs to understand the importance of this before playing the game.  I’ve found in my experience that the elimination rule tends to have a chilling effect on gameplay.  Many people simply concentrate on the special feed cards and then choose the piles that don’t have any.  Players tend to take on fewer goods as the end game nears so that they don’t take damage penalties from undelivered goods…  Of course, when you’re going last in turn order, sometimes you don’t have an option and you’re forced to take a pile, even knowing there are bad cards in there…

The game certainly doesn’t outstay its welcome as you only need to have someone fulfill five deliveries in a four player game.  As I mentioned earlier, there is always a bit of tension near the end of the game when it is uncertain who might have taken the most special feed cards.  It’s often someone who is doing better in the game at that point because the flexible actions of those special feed cards allow you to get more things done.   Die Trodler aus den Highlands is more on the family side of things than a true children’s game, and there is enough here to keep the parents happy if they choose to play this with the whole family.

Until your next appointment,

The Gaming Doctor