Autumn is not the best time to climb a scaffolding in Moscow, but it is still much better than doing it in winter. Tsar Ivan wants to see results and our team will prove to him that we are the best builders in town. We will surely finish those decorative arches with the most glittering stones and secure our place on the list of the government's trusted workers.
Sheila Santos and Israel Cendrero make up the game designing duo known as Llama Dice. To date, they have released several titles with various Spanish publishers (1987 Channel Tunnel, Mondrian, Smoothies), and The Red Cathedral is the first game they published with Devir. Pedro Soto (Holmes, Sherlock & Mycroft, Papua) and Chema Román (El mundo de Águila Roja) created the game's graphics, with a great tribute to Ivan Bilibin, an iconic Russian artist from the early twentieth century. Despite being from a much later period, his influence is very recognizable in the game.
The Red Cathedral is a strategic board game in which players take on the roles of construction teams. Their task is to jointly set up St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow, as ordered by Ivan the Terrible. However, only one of them will be able to win the Tsar's favor.
During the game, players can perform one of three actions: allocate a section of the cathedral, send resources to that section to build it, or move to the game board to obtain more resources. Each of these actions has its own mechanics and requires players to keep a close eye on what the other players are doing.
Once the sections of the cathedral have been assigned, players take possession of the spaces in each column that form their section. The more sections are built and the more towers are added to each section, the more points the player will receive at the end of the game.
The players can send resources to the cathedral sections they have claimed. When they complete each of those sections, they receive rewards in cash and prestige points. They can also add decorations to the finished areas to gain even more recognition from the Tsar. This part of the game also works like clockwork, as once a player completes the construction of their sixth section, the game ends.
The game board shows us the iconic rondel of The Red Cathedral. Here the players can obtain all the necessary types of resources to work on their work on the cathedral, as well as favors from the guilds and professionals to make the most of their visit to the market. In the central roundel, players choose the die they want to use and move as many spaces as are shown at the top of the die to obtain the resources indicated in the space indicated by the die.
The Red Cathedral is a very accessible game in terms of rules, as it is very easy to understand the different levels of the game, but it remains very interesting in terms of strategy. It will certainly please those who are more interested in the challenge of strategically optimizing their position in each game than in the complexity of the rules.
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