Splendor Review - There's Something Addicting About Gem Collecting...

Splendor is a game of chip-collecting and card development. Players are merchants of the Renaissance trying to buy gem mines, means of transportation, shops—all in order to acquire the most prestige points. If you're wealthy enough, you might even receive a visit from a noble at some point, which of course will further increase your prestige.
On your turn, you may (1) collect chips (gems), or (2) buy and build a card, or (3) reserve one card. If you collect chips, you take either three different kinds of chips or two chips of the same kind. If you buy a card, you pay its price in chips and add it to your playing area. To reserve a card—in order to make sure you get it, or, why not, your opponents don't get it—you place it in front of you face down for later building; this costs you a round, but you also get gold in the form of a joker chip, which you can use as any gem.
All of the cards you buy increase your wealth as they give you a permanent gem bonus for later buys; some of the cards also give you prestige points. In order to win the game, you must reach 15 prestige points before your opponents do.

TimeStamps:
0:00:00 - Overview
0:04:42 - Ease of Play
0:05:13 - What I Like
0:06:37 - What I Don't Like
0:07:39 - Final Thoughts
0:08:15 - Recommendations

5.0 - My absolutely favorite games. You can pry them out of my cold dead hands.
4.5 - Love this game! At the same time missing something that would make it a 5. Could be hard to table, lacking variability, a little light, etc.
4.0 - Really great game, almost always keeping, although has meaningful complaints as to what takes away from the experience.
3.5 - Really enjoyed, don't love it, may lose out to better games but the idea of never playing again is a bit sad.
3.0 - A good game, would play and suggest with the right people, if I never played it again wouldn't lose any sleep.
2.5 - A game I'd play again , but will never suggest it myself
2.0 - A game I don't want to play again
1.5 - A game I can't find any reason to recommend
1.0 - A game that is just bad.

My Game Table (Non Referral)

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[Bruce]

I might be wrong but players may not take 2 tokens of the same color if there are less than 4 tokens available of that color

[beastofthedevil]

Missed the intro screen with your logo there 🤔

[KingMePlease]

Adding in Cities of Splendor trader module is the one our family goes back to over and over every time we get together because there is a competition to get certain color gems not just for nobles but for gaining earning special abilities. If anyone loves Splendor a lot, highly recommend getting Cities of Splendor expansion.

[olivierjodoin]

Marvel Splendor has some nice little tweaks and nice artwork that makes it even more appealing. And I prefer it over Century and 7 Wonders. Splendor cannot be killed!

[SKGuna_writer]

Great review, Alex! I still have yet to play this game, but I do hear that Splendor: Duel is where the real fun is at! Might check that one out soon. 😁

[briant]

Spot on for your review, Alex. The game is easy enough that my family, who are not gamers, requests it but has enough of a puzzle it keeps things interesting. Will I ask to play it? No. But I am happy to play it with light gamers.

[MerrillWhiteKalEl]

One of our family favorite games. We also love the expansion modules.

[McDavitt_Publishing]

Great review! You should do a play this not that for century spice road vs century golem edition 😉

[QuiveringEye]

Just played it with the in-laws and wiped the floor with them over and over. They tried rearranging the player order and all. I enjoyed that part, but it feels a bit lifeless to me.

[darinherrick]

I'm not sure how but this game is actually under-rated.

[darinherrick]

I disagree with the sentiment that this game wears out. I disagree that it's on the same level as 7 Wonders and Spice Road.

After like 30-50 plays I started to realize I had been playing the game wrong because I wasn't utilizing gold and blocking correctly.

At a higher level this game is an optimization/prediction puzzle (forcing card flips to get better cards; getting cards for cheapest cost). At a higher level still you are finding the other player's strategy and completely freezing them out with gold action to take the cards they need and gem hoarding to freeze their buying power. THEN the game is on a whole different level.

As for 7 Wonders and Spice Road...my conclusion is that they aren't fit to lick Splendor's boots. 7 Wonders is a great boring, really dry, really mediocre drafting game and I can think of a LOT of drafting games I prefer. Imperius makes 7 Wonders look like a joke. Then there's Spice Road... yeah after one play my wife never wanted to play it again...ever. Just boring as can be. If you like Spice Road, you are truly on the road to a life of adventure in the realm of dry sepia-toned Euros.