Vanuatu (2nd Edition) Review

Euro games are typically known for being pretty friendly. Players gather resources, construct their own buildings, and earn victory points along the way. You don’t invade others’ castles, you don’t punch others’ farmers, and you certainly don’t maliciously steal from them. Sure, there can be some passive aggressiveness in worker placement games as you take a coveted spot, but these sleights have an apologetic “excuse me” politeness to them, like the soft puff of a burp accidentally escaping your lips at a dinner party. Vanuatu, on the other hand, staggers in drunk to the dinner party and lets one rip. It is one of the meanest Euros you’re going to play and that’s part of what makes it so unique.

True to the economic mainstays of the country of Vanuatu, fishing, tourism, and exports are all part of how you earn points in the game. Mechanically, Vanuatu is a worker placement game. Put your token down and get stuff. Easy, right? Not so much. The gears behind this worker placement mechanism are more what you’d find in a monster truck engine than a delicate timepiece. In order to even get to take your action, you have to have the majority in an action spot. Each turn, players place their five action tokens – two, two, one – on one of the nine action spaces. As you circle around the table, you stare your opponents in the eyes as you snatch the spot they desperately need away from them. When it comes time to resolve the actions, you remove your action tokens and take the corresponding action, only if you have majority. Depending on the order you do this, you can completely deny someone an action/turn. Perhaps you have majority on both the Fish and Build action spaces and you choose to resolve the Fish action first. Your friend, whose only pieces left on the board is on the Build action, now can’t resolve that space. Sure, you could’ve resolved the Build action first, but there’s a reason we know the name Machiavelli and not the guys who got screwed by him.

You can practically smell the fresh ocean air while playing. Or maybe that’s just my Yankee candle.

Coupled with these actions is the ocean, which is actually what the majority of the board consists of. Each round new ocean tiles come out, adding to where you can sail around to gather and sell fish, dive for treasures, build huts for revenue and points, pick up tourists, and show off the fancy sand drawings. If there’s one thing visitors love, it’s looking at natives draw literal lines in the sand. Characters that players draft each round boost certain actions. If you’re planning to go treasure hunting, better pick up the Diver to get some extra cash. Or, if you need to move your boat, the Navigator letting you sail for free is clutch. Snce you can never select the same character twice in a row, carefully planning when to use the Fisherman instead of the Guide is critical. This is a game where every single decision matters. Even when you strategize out a round or two, you may still be denied an action or be short one measly dollar.

Eleven characters to choose from and endless mistakes to make if you pick the wrong one.

These aspects of Vanuatu are a double-edged sword. The intense battles for action space majority tests friendships. It’s fist-clenching when someone takes a spot from you or delays pulling their tokens off, just to deny you an action, consequently toppling your entire turn or even round. But this can, will, and should happen. It’s what the game is built on. Turns out archipelago tourism is cutthroat. At the same time, these critical decisions can induce prolonged deliberation as to which spot to go on. And sometimes, you’re not going to have a good move, if one at all. Although there is no intentional ganging up on the loser, sometimes it can be difficult to crawl yourself out of the hole you’ve gotten yourself into (or been tossed into). On the plus side, the game is structured in a way that one player cannot just run away with victory, leaving everyone else on the island to rot in the sun. Players will purposefully (and sometimes unintentionally) keep each other in check. Besides, there is only so much you can do on a turn. This isn’t one of those snowballing rich get richer resource production games.

Though Vanuatu is a rewarding experience, there’s something about it that prevents it from pushing itself over the edge. Perhaps it’s because it can leave you a bit drained afterward or maybe it’s because there’s so much scrabbling at one another that you hardly have time to feel proud of your accomplishments. Nevertheless, there’s something about it that keeps it firmly planted in my collection. Every self-proclaimed Euro aficionado should check it out, even if it leaves a few bruises.