Carnegie Review

Carnegie has players following in the footsteps of Andrew Carnegie. They do this by running their companies, expanding, and donating money to charity. Each round, a player selects which of the 4 actions to complete. They'll then take income potentially and run their businesses. Each action correlates to a department and as long as there are workers then they can be activated. Some actions require you to send workers on a mission to one of the regions of the map so you can complete projects or do some of the more powerful actions. The Human Resources action allows you to move your workers to other departments. The Management action allows you to create new departments for better actions and earn some money/resources. The Construction action will let you move your projects to the main board allowing you to expand on the map. Finally, R&D lets you move on the project tracks and the regions for better income and bonuses. Once you've taken your turn, every player then must activate the same action icon. Then you pass the 1st player marker and the next person will pick the action for the next turn. Play continues like this for 20 rounds until all four action markers make their way across each row to the end of the timeline. Then everyone tallies their scores and whoever has the most points will win.

The Good: Carnegie is such a well thought out game. There is a lot of careful planning that you'll need to do ahead of every turn but it's never a daunting process. It's an extremely satisfying game to see your empire expanding. Because everything is public information, including your personal scoring bonuses you'll always be trying to figure out how best to optimize your turn without benefitting another player. Speaking of scoring bonuses, it's an interesting concept that your donations to philanthropic endeavors are how you grab those end game scoring benefits. Each different group relates to a different type of scoring bonus, be it regions with your projects or having a lot of departments. Thematically it's kind of strange but game wise it's fantastic. I love the player boards with the expanding projects boards. They're not something that can be ignored if you want to be successful in Carnegie. This is how you'll get new projects to the board and better income potential. Having to move your meeples across your board with a HR action can really make your choices interesting. Since you'll start out with a small amount of workers you have to optimize where they're at and they must be activated ahead of time by paying the amount on the department tile.

The Okay: The way that you collect income is something I don't know that I'm totally sold on. It's a unique way of doing it by having to have a worker in the region that is played so it's a big change to how most games do it instead of guaranteeing income every turn. You can burn some workers to get more money (assuming the right departments are played or if you have workers there to burn). The solo rules were a bit confusing the first time I played. I was doing all of what the cards said and lost by a lot. Again, I'm bad at rulebooks. The solo game is done really well though when you do it correctly. You compete against the big dog himself, Andrew Carnegie. He simply does an action that's on his card from your selection or if it's his turn, he has a more powerful move of the 4 that he will do. It's a great challenge to try and get in front of him.

The Not So Good: I never truly felt like I was in the drivers seat in Carnegie. Because a turn can be completely determined by 1 to 3 other players you may not get the chance to make the plays you want or you may get completely blocked. The overall setup time for this leaves a lot to be desired. The retail edition doesn't have the cool GameTrayz or anything so it's all about the baggies and there's a lot of little bits to divide. Sometimes the randomized setup works in your favor and sometimes it's completely against you. Removing a random amount of department tiles can really force you to change the way you're planning. If for example only 1 or 2 build tiles makes it to the game then you either need to be quick to snatch it up or have a solid plan b or c or d. You change directions often in this game.

Final Thoughts: Carnegie may be one of the best games I've played all year. I'm not particularly good at it and that's okay. My first game took a couple of hours to get through but since I've played a few more times, I can run through a full game in about 45 minutes to an hour. I love a game that you need to think several moves ahead for and this does it in droves. It's a bit of a brain burner at times but there's almost always something productive that can be done on your turns. The game has flaws but they're due to some randomization. Carnegie has quickly climbed up my ranks and has firmly supplanted itself in my top 5. I don't know where yet because I haven't actually sat down and ranked them. I just know it's there. I haven't played many games that I cannot stop thinking about.

Thanks to Pegasus North America for providing me with a review copy.