I tried to post this last week after my first playthrough of Viticulture playing with Tuscany & the Moor Visitors Expansion. Unfortunately after finishing the post and trying to post it, I lost it all... somehow... for some reason. 😫
Let's try this again shall we??? The good thing is, I've now played twice with these expansions and honestly; I can't see myself NOT ever using them (unless I'm teaching the base game to someone).
Here's the setup:
I used ALL modules in Tuscany. This was a nice surprise I had no idea about. The Tuscany expansion includes the extended board, special workers and structures modules. Whoa! Let me dive into each one...
The Extended Board
Tuscany brings the opportunity to now place workers in ALL seasons. So the board has changed slightly with a few tweaks to actions you may/may not choose, but it's the familiar Viticulture we all love. In the base game;
Spring = Select your "wake up time"
Summer = Take summer actions
Fall = Choose a summer or winter visitor card
Winter = Take winter actions
See? Technically just 2-seasons is where the action is. But not in Tuscany...
Instead, in spring you place your rooster on the wake up chart and workers on spring actions that you choose, until you pass. You then move your rooster to the summer season and collect any immediate bonus shown on the wake up chart. You do this with each passing season.
It's a different world in Tuscany already isn't it? And they take their vineyards and wine very seriously. Speaking of which, the extended board also has a regional map that now allows you to have influence in various regions of Tuscany.... Take a look at the next pic. ⬇️
Here you can see from my first game, the Automa places stars (influence) in various regions to start the game. Some actions allow you to PLACE influence or MOVE influence in regions. Whenever you place influence you collect the bonus from that region. But only when you place it, not move it. Moving it allows you to hold more influence in a particular region. This is helpful at the end of the game when you score VPs if you have the most influence in a region.
Before we move on, here's a shot of the extended board, with actions in every season when using Tuscany. You can also see that to win you need 25-VPs instead of the old 20-VPs from the base game.
Special Workers Module
Here's something I didn't know was included or even that I wanted - but now I love it!
This module has you choose two special workers cards before the game. The meeples here help you differientiate with your colours which worker is which should you choose to train them. You can only ever train up to one of each type of special worker in a game. To train a special worker, you select that action but add 1-Lira cost to your 'train a worker cost'. For the rest of the game, this worker has an ability no other workers do. In my first game here, I trained the Traveler which allowed me to select an action in a previously played season within that year. Cool!
Let's Build a Structure!
If you notice in the first pic with the game board, one side of the board has a space for the orange structure cards, should you choose the structure module (why wouldn't you!?). This allows you to expand your vineyard by adding helpful structures. When you choose to build a structure you can build it on the expanded section to the left of the player mat (above) with the two red rectangles OR you can build one structure in an empty field you own. Ironically, as excited as I was for this module, I didn't end up choosing to build any structures in game one. The timing and structures I drew weren't helpful in that game for me... Neither was my final score. 🤣
Final Thoughts on Tuscany
In true Stonemaier fashion, it ADDS to a game I already love in ways I didn't even know I wanted. I honestly don't see myself not playing with all modules of this great expansion. Love it. Cheers!