How to Play the Board Game Alhambra
A board game that I love to play is Alhambra, named after the walled fortress located in Granada, Spain (pictured). It is a tile-laying game. Each tile has a picture of a building or group of buildings, and you connect them to build a walled city or fortress. Different buildings have different colors on them, and scoring goes by who has the most tiles of each color. You can gain a few extra points by placing tiles that have "wall sections" on the edges together--the longest section of your wall scores points. The wall sections also determine where you are allowed to place the tiles.
This game is played in three rounds, and each time it is your turn, you may choose to either collect money, to spend money you already have on a piece of available property (only a few property tiles are available at a time), to "renovate" your city by moving tiles to better placements (usually to improve your wall), or to play a tile that you purchased previously, but put in a holding area.
The game is colorful, easy to learn and pretty fast-paced, once the players know what they are doing. Some of the games we play take several hours, but this game seems to go pretty fast, even with six people playing (not many games can play six, so that's another plus). There is strategy, so it's not TOO easy, and it's never the same game twice, so that will keep it interesting. All in all, I would highly recommend Alhambra for ages of about 12 and up.
Image Credit » http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alhambra_in_the_evening.jpg
Comments
oneoveralpha wrote on March 12, 2015, 9:39 PM
I had a friend who was into odd little board games, and I'm pretty sure Alhambra was one. The name is familiar. It's been years since I played it, but from what I remember it was interesting.
allen0187 wrote on March 12, 2015, 11:34 PM
First time I've heard of this game. Thanks for sharing it. I have to look it up and I don't think it is available locally. Nice to learn something new each day from my connections here in PP.
AliCanary wrote on March 13, 2015, 3:59 AM
Allen, you can play it online on a site called www.boiteajeux.net ( it's a French site, but you can chose for it to appear in English). I can game 24/7 on there, lol
AliCanary wrote on March 13, 2015, 8:07 AM
i joined a local Meetup group to play boardgames and got introduced the world of Eurogames. We're a bunch of big ol' nerds, but everybody is so smart and sweet. I've made so many new friends, and it's a lot of fun!
crowntower wrote on March 13, 2015, 9:28 AM
I think for me... this game is like inspire by people or country that is going to war, or that is strengthening their borders to conquer the nations around it. Heheheh.. Just thinking. Making a Fortress is strengthening someone's territory to protect its own, as its protect its self again while conquering the weaker nation.
AliCanary wrote on March 13, 2015, 9:39 AM
Fortunately, in this game, you aren't really attacking anyone, you're just building your own little place, so that's why I like it.