Setup on this one takes longer than I’d normally tolerate on a weeknight, dual-layer player boards, a duchy map, dice, tiles sorted by color, and with four players you’re looking at real table time before the first turn even happens. I’ve had this on the table maybe a dozen times since picking it up and I’ve made peace with the setup cost because the game underneath it earns the time back.

The actual upgrade that matters, more than the acrylic hex tokens or the painted castle miniatures everyone talks about, is the ability text printed on the back of every tile. The original edition made you look up what a building or monastery did constantly until you’d memorized the icon set, and having that reference right on the piece itself removes the single biggest barrier to getting new players through their first game comfortably. I skipped the acrylic upgrade myself and don’t miss it, the cardboard tiles with the text on back do the actual job better than shinier components would. The overproduction complaints I’ve seen online aren’t wrong exactly, a triple-size box with metal coins and 3D castle pieces is a lot of table footprint for a game that’s fundamentally a tight dice-and-tile placement puzzle, but the core design underneath all the bling is still the same excellent game it always was.

Two-player works, and honestly plays faster and tighter than higher counts, since the multiplayer-solitaire criticism I’ve seen leveled at this game is basically fair at four, everyone quietly building their own duchy with limited direct interaction, good for a chatty table but not for anyone who wants real confrontation. The rules-overhead-to-payoff ratio is exactly right for me though, real decisions every turn, dice you place instead of just resolve, no wasted actions. Five stars. I’d recommend most people start with the base tiles and skip the acrylics, and save the money for the vineyard expansion instead.