Designer: Stefan Dorra

Artist: Rotraud Meiler

Publisher: Goldsieber

Surprisingly, I have played precious few games designed by Stefan Dorra despite his prolific output, but those that I have played were brilliant. From For Sale to Medina, his games are old school which means sparse rules, few components, a central board and plenty of player interaction. Kreta fits the bill perfectly. The game published in an atypical small box format by Goldsieber never made it to the shores of the English language speaking market and thus, seriously under appreciated. Fortunately in 2023, a Korean company – Playte is releasing a new version of the game called Sardegna and hopefully a new generation of board gamers will get to experience Kreta.

Kreta introduces the hand recycling mechanism as seen in Concordia

Long before Concordia co-opted the hand recycling mechanism to drive player actions, Kreta already established the basic framework whereby the same seven cards per player is enough to generate all the actions each turn, throughout the entire game. Obviously the mechanism is more elaborate, and the scoring more diverse in Concordia, but the barebones are strikingly similar. I do not know if Kreta is the first to introduce this mechanism, even if not, it must be one of the earliest adopters. Still, there is plenty of Kreta that is unique and streamlined that it stands apart from others.

More than half of the seven character cards in Kreta are tied to placing or moving wooden chits of different types on the shared board to gain majority influence in a province. For example, the baumeister (architect) card allows a player to build a fort or village, the Feldherr (commander) enables addition of new villagers or movement of per-existing villagers between provinces. The abbot card meanwhile allows one to insert a priest into a province while the admiral allows addition of ships to seaports. Each of these pieces add one influence point to a contested area, with the exception of the village as the only piece that adds two. However, each of these pieces also come with unique properties and restriction for placement. For example, ships can only be placed in ports but have no movement limitations between ports. However, only two ships are allocated per player. Yes, you do not get many pieces in this game. Villagers are the easiest. You get to put in any province of your choosing but the commander can only move a limited number of villagers and distance with each activation. Similarly, there is only one priest allocated for each player, but his presence will block other players from adding new pieces to the same province. Finally, we have the powerful village which when constructed by the architect, nets you two influence point. Even though each player only has access to 4 villages throughout the game, they remain in place once constructed and can be a huge factor in come from behind majority victories given its value. To make it harder to build villages, each village must be anchored by one agriculture tile that is harvested by playing a bauer (farmer) card. Only one agricultural tile is found in each province and they are highly contested. While agricultural tiles do score points, their true value is tied to construction of villages since at higher player counts, not every one will get to build all four villages due to the limited supply of agricultural tiles. Finally, we also have a konig (king) card which duplicates the previously played action.

Perhaps fittingly, it is the playing of the Kastellen (castle) card that is the most important part of the player action. Rather, it is the timing of playing the card that matters most. When the Castle is played, scoring is triggered and all the previously played cards are returned to the hand for all players. That all players get to reset their hand is unique and differentiates Kreta from others (e.g. Concordia) where the return of cards is player specific. The hard reset means that the player playing the Castle has to pay the cost of going last in playing character cards in the new round, and this is not a trivial sacrifice as going early to claim area majority serves as an excellent deterrence. Yet, the rewards for being the one to trigger scoring via the Castle is multi-fold.

Scoring in Kreta feels fresh, but has a strong element of luck

First scoring in Kreta is just so darn cool. There are 26 scoring cards in the deck corresponding to a numbered location of a fort on the board, of which eleven will eventually be scored. The forts are of course, structures that can be built by players, but each fort location straddles multiple provinces (between two to five) as it sits at the intersection of the borders between provinces. As the initial eleven scoring cards are laid out, only the first two cards are faced up, allowing players to know the first two scoring locations. When a Castle is played and scoring is triggered, the fort at the front of the row of scoring cards is activated and majority scoring is carried out for all the provinces that surrounds the fort. Some forts will only score two provinces, while there is one location on the board that scores five. Since each province is worth different points (2 to 7 points), determining the value of a fort is not always straightforward as much will depend on how player influence is distributed across the map. While some players maybe heavily invested in a few provinces, others – usually the low scoring ones – are less contested. More important than immediate scoring, the player that played the Castle also gets to partially determine the next scoring location by flipping over the next scoring card in the row. If deemed unfavorable, the Castle player gets a single opportunity to replace the revealed card with one from the draw deck. It goes without saying that to get the opportunity to control where scoring occurs on the board is invaluable.

Small design choices have big impact on competition and game play

Kreta works because of a few brilliant design choices that completely reshapes how the game is played beyond just simple area majority control. First, the sequential and partial reveal of the scoring locations means that the tussle for points oscillates between regions of the map where scoring is most imminent. Because players do not have enough pieces to occupy all the provinces, the battle for control swings from area to area as individual pieces are moved between contested locations. The choice of the map in Kreta is also fitting since the oblong shape of the island means that one cannot move all pieces from one end of the island to the next in one turn. Moreover, not all pieces are mobile. This means prioritization is necessary to determine which provinces to contest as one cannot possibly win in all the provinces. Instead what is most likely to happen is that influence from a player is often concentrated in particular areas of the map as players hope to secure high value provinces with the potential for multiple scoring events. Yet, the low value provinces that are uncontested or poorly contested are often the gems for grabbing cheap points. A handful of players will also strike out to secure new provinces that are not as crowded in hopes of getting a head start in spreading influence, but scoring in these areas are not guaranteed unless the cards are flipped. In any event, the need to control the scoring narrative is key for securing victory.

There are many subtle strategies in Kreta that will not be obvious until knee deep in the session. For one thing, the map is brilliant. There is a restriction of seven maximum pieces one can place per region. Once that quota is filled, one cannot even move through a region to get to the next, making several provinces potential choke point for movement. By clogging the lanes, one can restrict competition of some areas on the map. This move requires planning and perhaps even some amount of cooperation from at least one other competitor to fill up the space. Hence, I think Kreta shines when you have a full player count of four to pull off specific strategies. I think that is true for many area majority type games where you want to generate angst from competition for limited space.

In summary

At some point during our recent play of Kreta, I stepped back and took a survey of the table and saw everyone deeply focused at the central board, making moves and countermoves on a shared space. I was keenly aware of ALL pieces on the board and what everyone else would and could be doing, and yet still surprised by moves I did not see coming. It was just delightful. This is as fine an example of a German design that embodies the spirit of playing the players instead of the system.

I am not going to sit here and say that Kreta has no luck. It does. The sequence in which scoring card appear can be fortuitous for some and frustrating for others especially when high value provinces are repeatedly scored back to back, favoring players who have already established a foot hold in that area. Yet the scores are always close between players which I find surprising given the mode of scoring. Ultimately, I think securing the scoring locales by playing the Kastellan is key to winning the game and a large part of the game is figuring out when to trigger scoring even when the activating player is not the beneficiary.

If it is not yet clear, I think very highly of Kreta. It is my favorite design from Mr. Dorra. I am grateful that Playte has stepped up with the FIRST reprint of the game ever. The game has never gotten the global exposure that it deserves. What a travesty. Hopefully it will be rectified and the game can be reprinted as is. Ok, maybe with one small tweak – can you kindly include a tie breaker?

Initial impression: Great!