Concordia Salsa Board Game

This is the second expansion for Concordia. It adds three things to the game. New maps: Double-sided board, one side is the Hispania board featuring the western mediterranean area (spain, france, north africa). It is very tight, featuring even one less province than the Britannia map from the first expansion. The other map is the Byzantium board showing the eastern mediterranean (greece & turkey) which reminds me more of the germania map. Salt! A new commodity, which also acts as a wild card if you can get some. (not easy to produce) The Forum. The game comes with tiles, some that give you a one time bonus gift, others give you a special ability throughout the game. You may collect these tiles when you play the tribune card, getting different tiles depending on how long you wait to play that card. Whats nice about this expansion is that it is backwards compatible. You can add salt or the forum to earlier maps, or just use this map with the base game rules, totally interchangeable. I admit that I am biased towards this game, so if you are also, this is an expansion you must get.

Todo correcto

Salsa introduces Salt, which is a wild resource, and this small little change provides a lot of unique situations. While it is a powerful resource, and players tend to race to build on these cities. However, its very expensive to build on these cities, and you may find yourself using it on cheaper resource types than you thought, as you had to spend time building there, while the other players were snatching up food and brick resources on the cheap. The expansion also includes a new Forum where you can buy tiles that give you permanent advantages or one time bonuses. This forces players to rethink when they plan to pick up all their cards, as they may try to extend picking up their cards longer than they had intended just so they can pick up the forum tile that has caught their eye. Or, they may pick up their cards earlier to beat another player to the punch, but may cause a different tile to become cheaper in the process! And thats not even mentioning the new maps! Great expansion!

Concordia is one of my top 3 favorite games, right next to Castles of Burgundy and Stone Age. The expansion adds salt to the industries that you produce, which acts like a wild card, as well as Forum Cards which add some extra options during your turns. Some of the forum cards are one time use and others help throughout the game. You can also stack them during a turn, if you have met the conditions noted on the bottom of each card. Now that I have tried the two expansions (Salt and Forum Cards), we never play the base game without. They are simple to add and dont overwhelm new players.

Fantastic well designed game, excellent for any game night

If youre lukewarm on Concordia, know that Salsa is one of the rare expansions that doesnt just add more variety to the base game; it actually improves the experience of playing. I can take or leave the new maps, but the Salt resource and the Forum tiles are easy to incorporate and feel like they should belong to the game every time you play on any map. Salt is a wild resource. You can use it in place of anything, but you cant sell it, and it can be tough to acquire if you cant produce it yourself. Forum tiles can be acquired when you play your Tribune. Playing a lot of cards prior to the Tribune gives you a greater choice in the benefit you gain. Some are instant, and some are permanent. All offer something good that can potentially chain together for great effect, and also offer something unique to players in a game in which everyone starts with identical cards and resources.