Hello and welcome to ‘Focused on Feld’. In this series of reviews, I am working my way through Stefan Feld’s entire catalogue. Over the years, I have hunted down and collected every title he has ever put out. Needless to say, I’m a fan of his work. I’m such a fan, in fact, that when I noticed there were no active Stefan Feld fan groups on Facebook, I created one of my own.
Today we’re going to talk about 2007’s Notre Dame, his third game. Following the release of Rum & Pirates the year before, this was Stefan Feld’s second game to appear in Alea’s big box series. Even though the game was released in the same year as In the Year of the Dragon, I’m calling this his third game because, numerically, Notre Dame comes before In the Year of the Dragon in the series (numbers 11 and 12, respectively).
In Notre Dame, players take on the roles of noble families in the city of Paris at the end of the 14th century as they vie to become the most prestigious family in the city. Each player begins the game with their own borough, a board which is divided into seven different sectors, and is connected to a central tile which represents the Notre Dame Cathedral. Over the course of the game, players will use their drafted cards to add influence cubes to the various sectors to earn prestige (i.e. victory points), earn money, and ward off the plague. After nine rounds, the player with the most prestige wins.
Of course, this is a gross oversimplification. If you’d like to learn more about how the game is played, read on. Otherwise, feel free to skip ahead to the Thoughts section to find out what I think of the game.
Setup
First, based on player count, place the appropriate Notre Dame Cathedral tile into the middle of the table. Then, place a number of game board sections, equal to the player count, adjacent to it. Each player chooses a color and receives the deck of cards, Influence cubes, Message tokens, Trusted Friend pawn, and Carriage pawn of their chosen color along with a black Rat marker and three gold. Each player begins with four Influence cubes. The rest are set aside in a general supply along with the money and the Prestige tokens.
Players select a game board section to act as their personal playing area. They’re all the same, so it’s best to choose one that’s most directly in front of them. Then, they randomly place their Message tokens on top of the market spaces at the corners of their selected board. Their Carriage pawn is placed in the center of the board. The Rat marker is placed on the 0 spot of the plague track along the bottom of the board.
Next, prepare the decks of Character cards, of which there are two types: brown Character cards and Character cards with letters on their backs. Each of the lettered cards is separated into lettered decks. These decks are shuffled and placed face down atop one another with the C deck on the bottom, the B deck in the middle, and the A deck on top. The brown Character cards are shuffled into their own face down deck and set aside. Then, after choosing a starting player and giving them the Bellringer figure (i.e. the starting player token), you’re ready to begin playing Notre Dame.
Becoming an Influencer
At the start of each round, two of the brown Character cards and one of the lettered Characters are turned face up. Then, each player draws three cards from their personal decks, selects one to keep, and two to pass to the next player. From the two cards they receive, they choose one to keep and pass the last one on to the next player. When the card draft is finished, the players will each have three cards in hand. Then, beginning with the starting player, players play a card from their hand and perform the action if they wish. Then, they choose one of the remaining cards and play it to perform its actions, tucking the unused card beneath this card so that other players do not know the details of the third card that was not played.
At the end of the round, players will have the opportunity to “hire” one of the Character cards that were revealed at the start of the round by giving up one gold. Each character provides some unique benefit, such as allowing you to redistribute Influence cubes, gain coin or Prestige, or avoid the plague.
After hiring Characters, players will assess the bottom of each Character card, counting up the number of rat icons that appear. For each rat counted, each player moves their Rat marker forward one space on their plague track. If this would cause their Rat marker to move beyond the 9 space, the player loses two Prestige and they must return an Influence cube from their board to the general supply.
After three such rounds, an interim scoring is performed. The Notre Dame Cathedral tile awards a number of points, based on player count, and these points are evenly divided (rounded down) between every Influence cube that has been placed onto the space (more on this later).
After the third scoring, the game ends, and the player with the most Prestige wins.
In the Zone
Now that you understand the structure of a round, let’s quickly go over the various actions the players can perform. Except for the Trusted Friend, every card in the player’s deck is tied to a specific sector of the board.
The Cloister School, Bank, and Residence cards are very similar in their function, cumulatively returning their reward (more Influence cubes, gold, and Prestige respectively) for each Influence cube that has been placed on them. For instance, your third cube placed on the Bank would reward you with 3 gold. If you add a fourth cube later on, you would earn 4 gold for that one, etc.
The Carriage House allows you to move your Carriage pawn one space for each cube that has been placed onto it. Your Carriage pawn moves from market space to market space. When it comes to a stop, if it’s sitting on top of a Message token, you may collect the token and earn whatever rewards it provides. Players cannot collect a token of a color they’ve already collected until they’ve collected an entire set. This means your Carriage token will be traveling from game board section to game board section over the course of the game.
When a player places an Influence cube onto the Hotel, they receive one of three possible bonuses: a gold coin, an Influence cube, or the option to move their Rat marker back a space on the plague track. Once they place their third Influence cube, they unlock the ability to choose two bonuses instead.
When a player places an Influence cube onto the Park, they can move their Rat marker back a space. From then on, for every two cubes they have placed there, whenever they earn Prestige during the game, they earn an additional Prestige point.
When a player places an Influence cube onto the Hospital, they can move their Rat marker back a space. From then on, for every Influence cube they have there, the total effect of the plague assessment at the end of each round is reduced by 1. This may even result in the Rat marker moving backwards on the track!
The Notre Dame card allows the player to place Influence cubes onto the Notre Dame Cathedral tile. When placing their cube, they must donate gold to the general supply. For doing so, they will earn Prestige based on the total amount donated.
Lastly, the Trusted Friend allows the player to send their Trusted Friend pawn to any sector of their choice, earning its rewards as if it were an Influence cube. In effect, the Trusted Friend acts as a permanent, traveling Influence cube, going where it’s needed to provide its support.
Thoughts
These days, I find that gathering people around a table to play board games is becoming increasingly difficult. When the stars align and I find myself sitting at a table with folks as eager to play games as I am, I have noticed that getting older games to the table is far more challenging than playing the newest, shiniest ones. Recently, however, whether it was due to astrological forces or just general agreeability, I found myself at a gaming convention where, much to my surprise, several people readily agreed to give Notre Dame a try when I proposed it.
I’ll be honest, I hadn’t played it in years, so it was almost as if I were playing it for the first time (even though I played it multiple times when I first acquired it after my one and only visit to Gen Con back in 2017). Thankfully, Notre Dame’s not a complex game, so it didn’t take long for me to get myself and the table up to speed. That word ‘speed’ is ultimately Notre Dame’s greatest strength. It’s a quick game to teach, and the game’s got great pacing. Even though you’re playing through nine rounds, it never feels like a slog. The decisions you make and the actions you take are quick and punchy.
The cards in your hand may be hand-selected by the other players, but they’re all the result of random draws. So, your decisions are ultimately going to be driven by that randomness and the strategy will largely be the same from game to game: play whichever card nets you the most immediate points and, if you’re getting close to the end of the plague track, play cards that allow you to avoid negative penalties. In Notre Dame, because of its random nature, it’s very difficult to plan for the long term.
Some actions seem like they’re things that you MUST do, while many others feel almost entirely unnecessary. If you’re holding multiple copies of their associated cards, fine. If not, also fine. Take the Carriage House, for example. On average, you might be able to collect between 4 and 5 Message tokens over the course of a game. Because you can’t begin collecting a new set before completing an entire set, that means that, at 4 tokens, you’re looking at nine Prestige over the course of the game. At 5, you’re looking at thirteen at the most. For the time it takes to gather those points, it makes one wonder if it’s even worth it. That being said, if you hold multiple copies of the Carriage House on your turn, then your decision has pretty much been made for you.
Of course, if you find you’re holding multiple copies of the same card, aside from the last card you were given, you’ve done it to yourself. The card draft is arguably the most important and most fun aspect of the entire game. In fact, were it not for the card draft, Notre Dame as a whole would fall entirely flat because, sans card draft, this game is almost entirely on rails.
Looking back with his entire catalogue in mind, it is obvious that Notre Dame was one of Feld’s earliest designs. Many designers are seemingly okay with moving on and leaving their early works just as they are—testaments to just how much they’ve evolved in their profession. The interesting thing about Stefan Feld, though, is that Queen Games’s Stefan Feld City Collection has given him the opportunity to go back to those older works and breathe new life into them.
I can’t wait to see what he does with this one.
Notre Dame details
- Designer: Stefan Feld
- Artists: Harald Lieske
- Publishers: alea, Broadway Toys LTD, Filosofia Éditions, Ravensburger, Rio Grande Games
- Release Date: 2007
- Player count : 2 - 5
- Age range : 10+
- Time range : 45 - 75 minutes
- Mechanism(s): Area Majority / Influence, Closed Drafting, Open Drafting, Point to Point Movement
- BGG Geek Rating: 7.31313 - converted to Meeple Mountain scale: 3.5.
- More articles about Notre Dame.
