It’s got to be hard to create a sequel to a beloved game. On one hand, you have fans of the old game, that want everything to just remain the same. On the other hand, this is your opportunity to capture a new audience, create some new fans. Perhaps address some of the criticisms that the first game garnered. It’s a unique opportunity, to be sure.
Glen More II: Chronicles is the follow-up to Glen More, both designed by Matthias Cramer, but this time the art being supplied by Jason Coates and Hendrik Noack. Many games get a fresh coat of paint after years on the market, and will sometimes come back as a “Revised Edition”. Glen More II is much more of a successor, it retains the core of the game, which is a clever time track, but includes a lot of new content as well. Let’s dig into it.
In Glen More II: Chronicles, players each control their own Scottish Clan, and are vying for prestige amongst their peers. In the centre of the table sits the turn order track, totally littered with tiles that can be placed into your village. On your turn, whoever is furthest back on the track takes their meeple, and moves it to any tile on that track, taking it and placing it into their village. Once placed, it, and every tile adjacent to it (including diagonals) gets to activate its effect. Then, the tile track is refilled, and the player with the meeple furthest back on the track gets to take the next turn.
At 4 intervals, a scoring happens. Players compare their goods with whomever has the least in each of the scoring areas. Scotsmen in their home castle, landmark cards, whisky casks, and famous person tiles, and earn points based on the difference (obviously the player with the least number of each of those things earns no points). It’s important to note that players don’t need to turn anything in during a scoring, they simply need to have them, and get to keep them for the next scoring phase. After the final scoring has been triggered, each player compares the number of tiles they have in their territory to the player who has the least number of tiles, and lose 3 points per tile they have more than them. Most points remaining at the end of the game is the winner.
Glen More II introduces a whole other board to interact with, called the Clan board. Whenever you take a famous person tile, instead of slotting it into your territory, you instead get to take a bonus from the clan board. Sometimes you’ll need to pay money based on how far away the reward you want is from the next closest clan marker, but otherwise it’s as simple as picking your benefit from a menu of options and taking them into your supply. Once a benefit has been claimed, no one else can claim that benefit as well.
The components of Glen More II are quite luxurious. The tiles are thick and glossy, the art is rich, each clan has custom shaped meeples, the resources are all cut to shapes, and the game includes several sticker sheets to further accentuate each of the wooden pieces. Also included in the box are 8 chronicles, which can be mixed and matched to your heart’s content. Each chronicle includes a mini expansion that further tweaks how you can interact with the game. One chronicle introduces a dragon boat race, which you can sail around the board, visiting opponents, getting bonuses, and earning points if you make it back to your castle first. Another introduces a hill that requires everyone to drop off a resource when they pass it, or, a player can land on the hill to collect all the resources left lying around. Haggis, penny mobs, and so much more are just waiting for you to discover.
The turn order track is one of the biggest stars in Glen More. It’s a fascinating push/pull between leaping ahead to grab the strongest or perfect tile for your territory, but doing so could give your opponents several turns to really build and crank their engine. You’ll be doubly punished for doing this when it comes time to score, and you’re lacking in any of the scoring objectives. At the same time, if someone is leaping ahead, you’re incentivized to keep up, as having a glut of tiles is harmful at the end of the game. But hey, as long as each tile earns you more than 3 points, you’ll come out ahead.
The tiles themselves have a couple characteristics that give more depth to the decisions you want to make. First, you can only place a tile next to one of your Scotsmen, which means you want Scotsmen on every corner of your map, but you also want as many Scotsmen in your castle to score points. Some tiles have rivers on them, which can only be places to the left and right of your castle, while others allow you to overbuild on specific tiles, which would trigger every other tile surrounding it. There’s a ton of great decisions that you need to make on every turn, giving the game a great feeling of depth.
In the centre of the turn order track lies a market. During your turn you’re free to buy and sell goods to that market, allowing you to use money to shore up any deficiencies in your resource engine, or profit from your surplus. There are limits on this market, as you sell things into the market, you get diminishing returns as the market is flooded. On the other hand, if you keep buying a specific resource, eventually the market is tapped out, until someone else swoops in to sell their surplus at a high price. Another great push and pull moment.
The new Clan board is the aspect that I’m least enthusiastic about. I find the famous person tiles to be the least interesting part of the game, as you take them and just get a benefit from the clan board. Never again will they trigger, or having your tokens on the clan board will count for anything else. The faces are beneficial for scoring, AND the famous person tiles do not count at the end of the game for comparing territory size. They’re powerful tiles, ignore them at your peril, even if they are a less interesting part of the game.
The Chronicles seem like they were build specifically for me. I love discovery in my games, and adding in a new twist each time I play is simply a joy. Sometimes I feel like it’s addressing a specific problem (such as the dragon boat races being an excuse to use up extra movement points), while other times it’s adding in a whole new module to play with. Somehow I feel like there is an ‘optimal’ set of chronicles to explore, I don’t always feel the need to include any. The base game on its own is so strong and satisfying that the chronicles are just the icing on the cake. If I feel like playing with something new, they’re ready for me. If I just want to have a simple, great time, the base game is perfect.
Fans of the original Glen More may be a bit disappointed that all the new bits in Glen More II can’t be stripped out to play the old game they know and love, especially because the original was out of print for so long. And I’ll be the first to admit that all the things that I love about Glen More II are ripped directly from the original game. The turn order track, the tile placing, the competition between resources, the market that lets you buy and sell the goods that you’re missing, everything I love. I’d love to ignore the new Clan board, as it isn’t my favourite aspect, but I recognize it’s power and the need to engage with it, lest someone accrue every person tile and utterly punish everyone else at the end of the game for their massive territories.
In conclusion, I love Glen More II (as evidenced by it sitting at #9 on my top 100 games list). It’s been a fantastic game to play over and over again. I’ve hosted Robbie Burns nights where I force haggis and scotch eggs on my friends, then we play Glen More II while consuming too much scotch. It’s thematic, and a fantastic puzzle for eurogamers. Glen More II is a must-play game, and I’m so very happy that I own it.
