What are some of your favorite roll-and-writes? I would love to hear from my readers in the comments. I want to try them all! 🙂
Mary Crabtree
MeepleGamers
 8.875/10
Publisher: Portal Games
Designer: Ignacy Trewiczek
Artist: Grzegorz Bobrowski
Artist: Aga Jakimiec
Artist: Tomasz Jedruszek
Artist: Roman Kucharski
Artist: Denis Martynets
Artist: Maria Pekina
Artist: Rafal Szyma
Game Type: Roll-and-Write
Game Type: Paper-and-Pencil
Game Type: Dice Rolling
Game Type: City Building
Game Type: Civilization
Initial Year of Release: 2019
Age Range: 10+
Expected Playtime: 30 minutes
Number of Players: 1-4
Theme and What is it?
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 8/10
With the great empires warring with each other, some settlers decide to move out in search of more peaceful lands. They know that this time they will have to work together to prosper in these new regions, or should at least try to…
Imperial Settlers: Roll & Write is a quick engine-building game with roll and write mechanics that plays over 10 rounds in which players will take actions simultaneously. Every player will try to be as efficient as possible with the given Resources and available workers. There are different ways to score Victory Points, and the player with the most Victory Points at the end will win the game.
Gameplay Mechanics
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 9/10
The game is easy. Each player has an Empire sheet and a Village Sheet.
- Roll Dice – Active player rolls the 1 Worker die and 3 Resource dice.
- Choose A Favor Token – Each player chooses a favor token starting with the active player. These favor tokens grant a bonus to the player for that round.
- Expand Your Empire – The Worker die shows how many actions players receive each round. With these actions, you can Harvest or Build. The three resource dice give all players three resources each round: Stone, Food, Wood or Gold. Gold is wild and can produce any of the other three resources.
When you use the Harvest action, you will cross of a field you have access to by a bridge and take the number of resources listed. All resources have to be used in the current round or are lost.
To build, players spend resources to cross off a build space. These build spaces can be on the Village Sheet or Constructions on the Empire Sheet. As you complete villages, they grant bonuses to the players once each round unless noted otherwise. The Constructions are the main source of victory points. The further along these rows, the more victory points.
- When all players have used their workers, they cross off the round on their Empire Sheet, return their favor tokens and play continues clockwise.
The game ends after the 10th round and scoring begins.
Initial Impressions
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 10/10
Roll-and-Writes are all the rage right now and it seems like every publisher is creating a version for their games. That is definitely the case here. This is definitely okay because I have enjoyed them all so far.
I will admit, the rules confused me at first, so I was not sure how this one would go. I may have had been at a disadvantage because I have never played the non-roll-and-write Imperial Settlers.
Game Build Quality
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 10/10
The game comes with the sheet pad like most roll-and-writes, pencils and dice. Everything is of good quality.
Artistic Direction
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 9/10
I will have to say that the amount of artists on this simple roll-and-write stunned me. I am guessing they may have chosen different artwork from the original. I am not sure.
Regardless, I like the artwork used. It fits with the theme.
Fun Factor
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 9/10
We enjoyed this one. It pulled some mechanics from a few different roll-and-writes that I have played, including Welcome To if you play the advanced version. Everyone was engaging with each other and seemed to have a good time.
Age Range & Weight
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 8/10
The publisher suggests an age of 10+ for starting. This could be slightly high unless always playing the advanced version. I did not find the game overly difficult.
My only complaint is that I did not enjoy calculating my available resources and actions “virtually”, however, there is a spot for the round large enough to jot down anything needed so I wrote things down here. But for a younger audience, visual is better.
Conclusions
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 8/10
My collection of roll-and-writes are stacking up. Eventually, I will need to go through them and pass some onto my aunt who loves them as well. However, I adored Imperial Settlers: Roll & Write so it will probably stay high on the list. What are some of your favorite roll-and-writes? I would love to hear from my readers in the comments. I want to try them all! 🙂
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Hi Mary, what are your top 10 roll and write games?
Well, I don’t think I have played ten quite yet. I am really enjoying Welcome To lately however I think it is more a “Flip and Fill” but it’s the same concept. Cartographers(review can be found on the site as well!) has been played a lot lately as well. Others I own and enjoy are On Tour, Lanterns Dice, Castles of Burgundy Dice Game, and Truck Off(preview is on site).