Carpe Diem Board Game Review

I’ve always been a huge fan of tile laying board games, whether that be Carcassonne, Between Two Castle of Mad Kind Ludwig, or even an older more obscure title, La Strada.  What these games tend to excel at are providing a varied, highly replayable experience that never feels exactly the same time-after-time. These are the kinds of games are easy to teach, but often times somewhat difficult to master. When getting Carpe Diem from Ravensburger to the table a few times this weekend, I knew I was in for a good time. But how good? Let’s dive in!

This review will not go over the method of play in any great detail. Please see the always fantastic Rodney Smith for more a detailed, video breakdown!

Lots of Customization

The first thing I really noticed when setting up Carpe Diem for the first time was how varied each game can be. You draw specific cards from specific decks to create your games forum, but the number of cards in the game vastly exceeds the number of cards you need for the forum, which means there is always a chance at different cards. And since you lay them out randomly, there is an opportunity for different layout as well. But it doesn’t stop there.

There are more building and landscape tiles in the game than you will be able to pick and play, which again means that which buildings available to you each game is going to be somewhat different. Onto the placement of tiles. When you setup your game board, you will select 4 random border pieces from the box to construct the outside landscape for your district. These various borders will have different end-of-games scoring opportunities, like having a lake cross a certain threshold in your district, or perhaps having a different villa in multiple areas on the board. This stops players from using similar strategies game in and game out, forcing players to adapt to their board, what tiles are face up for selecting, and more.

Simple Concepts, Deep Strategy

What more, Carpe Diem is actually a game most people can easily and quickly enjoy. It takes only one complete turn to fully understand what you are doing each round, and you’ll feel like a seasoned pro once your first game ends. But there is strategy to picking and placing tiles to maximize points. First, you need to select tiles that will fit into the district you are already creating. Second, you’ll need to be aware of the border bonus points if you hope to score additional points at the end of the game, which will ultimately decide who wins and who loses – at least, that is what it came down to in our games. Third, you need to be sure that you aren’t building yourself into a corner you might not get out of. You can never bank on getting a specific piece in Carpe Diem, especially the rare ones. Being flexible while working towards your districts goals is key to winning.

Strong Components

When looking up Carpe Diem before it arrived, I noticed it could be had on the US website for a very affordable $44.99. My instant worry when seeing that price on a game this size is how poor the components would be, but overall, I was very impressed. The wooden fish, leaves, chickens, and grapes are all fantastic, although it would have been nice to also get wooden bread tokens, and potentially, wooden coins. Now, I do understand a little why they are not – after all, the bread tokens function differently than the others, and having them all look the same could have caused a bit of confusion.

The building tiles are a beautifully thick cardboard, and feel really nice to use and place. The only downside to the whole experience is the fairly thin player boards. I would have liked those to be a bit ticker and chunkier – this isn’t a deal breaker though!

Conclusion

If you love tile laying games, than Carpe Diem will bring you a ton of enjoyment. With a ton of strategic elements to make each game feel unique, there is plenty to like and enjoy here. For such a low price, it’s a no brainer.