Rifugio 2-5 players (including Rivers&Rafts extensionset)
Playing Rifugio is all about three things: 1) First you connect a landscapetile to the tiles already on the table. 2) Then you can use your wooden puppet with backpack to start walking. If you pass flowers, animals, waterfalls, passes or mountaintops you'll receive points. By the way: Bears you wanna avoid, they're minus points. 3) While walking you can also build a Rifugio (Italian for mountainhut), or several Rifugi (mountainhuts). If someone passes your hut, you also receive points. When the game ends (this is when all the tiles are connected) the one with the most points wins!
Playing Rivers&Rafts means adding watertiles. Over these you can't walk, but can sail. You'll have to build a Raft, which will allow you to move much faster. Also you can steal the Raft of someone else, or jump onto the Raft of someone else with him/her on it and move that person in a direction he/she might not want to go. :)
PLAYERS: 2-5 TIME: 60 MIN (With 2 persons only 30 MIN!) AGE: 8+
Author Niels Pieterse: "Rifugio and the extensionsets are well suited for two players. Cause playing with two allows you to connect two tiles each turn instead of 1. This makes the game twice as quick and gives you a lot more influence on how the board develops. When playing with more then two, with young children I'd start playing the bascigame, but otherwise I'd recommend to add the Rivers&Rafts. This is a little more complex, but also more challenging."
What's in the box?
Rifugio rules complete
1) connecting tiles, 2) walking & 3) building!
5 strategic tips
Helicopter extensionset (limited edition)
Can only be played in combination with the RIFUGIO basic game. With this extensionset the game is again completely different. With a Helicopter you can fly from landing place to landing place. But be careful that someone else doesn't steal your Heli!
PLAYERS: 2-5 TIME: 60 MIN (with 2 persons only 30 MIN!) AGE: 8+
5 strategic tips
1) Go for sets, not for luck.
You could wander of on your own, hoping that you can place a nice pointtile near your wooden figure and far away from the others. However you don't want to spend much time doing so, because for this you need luck and this way of playing (almost) never pays off. Remember: To win you should collect as many complete sets as possible. And therefore you should also visit the pointstiles placed by the others players.
2) Build Rifugi !
If we assume that all players try to collect as many sets as possible (see tip 1), then the difference is made by the strategic placing of the huts (Rifugi). Strategic positioning means that you place your huts there where others will likely come to pass. The real challenge thus becomes: placing the tiles in a way, that the others will have to pass your hut!
3) Finds the right balance between placing huts and collecting sets.
If you are too busy building huts and thus forget to collect sets, it's possible that the other players use your huts to gain tempo and eventually get more sets than you. And thus win. This you wanna avoid.
4) Avoid loosing tempo.
In general you don't want to stand still for too long. Or make too big a detour. The higher your walking tempo, the more chance you will have of collecting all sets.
5) Manipulate your fellow players.
Instead of hoping to draw that one mountain top from the pile (luck), you can also use a forest tile to prevent a mountain top from being placed next to certain rock tiles. In doing so you manipulate your fellow players. Because if they later draw a mountain top, they can only place it next to rock tiles, which are free. Preferably with your puppet nearby ;)
