More Tiles = More Thinking – Azul: Summer Pavilion Board Game Review

Welcome to Portugal. King Manuel died before the summer pavilion was built, so it’s up to you to build the most beautiful building.

I really liked Chocolate Azul , but it didn’t have any changed rules. He was simply the original in a more eye-catching and sweeter version. The summer pavilion , although its basic mechanical assumptions are similar, is slightly different from the original.

How to go about construction?

Prepare the components before starting the game. We throw colored tiles into the bag. Everyone receives a pavilion board in the selected color. In the middle, place the scoring board and workshop tokens in the number depending on the number of players. Then draw and place tiles from the bag on the workbenches (4 each) and in the center of the main board (10). Place the discs of the players’ colors on the fifth space on the scoring track, the round marker on the round track, and the “1” tile between the workshops.

On your turn, take a tile of the selected type from the selected workshop and one of the trump color, which is indicated next to each round on the main board. The others are moved to the middle of the area between the workshops. In the same way, we can take the tiles from the middle, but the first person to take ro must also take the “1” tile and subtract as many points as the tiles they acquired.

We put the tiles next to our board, and when all of them are taken from the workshops and the area between them, we start laying them. In turn, each player chooses which star he wants to place the tile on. To cover the orange field number 4, three tiles of that color must be discarded and the fourth placed on the board. The middle star is supposed to be of different colors, but the types of tiles cannot be repeated on it. In addition, the trump suit in a given round is a joker and can replace any tiles. You score points for each tile placed and for other rhombuses adjacent to it.

If we surround a pillar or a statue on the board, we may draw two or three tiles from the center of the scoring board, respectively. However, by covering the fields adjacent to the windows, we can choose as many as four and add them to our stock.

At the end of the round, you can keep up to four tiles for the rest of the game, and discard the rest. After six rounds, the points are added up and the winner is determined.

Comfortable and pleasant

Azul: Summer Pavilion was the first game in the series with changed rules that I played. The prototype was very accessible and encouraged by the simplicity of the rules. This version is similar, although it is a bit more difficult. It can still be classified as an enjoyable family title, but there is more planning involved in arranging the tiles on the board.

The workmanship is nice, the tiles are neat and everything looks good together on the table. Only the thin scoring board and the cardboard tower spoil the picture. It is a pity that the publisher was not tempted by a thicker material and a more sensible place to put the tiles.

I like the planning when covering fields on my own boards. On the one hand, we want to have whole stars completed, but on the other hand, we want to draw more tiles to be able to implement it. This requires surrounding pillars, statues and windows, thus building on different stars. Added to this are the moves of other players between ours, which can take away our chosen tiles.

It was a good idea to use jokers. We have a fixed order of trump suits, so leaving the indicated suit for the next round, we are immediately in a better position when building the pavilion.

In my opinion, Azul: Summer Pavilion is a very successful title in the series. It draws from the original basic mechanics, but the changed boards and the introduction of trump suits and the possibility of acquiring more tiles mean that the gameplay enters a slightly higher level. Basic Azul doesn’t suffer from this at all. I think both titles have their fans, and I belong to both groups.