A gaming haiku of strategy and cartography.
Designer: Reiner Knizia
Artist: Michele Mor
Publisher: Board Game Circus, Last Level, Magellan, XVgames
In Chartae, players take the role of cartographers who try to remember and build an ancient map.
The game is made of only nine square tiles, which represent parts of a map. Each tile has a land zone and a water zone. One player tries to connect land zones, the other water zones. Every turn they have to decide whether they want to rotate a tile or place a new one. When the map is complete, the player who connected the most zones wins.
Chartae is an almost perfect information, minimal but elegant tile placement game, with easy gameplay but also deep strategy.