:strip_icc()/pic4845193.jpg)
/pic1450127.jpg)
/pic3762126.jpg)
For those who don't know, Las Vegas is a dice-based, area-majority game that no one outside of BGG would described as an area-majority game. You play multiple rounds, and at the start of each round, you lay out money next to six casinos. On a turn, you roll all the dice you have, then place all the dice of one number in the casino that matches that number, taking back the remaining dice to roll on your next turn. Once everyone has placed all of their dice, you payout the money in each casino, with the player who has the most dice in a casino getting the largest denomination bill in that casino, then the player with the next most dice getting the next-largest bill, etc.
The twist is that before divvying out the money, if you have the same number of dice in a casino as someone else, then you must remove your dice from that casino. Open that collar because ties are worthless in Vegas!
Las Vegas is brilliantly simple, with rules that get people playing within a minute. I've had great success over the years teaching it to casual players because all of them got into the gambling aspect of the game immediately, especially since you feel like you have staked a claim on a bill as soon as you place dice in a casino. You're invested in the game. Hands off my bucks!
Camera-shy opponents let the game stand on its own...
Las Vegas Royale changes the base game in small but meaningful ways, such as giving players two chips each round that they can spend to place no dice in a casino after rolling; this lets you pass after terrible rolls or delay placing dice so that you can see which casinos have the most competition, but at the end of the game each chips is worth $10,000, so you have to weigh whether the cost is worth the potential of a better payout down the road. Each player also now has a giant die and seven small dice instead of only eight small dice — a change that originated in Las Vegas Boulevard — and that giant die counts as two dice when determining who takes home money from a casino. It feels good to have that giant die amongst all the others, the threat of it in each roll, with you being able to swing a casino into your column quickly.
The third main change is how money is placed at the casino at the start of each round. In Las Vegas, you dealt bills — which were valued from $10-90,000 — one by one until a casino had at least $50,000, which meant that many casinos had only a single bill or lots of little bills; in Las Vegas Royale, the bills are valued from $30,000 to $100,000, and at the start of each round you deal out six pairs of bills, then you arrange those bills at the casinos from high to low in the 6 to 1 casinos. Now two bills are in play at each casino, which changes how desirable those casinos are: two big bills will make you happy for second, and the two players with the most dice try to play nice; one big and one small creates a king of the hill feeling; and two small bills has the feel of a wasteland, yet one you're okay competing for only a die or two. Small bills are still better than no bills, after all.
The "Royale" part of Las Vegas Royale comes from the expansion tiles, with the game featuring eight double-sided tiles. The rules suggest playing with tiles on the 1-3 casinos, juicing up those casinos with a poor payout by giving players something else to fight over. Each of the sixteen tile sides has different rules, with some of them adding mini-games to the main game (which means more ways for you to win chips or money), some of them adding tools to thwart others at casinos, and some of them just being a way to grab more bills.
The base game of Las Vegas continues to dazzle as one of the best quick-playing dice games on the market, and the expansions — should you choose to use them — beef up the gameplay with twists that allow you to reclaim dice or gamble on the side apart from the main action at the casinos.
:strip_icc()/pic4825807.jpg)
/pic4780407.jpg)
/pic4837710.png)
:strip_icc()/pic4351961.jpg)
:strip_icc()/pic4810134.png)
