The Godfather: Corleone's Empire

Random ThoughtsThe Godfather is one of my favorite movies of all time. I own the entire trilogy on Bluray and I make it a habit to watch the entire thing once a year. The movies don't exactly have a ton of replay value. They're very dark and they leave me feeling depressed after I watch them. However, they are incredible films that showcase some of the best technical achievements of American cinema. Anyways, I digress. So when I heard about the announcement of the game, tbh I wasn't that excited. I hadn't exactly played any game of Eric Lang's that had blown me away. Chaos in the old world was solid but the theme wasn't for me. Blood Rage was very good but again, the theme didn't really do it for me. Although I did admire the elegance of Blood Rage and it's mechanical precision. Then comes this and ... wow! surpriseThemeI'll be honest, The Godfather board game isn't exactly super thematic in association to the actual film. I mean, it's not an abstract or anything but it doesn't really capture the essence of the movie in a profound way. Sure, there are some connections here and there and some subtle little hints, but as a whole, personally I didn't feel like I was reliving the movie. And that's fine. I understand what Eric Lang did here and I appreciate him for it. Instead of making a simulation of the movie which would be boring, he went for a more streamlined approach. This game is the epitome of elegance as far as I know. There is nothing that feels out of place, or that otherwise weights the game down. All of the mechanisms make perfect sense to what you're doing, and even though they are familiar, they create new experiences that I'd never felt before.MechanismsThis is a worker placement game with some bidding, area control, and set collection. Like I said, nothing innovative or groundbreaking but the execution is on point. For instance, I love the fact that you have to show your opponents whatever money you are suitcasing. This makes the game super interactive because all of the players are constantly looking at each other's actions. So when it comes to the bidding phase, all players have an idea( more or less) of what bills their enemies have pocketed. And I also love the fact that you cannot do equal exchanges of bills with the bank. If a action/job tells you that you're getting paid $2 in two $1 bills, you cannot change them for one single $2 bill. This creates crazy tension with your hand limit because at the end of every Act, you cannot exceed the requirement of cards that you are allowed to keep. I also love the fact that the game is super simple to play in terms of rules, yet offers so much depth through player actions. I can honestly recommend this game as a gatewayProduction ValuesThe production in this game is off the charts ok. The miniatures of course are top tier, nothing less to be expected from CMON. They could've used meeples, sure... because don't get it twisted, this is a Euro game through and through lol. However, thank god that they didn't because the mini's breathe life into the theme. I love that every family has different molds for their three family members. The thugs are all the same though, but that's fine. The allies are also totally different so that's awesome too. My favorite component though, has to be the tin cans. Absolutely superfluous but soo cool, like the game wouldn't be as fun without them imo. It just feels awesome to stash your blood money and horrific jobs inside of it. They all come with each family color and name which is even more impressive. My only complaint here is that there is only one illustration for the job cards. I mean, it doesn't take anything from the whole experience, but they could've made the immersion even bigger if every single card had an individual illustration. Here's hoping there is an expansion in the works (why wouldn't there be? This is Eric Lang's best game) that replaces the deck and even includes more jobs into the mix. And while they're at it, variable family powers, more allies, more buildings, and new mini's. This game is a masterpiece imo and after 3 plays, I give it an awesomeness rating of 10.

Our whole family loves this game! It's a little complicated to learn at first, but if you have the YouTube video on how to play it sitting right next to you as you open the board it makes sense pretty quickly!We started with a practice game, showing our cards. That helped a lot!We watched the movie, the original Godfather before we played it, because we gave this to our grown son as a Christmas gift. He loved knowing the back story and it made it even more interesting for him and fun for everyone.The people who developed this game, put some amazing thought and depth into every single aspect of it.There are many many characters in this game, and each one is unique and artistically perfect. When you get the game you're going to want to take a magnifying glass and look at each character because they are incredibly detailed!The board is big and complex but once you learn the game it feels like looking at your own backyard and the game becomes challenging, yet easy to grasp. In short, once you got it, you got it!We all love the metal suitcases; for some reason it just adds something to the game that we can't quite explain!They say that the Godfather is a movie that every man needs to watch at some point in his life. Well this game, to me, is something that everyone who loves strategy games needs to play at some point in their life!This is now our favorite game, and the more we play it, the more we love it and the faster the game goes.Also, anyone that loves the movie, The Godfather, will absolutely love this board game!We all highly recommend it. Actually, can't recommend it highly enough!If you want something that gives you a wonderful evening's entertainment over and over and over again and never gets boring, and is always different, this is the game you want to have! Considering That going out to a movie costs about what this game costs, yet this game gives many, many, many countless hours of entertainment, it's a no brainer!You sure won't be sorry you bought it. In fact you'll wish you would have bought it sooner.I have no connection to this game and am getting nothing in response to this review.If this review helped you, please indicate with a click? :)

This is a very fun, very accessible, but ultimately deep strategy game. The rules are very well written and have clear examples, so after fifteen or twenty minutes of reading one knows how to play. Also, for a strategy game, the gameplay is reasonably short, a couple of games can easily be set up and played in the course of an evening. The Godfather, Corleone's Empire does a really nice job of managing what turn or phase the players are in, eliminating one of the major headaches of beer-and-pretzel strategy board games.My wife and I generally are at odds when it comes to board games. She prefers simple, action-oriented, roll-of-the-die types and I prefer the more in-depth, thoughtful, risk-and-reward type games. This is a great blend of the two. It's fairly simple in concept, straight-forward in execution, but has a lot of layers once you get into the gameplay. That the game helps keep track of its own administration, it eliminates some of the more esoteric aspects of strategy games that turn more action-oriented players off. This is one game that she and I can both consistently agree on. Even after we played it the first evening we had it, we were both talking about it the next morning, lamenting bad decisions and congratulating good ones. Plus, we're both fans of the genre, so the setting is perfect for us.I'd go five stars, but the variety of "jobs" and the resource management leads to a somewhat bare-bones feeling. There could be a touch more variety to some of the aspects of the game without it adding to the learning curve. All-in-all, a fun game, a good buy, and I have a feeling this is going to get a lot of play.