Alhambra

by Rio Grande Games

Product Features

• For 2 to 6 players
• Playtime of 45 to 60 minutes
• Moorish theme
• It is a board game
• City building tile and cards

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 7 x 3.9 x 10 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000VYYOF2
• Item model number: 40RGG
• Manufacturer recommended age: 8 years and up
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,904 in Toys & Games (See Top 100 in Toys & Games)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

In Granada, one of the most impressive building projects of the Middle Ages has begun the construction of Alhambra. A palace, fortress, and a small city, all-in-one. Alhambra is made up of the world’s most beautiful gardens, pavilions, chambers and towers. The most prominent builders in all of Europe and Arabia want to demonstrate their skills in building Alhambra. Employ the most talented teams of builders to construct your Alhambra. Hire stonemasons from the north and gardeners from the south, who all want a fair wage and insist on being paid with their native currency. With their help, towers can be constructed, gardens designed, pavilions and mezzanines erected, and manors and royal chambers built. Compete against your opponents to build the greatest and most impressive Alhambra.

Product Description

In Granada, one of the most impressive building projects of the Middle Ages has begun: the construction of Alhambra. A palace, fortress, and a small city all-in-one, Alhambra is made up of the world's most beautiful gardens, pavilions, chambers and towers. Build the most splendorous Alhambra to be crowned the winner! Charis Games Review: Alhambra is a famous Citadel overlooking Granada, Spain.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A nice twist on tile games, June 27, 2008

By 

Owlchick (United States) - See all my reviews

= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:4.0 out of 5 stars 

I enjoy tile-placing games such as Carcasonne, so it's probably no surprise that I enjoy Alhambra.

Instead of building a countryside, you're building your own estate from tiles that are placed out on the main board and purchased using various denominations of "currency" that you also need to select. The room tiles and currency available are drawn items, so one is never sure what will come up on the next go.

Mixed in with the currency cards are scoring cards and when one is drawn, everyone totals up their points. Play continues until there are no more room tiles to be placed into play from the bag.

Everyone's building his/her own Alhambra, competing to have the most of a particular type of room or longest continuous wall. You can strategize and plan as much as possible, but there's the "luck" element with the various room tiles, currency cards and never knowing exactly when a scoring card will turn up.

It's a fun game, fairly easy to grasp on the first go, and has expansions that can be purchased separately to change the types of rooms and so on. Alhambra is one of my favorite game night games.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars an excellent tile placement game, February 11, 2010

By 

Matthew Cordeiro - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:2.0 out of 5 stars 

Alhambra, the 2003 Spiel des Jahres winner (Germany's Game of the Year), is a tile placement game where each player builds their own Alhambra, similar to the Moorish palace in Spain. Each tile represents a type of building and has certain restrictions on where it can be placed. The trick is to place each tile in a spot that will allow you to continue to build in the future. If you run out of spots to place new tiles, you'll have to use up a turn to redesign your Alhambra instead of expanding it.

Obtaining new tiles is part chance and part strategy; each player can purchase from only the four tiles available at the beginning of each turn. Purchased tiles are then replaced with ones from the draw pile. Tiles are purchased using currency cards. On each turn, you must decide whether to buy a tile or take a currency card to build up your cash reserve for a future purchase.

Alhambra is easy to learn and takes about 45 minutes to play. The components are made of high quality materials. As with most other European games, Alhambra features no direct player conflict. The only way to stick it to another player is to choose a tile or currency card that they had their eye on (which does happen quite often). A number of expansion sets are also available that add more depth and strategy. All in all, Alhambra is a great family game that's accessible to new players but strategic enough to keep players coming back for more.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fun and Challenging without Unnecessary Complexity, July 25, 2010

By 

Bobby L Buntin - See all my reviews

= Durability:4.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:3.0 out of 5 stars 

Amazon Verified Purchase

Alhambra strikes a balance between simplicity of setup and complexity of play. Once you have played it once to get the basics down, you can easily finish a game in 30 minutes. Many of these types of games take so long to set up, that when you are ready to start play, everyone has lost interest. Alhambra is easy to set up and, it's entertaining even with only two players. I never play with the suggested 2-player rules though. The regular rules still work fine. Just make sure you have room to build a potentially large city.