I've had the El Grande - Big Box for awhile now and I think I've finally had enough plays of this territory control game to give it a decent review. The game play is simple enough, first every one places an "initiative" card if you like which determines who gets to act first. Higher numbers trump lower numbers, but lower numbers gain more troops than higher numbers.
Afterwards you pick from a small selection of actions to take to best conquer as much of Spain as you can while simultaneously blocking the other players. The King makes this interesting as you can only deploy in areas adjacent to him (or the tower) but his region itself is taboo and cannot be altered in any way.
It can have a problem of a runaway winner though, as I saw recently where I almost lapped my opponents on the scoreboard.
It's a pretty big board.
Of the expansions we've only played Grand Inquisitor and Colonies which adds France, Africa and America to the board opening up the options for points gaining and makes for a good "alternate" game play. This and the base game are good fun, and I can easily recommend them to competitive gamers.
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