GamesRadar+ Verdict
Doggerland is an ever-shifting engine builder of balance and precision.
When programming your actions, you’re presented with several options.
For most actions you’ll need to spend a tool, alongside any other material costs.
In winter, outdoor activities also require a fur so your people don’t freeze.
Expeditions come in two forms: gathering and hunting.
Hunting requires a certain level of mastery to succeed, however.
Wasting resources could spell disaster, so you have to calculate your resource gains carefully.
That is, as long as someone else doesn’t get there first.
Resources can and will be exhausted as play goes on.
The chief, being a clever so-and-so, also lets you construct habitats with one less wood than usual.
Gameplay
Doggerland is a very sandboxy engine builder.
Then it was just a case of working through it in my head to get what I needed.
While conflict between players is indirect, it can get very heated as resources wane.
Your options dwindle quickly in a four player game, too.
Unless you’re going for the 6 round game mode, gameplay takes a fair while to get through.
The main way I found to counteract this was to turn the resolution phase into a free-for-all.
Sadly, letting players resolve everything simultaneously turns the game into a feeding frenzy.
Sure, it reduces play time significantly, but it undermines what’s otherwise a tranquil, systematic game.
Should you buy Doggerland?
I’m already itching to try out a new strategy myself.
4/5
Component quality
Everything is gorgeous, and I appreciate wood mammoth meeples rather than plastic.
Only issue is the resource trays aren’t great.
It’s all economics, all the time.
Our reviewer also tried different tactics over each gameplay to test if it was more weighted toward one strategy.
For a more in-depth look at our process, see this guide onhow we test board games.
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