Stefan Feld City Collection 4: Marrakesh Classic Special Edition

An action selection game driven by a “cube” tower, like many of Stefan Feld’s designs, Marrakesh is rife with victory point scoring opportunities.

Each player begins a round with a set of twelve different colored, wooden cylinders and three assistant pawns. Each color corresponds to one sector of the players’ Player boards. Each of these sectors is affiliated with a specific action that takes place whenever an assistant is assigned to it.

At the start of a player’s turn, they secretly select three of the cylinders hidden behind their screen. After revealing their choice, they place their assistants in the sectors whose color matches their selection. Then, the cylinders are gathered together and dropped into the tower. The cylinders that emerge at the bottom are drafted one set at a time and added to the player’s boards, where their presence boosts the effectiveness of the associated actions.

After drafting all the cylinders, players take turns removing their assistants and performing the associated actions. This cycle continues until the players have gone through their entire collection of cylinders a total of three times. Then the game ends, the final scores are tallied, and the person with the highest total wins.

Of course, this is a very high level overview. If you think you’ve heard enough and just want to know what I think, feel free to skip ahead to the Thoughts section. Otherwise, read on as we discuss how Marrakesh is played.

Just a note before we begin: this review is written with the standard version of the game in mind. With the deluxe edition, the game play is the same, but the components may differ from what is described here.