How to teach Fromage

How to teach Fromage

How to set up the game

Lay the Lazy Suzan Mat out with the central connector. Connect the 4 quadrants together on top. Add the Green/pink/brown/cream square in the centre of this. You almost have your board.

Next, depending on player count, slide a 5 sided cheese card into each quadrant of the board. E.g. the festival card in the festival quarter etcetera.

Now you give each player a colour from the 4 options available and a random player board. These are asymmetric and give each player a different set of starting resources. These resources are highlighted on the top left corner of your player board. 2 of the resources on the left of the Green/Pink/Brown/Cream square and 1 resource from the top.

Ensure each player has 3 workers (1 yellow hard cheese, 1 soft cheese, 1 blue blue cheese) and 15 cheeses that they are able to place throughout the game.

Then ensure that the resources boxes are within easy reach and contain an even split of order cards, livestock, buildings, and berries.

You're now ready for the rules.

What is Fromage?

You are artisan Cheese makers in France looking to ensure you have the greatest reputation for your cheeses above all others.

How to win

Have the best reputation above all others. AKA the most points.

In this game you get reputation in each quarter of the board (Festival, Fromagerie, Bistro, Villes) based on the placement of your cheese. You get reputation for buildings built, orders completed, fruity and conserve cheeses made, unused resources AND, if players build their largest building, a unique scoring method.

All points are scored at the end of the game! So don't panic about keeping track throughout.

Most of your points will be scored by your cheese placement in each quarter. In the:

Festival you want to orthogonally connect your cheeses in a bigger clump to score higher points.

Fromagarie you want to have cheeses on multiple shelves. Plus gain the reward listed on the shelf.

Bistro you want to have as many cheese pairings (tables with 2 of your cheeses) as possible.

Villes you want to control as many regions of France as possible with your cheese.

The rest of your points will be from:

The number of buildings you've used. (1 point for each scaffold slot covered.)

The number of berries you've used when making cheese. (This is a multiplication of Fruitty cheeses and Conserve cheeses. E.g. 5 x 3 =15)

The number of order cards you fulfill by making the cheese on it - you cannot apply this to your existing cheeses.(You can see the scoring on this in the bottom right of your player board).

You also get points for every 2 remaining resources, but ideally you will have used them when possible.

Now you're probably wondering “How do I do that when the cheese wheel (the board) keeps turning every round?”

How to play

Simply by planning your moves you can ensure your workers create resources and place cheeses when you need them to and have them return to you when they face towards you.

Let me go into more detail by describing what you can do on each turn.

What to do each round

Each round all players do their turn at the same time. You may only place your workers in the quadrant facing you. Each turn you may:

Place up to 1 worker in the resource gathering triangle - immediately gaining that number of resources. E.g. 3 in the berries triangle would mean you get 3 berries.

Place up to 1 cheese in the cheese segment facing you (E.g. Festival). This cheese must be covered by a worker matching the cheese type (E.g. if you wish to place a soft cheese you must use the soft cheese worker. If you wish to place a hard cheese with fruit you must use the hard cheese worker and have a Berry to spend).

Place up to 1 worker in your unique resource gathering space on your player board - ONLY if you already have the building.

Do up to as many free actions as you are able to do. These include:

Building - placing your buildings on empty build slots in any order. When each building is completed you may use/apply its listed reward.

Milking livestock- placing your livestock in different dairies gives you different cheeses that you can place for free without needing to cover it with a worker. E.g. a 2 livestock cost dairy might give you a bronze soft cheese. A 4 livestock cost dairy might give you a gold hard cheese.

After each round, The board spins, you retrieve all your workers facing you and all players begin their next turn.

The number of turns it takes for a worker to return to you depends where it is placed. 3 resource slot or gold cheese slot takes 3 turns; a 2 resource slot or silver cheese slot takes 2 turns; a 1 resource slot or bronze cheese slot takes 1 turn. Your unique player board slot takes 1 turn.

This continues until a player has placed all 15 of their cheeses. When this happens each player finishes their turn. The game ends and scores are counted.

Thanks for reading.

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