Cascadia: Landmarks Expansion for the Award-Winning Board Game Cascadia

*Cascadia: Landmarks* from AEG and Flatout Games is a fantastic addition for anyone who already enjoys the original *Cascadia* or loves thoughtful strategy games. I really like how the expansion adds new ways to play without completely changing the relaxing feel that makes *Cascadia* so enjoyable. The Landmarks introduce additional strategic decisions that give players more to consider as they build their landscapes. I appreciate that the new content adds variety and keeps the game feeling fresh after multiple plays. The components are well made and fit nicely with the existing *Cascadia* game pieces. The artwork continues the beautiful nature theme and makes the completed landscapes look great on the table. The added mechanics encourage players to think more carefully about where they place their tiles and how they build their habitats. I especially enjoy that the expansion adds depth without making the game unnecessarily complicated. It provides more opportunities for strategic planning while still being accessible to players who are not experienced gamers. The additional content also helps increase replayability because different combinations can lead to different decisions from game to game. I think it works particularly well for couples or families who enjoy playing board games together and want something that offers both strategy and a relaxing pace. The expansion adds enough new material to feel worthwhile without losing the charm of the original game. It is also a great way to extend the life of a game that you already enjoy and give yourself new goals to work toward. Overall, *Cascadia: Landmarks* is a well-designed expansion that adds variety, strategy, and replay value while preserving the peaceful nature of the original. I would highly recommend it to *Cascadia* fans who want more ways to enjoy the game and to anyone who appreciates accessible strategy games with beautiful components.

Cascadia is one of my 2 or 3 favorite games of all time. It's also a GREAT game for just 2 people. Note that this is the expansion pack, which made the original game even better. The main game (sold separately) has 2 levels of strategy (which is fine) but this adds a third level, which makes the game more fun and adds a bit more of a competitive aspect. Once you place your 5th (or more) habitat tile (e.g., you connected 5 contiguous forest pieces), you can (if you want) instead of adding your wildlife token to the tile, you instead (if you want) add one of 5 special marker that allow you to pick up a bonus card that can earn you end of game points if you meet the terms (e.g., allow you to combine 2 habitats as one for end-game scoring.). This can add a bit more (fun) competition to try to lay down that 5th habitat tile (so you can pick up the card you want). Net: instead of mostly playing your own game, you pay a bit more attention to what the other player is doing. Having another way to score makes game more interesting than just playing the original version. The expansion makes the game much better once you know how to play the original.

Our favorite family game has just gotten better!! Cascadia is a fantastic game that’s easy to learn with ever changing replays. Landmarks add dimensions to the habitat, more scoring opportunities, and look really cool.

This expansion was easy to add to the base game. It added a little extra fun while still being just as good as the base game. I highly recommend this expansion rather playing with more people or just the 4 that the base game supports.

After several plays, I’m glad I bought this expansion even though we are taking out the main feature - the landmark cards and tokens - and continuing to use the other components that came with this box. The new habitat tiles are great and add a lot of welcome complexity to layouts. I really like all of the new wildlife cards too; there are a lot of interesting, unique ideas that add a lot of replayability. But I don’t like the landmarks. Shuffling the landmark decks and setting out the cards adds too much setup time to a game that has always been easy to get on the table. The larger issue is that landmark cards add too much complexity to habitat decisions, especially for less experienced players, leading to larger disparities in habitat scores, where the game could already sometimes be a bit too swingy. I’m also finding that the difference in scores achieved through landmarks is often within an “I win more” range (ie, they rarely make enough if a difference to swing a victory one way or the other), which doesn’t feel good for anybody. This is a larger problem at lower player counts…and at higher player counts there are just too many landmark cards available. Keeping the options in your head as you build habitats is laborious and unfun. It’s a cute idea and the pieces are gorgeous and satisfying to place, but the game is better off without them. I would still recommend this expansion to fans of the game looking for spicier tiles and wildlife cards, those are great.

This is a very easy expansion to add to the base game. It all fits in the original box without removing insert, but easier if you do remove. I won't play my game without the expansion, but you can play without it without having to remove any new terrain or animal pieces. The expansion is played by providing landmarks for each terrain type. You play the game the same as the base game, except that the first time you complete each terrain type of size 5 or larger you will put a landmark token on the most recently played tile and select a victory bonus card from the supplied options that will provide victory points for you alone at the end of the game. You can do this for each terrain type throughout the game until the game ends. Seriously, it is a fun addition to the game. However, I don't think it is a make-or-break for this game. Meaning, if someone offered to play the game without the expansion then I wouldn't be heart broken and still want to play. This expansion just provides more options and adds to the importance of terrain building.

This is a weird addition to the original Cascadia game in a lot of ways, but once you get the hang of it I think you'll like it. Cascadia's base game is wonderfully varied, yet simple to play despite its options. This addition only adds the ability for two more players (in addition to the max of four with the original game). Six players is better than four, but it would be fun to play with seven or eight players. What this addition does add is a whole lot of complexity by making terrain groupings of five or more able to have a landmark piece placed on one of them instead of an animal token. Landmark tokens use up a playable terrain pieces, limiting your options for placing animal tokens (a serious cost), but also allowing you to choose a card which can add to your points at the end of the game--for instance, one card allows you to combine two terrain runs into a single larger one at scoring even if they're not physically connected. The landmark tokens/pieces are intricately cut from wood and attractive. The expansion set includes new terrain pieces, some of which have three terrains on one piece. It also includes more--and more difficult--animal challenge cards. I have tried to keep my expansion pack pieces separate from the original board game. It's hard, though, because there's only a tiny icon on the expansion terrain pieces differentiating the two sets--and nothing at all differentiating the animal tokens. I assume the same proportion of tokens is provided in the expansion pack as in the original and that keeping all the pieces in one common bag doesn't alter game dynamics, but at times it feels that all the new tokens make playing the original game less fun because it seems you get more runs of animals you don't need. That's probably only in our minds, but I think all of us feel it when playing the original game. So I like the expansion pack, but it does have a major impact on game play--making it significantly more complex. I think the game publisher would do well to sell another expansion pack that simply lets you play the original game with up to eight players. That would be a lot of fun and I think we'd love to buy it.

A great game is now better with this expansion. It added another layer using simple clever mechanism and now our Cascadia game has end game goals.

Great game

Si tienes el juego base y quieres darle más dificultad además de agregar más gente a la mesa pero seguir manteniendo ese juego relajante a mi me parece por mucho la expansión y ampliación que debes tener si o si Cascadia me encanta y a mi grupo de amigos y familia también solo nos limitaba el máximo de jugadores de 4 esto lo solucionó y en lo personal yo lo juego mucho los nuevos objetivos y metas junto con la nueva mecánica si logro darle esa frescura al juego que buscaba

Our family love playing the original Cascadia game and this just adds to the fun. Another dimension to use in our strategies.

Buen producto.