Orléans Review

Intro

Orléans drops you into medieval France where you're building your personal empire one follower at a time. This 2014 release from Reiner Stockhausen blends bag-building with worker placement in ways that feel fresh even a decade later. The game supports 2-5 players and typically runs about 90 minutes, though your first few games might stretch longer as you wrap your head around all the moving pieces.

With an 8.05 rating and moderate complexity, Orléans sits in that sweet spot where strategy gamers can dig deep without scaring off newcomers. The learning curve is real but manageable—think of it as more involved than Ticket to Ride but less brain-burning than Terraforming Mars. It's earned serious recognition too, including the 2015 Kennerspiel des Jahres nomination and wins at multiple international game awards.

How It Plays

The heart of Orléans is your follower bag. You start with basic farmers and boatmen, then gradually add merchants, knights, monks, scholars, and craftsmen throughout the game. Each round, you draw followers randomly from your bag and place them on your personal board to take actions.

Here's where it gets interesting: different actions require different combinations of followers. Want to build a trading post? You might need a craftsman and a boatman. Planning to advance on the beneficial deeds track? Better have a monk handy. The simultaneous action selection keeps everyone engaged since you're all placing followers at the same time.

The main board shows medieval France with various locations connected by roads and rivers. You'll send your followers out to establish trading stations, collect goods, and expand your influence. There's also a technology track where scholars help you unlock powerful abilities, plus a beneficial deeds track that monks advance to keep you safe from nasty events.

Victory comes through multiple paths. You might focus on building lots of trading stations, collecting sets of goods, advancing technology, or some combination. The game ends after 18 rounds, and whoever has the most points from their various achievements wins.

Highlights

The bag-building mechanism is absolutely brilliant. Unlike deck-building games where you know what's coming next, the bag creates genuine tension every round. Will you draw the perfect combination for that big move you planned? The randomness feels exciting rather than frustrating because you're constantly improving your odds by adding better followers.

Player interaction strikes a perfect balance. You're not directly attacking each other, but competition for board spaces and the shared supply of followers creates meaningful decisions. When someone grabs that last knight you needed, you have to pivot your strategy on the fly.

The multiple paths to victory keep the game fresh. I've seen people win by going heavy on technology while others focus entirely on spreading across the map. The scoring system rewards specialization but doesn't completely shut out balanced approaches.

Production quality deserves mention too. The wooden followers feel great in your hands, and pulling them from the bag has that satisfying tactile element that makes every draw feel important. The board is clear and functional, though not particularly flashy.

Setup variety comes from the variable citizen tiles and event cards, ensuring no two games feel identical. Different combinations of available actions and potential disasters keep you adapting your strategy from game to game.

Criticisms

The biggest complaint about Orléans is the potential for bad luck to derail your plans. Sometimes you'll draw exactly what you need; other times you'll pull a handful of farmers when you desperately need that monk to avoid an event penalty. While this randomness is core to the bag-building concept, it can feel punishing when it strikes at crucial moments.

The game also suffers from what I call "first-time syndrome." Your initial play can feel overwhelming as you try to understand how all the systems connect. The rules aren't particularly complex, but grasping the strategy takes time. New players often struggle to see which followers to prioritize or how the different scoring tracks interact.

Some find the theme fairly thin. Sure, you're merchants and monks in medieval France, but it doesn't feel particularly immersive. The mechanisms are solid, but if you need strong thematic connection to enjoy a game, Orléans might leave you cold. It's more about the puzzle of optimizing your bag than about feeling like a medieval trader.

Conclusion

Orléans works best for players who enjoy medium-weight strategy games with a dash of controlled chaos. If you like the idea of deck-building but want something that feels different, the bag mechanism delivers that novelty in spades. Groups that appreciate multiple viable strategies and don't mind some randomness will find plenty to love here.

The game shines brightest at 3-4 players where competition feels tight but not overly constrained. It's become a regular at my game nights because it consistently delivers tense decisions without overstaying its welcome. While the theme won't transport you to medieval France, the mechanical interactions are engaging enough to keep you coming back.

Skip it if you hate randomness in your strategy games or prefer more direct player interaction. But if you're looking for a well-designed euro game that combines familiar concepts in fresh ways, Orléans deserves a spot on your shelf. Nearly ten years later, it still feels innovative and relevant in a crowded field of worker placement games.