Rise to Nobility

Rise to Nobility is a clear improvement on Cavern Tavern, its designers’ first effort, and that conclusion does not require a spreadsheet. It is a generous, likeable dice-placement euro: Lords of Waterdeep’s basic shape, wearing different overalls and carrying dice.

The core is dice placement. You use the dice to activate the available options, then assemble a position through mechanisms that connect neatly to one another. The interesting decision is where each action belongs, so that your own arrangement pays off without casually handing the table an opening.

Interaction is chiefly in the shared space and in getting to the useful options first, rather than in direct aggression. The base scoring is balanced, but the base game can produce a conspicuous runaway leader: one player gets clear and the race starts to feel like confirmation rather than a contest.

Fortunately, the variants and the Chancery expansion included in the base box address that weakness rather well, although the scoring then gives up some of its original balance. In other words, Rise to Nobility is not a euro with one prescribed form; it has enough range for a group to choose the version that suits its table. Quietly excellent, and considerably more complete than its pedigree suggests.