Orléans

During the medieval goings-on around Orléans, you must assemble a following of farmers, merchants, knights, monks, etc. to gain supremacy through trade, construction and science in medieval France. In Orléans, you will recruit followers and put them to work to make use of their abilities. Farmers and Boatmen supply you with money and goods; Knights expand your scope of action and secure your mercantile expeditions; Craftsmen build trading stations and tools to facilitate work; Scholars make progress in science; Traders open up new locations for you to use your followers; and last but not least, it cannot hurt to get active in monasteries since with Monks on your side you are much less likely to fall prey to fate. You will always want to take more actions than possible, and there are many paths to victory. The challenge is to combine all elements as best as possible with regard to your strategy.

{
  "game_id": 164928,
  "name": "Orléans",
  "core_verb": "draw followers from bag, place on action",
  "decision_shape": "mixed:probabilistic+combinatorial",
  "reward_schedule": "engine_compounding",
  "aesthetics": [
    "Challenge",
    "Discovery"
  ],
  "core_loop_pitch": "Draw follower tokens from your bag, plan placement on action tracks; activate tracks to gain goods, knights, tokens.",
  "mobile_translation_difficulty": "Easy",
  "translation_difficulty_reason": "Bag-building loop is clean and digitizable. Available on Tabletopia and BGA but no dedicated standalone port.",
  "direct_digital_port": null,
  "closest_loop_translation": "none yet",
  "primitive_tags": [
    "bag_building",
    "simultaneous_action_planning",
    "follower_type_synergy",
    "track_completion_unlocks",
    "event_phase_pressure"
  ],
  "confidence": 0.8
}

{
  "game_id": 164928,
  "name": "Orléans",
  "mechanics": {
    "core_verb_long": "You reach into a felt bag and pull out 4-7 wooden Character tiles (Farmers, Boatmen, Craftsmen, Traders, Knights, Scholars, Monks), then drag those tiles onto labelled recipe slots on action Places (Farm House, Castle, University, Monastery, Ship, Wagon, Town Hall, etc.) on your player board. The peak tactile beat is rummaging the bag and tumbling tiles into your personal Market — the single dopamine moment most reviewers cite. Once recipes are filled, you fire the action; tiles return to the bag for the next round, except permanent Technology tiles which stay slotted forever as half-cost discounts.",
    "core_loop_long": "Round begins with the Hour Glass tile flipping to reveal one of six event types (Plague, Taxes, Trading Day, Pilgrimage, Income, Harvest) and the Census phase rewarding the leader on the Farmer Track. Players then simultaneously draw tiles from their bags equal to current Knights Track value and lay them face-up. In the Planning phase everyone places tiles onto Place recipes in parallel; in the Action phase, in turn order, each player executes one activated Place per turn until all pass. Used Character tiles return to the bag; new tiles earned drop in. Finally the round event resolves (Plague forces every player to permanently exile a tile; Taxes drains coins; Trading Day pays trading-station owners), then start player passes. After 18 Hour Glass rounds the game ends and Beneficial Deeds + coin + Citizen tiles convert to VP.",
    "decision_space": "Each round you balance which Place recipe to commit your scarce tiles to (the recipe waits across rounds, so you can place a Boatman on the University this round and the Scholar three rounds later — patience is a real option), versus what tile-type to add to your bag next, versus what to permanently exile to the Beneficial Deeds board for VP and tempo. The combinatorial demand — recipes need the *right mix* of types, not the right count — produces a constant Bayesian update against partially blind bag composition: you bought a Knight last round and now must decide whether to wait for it to surface or pivot. The option space at a typical decision is wide (6-8 Places, 4-7 tiles in hand, multiple Beneficial Deeds rows), but disciplined by which tracks you have already invested in.",
    "skill_expression": "The dominant skill is *bag composition planning under stochastic draw* — which tile-types to add when, which to exile to the Beneficial Deeds, when to push the Knights Track for more draws. A close second is multi-clock management: 18-round game timer, the event sequence (when does Plague hit?), and the Beneficial Deeds row depletion that opponents are racing you to. Pattern recognition matters (which Place chains feed which tracks), as does soft probability sense (how likely is my Knight to surface in the next 5 draws). Memory and arithmetic are light; the heavy lift is forward-planning under uncertainty plus opponent-pressure reading on the shared Beneficial Deeds.",
    "tactile_dependency": "medium",
    "tactile_dependency_reason": "The cloth-bag rummage and the visceral tumble of tokens into your Market is the iconic Orléans dopamine hit — Shut Up & Sit Down explicitly named it as the central appeal. A digital port can sell it through tile-clack audio and a tumble animation, but some sensory density is unavoidably lost; the action-recipe board itself, by contrast, maps cleanly to digital."
  },
  "theme": {
    "promise": "You are a medieval French merchant in the Loire valley. Hire farmers, knights, monks, and scholars; assemble crews to build trade routes, score in cathedrals, and survive plague years.",
    "setting": "medieval, historical, France, religious, travel",
    "narrative": "none — pasted-on theme. Mechanically a bag-builder engine with worker-placement-on-recipes; the medieval France setting is decorative texture, not story.",
    "audience": "hobbyist Eurogamer, designer-game-aficionado",
    "art_direction": "Klemens Franz earthen-medieval illustration in the agrarian Eurogame mode (warm browns and ochres, woodcut-inspired tile icons, Lookout/dlp house style). Cartoony illustrated tiles with strong silhouettes; the bag itself is a tactile prop in the experience."
  },
  "translation": {
    "digital_meta_layer_ideas": [
      "Roguelite expedition: 4 chapters per run on increasingly hostile procgen maps, draft 1 of 3 Follower Pack upgrades plus 1 of 2 Relics between chapters, eliminated after two last-place finishes",
      "Slay-the-Spire-style relic system that warps bag-draw rules: 'Loaded Dice' (always draw +1 Monk), 'Plague Mask' (immune to Plague but -1 coin/round), 'Stirring Rod' (peek top 2 tiles), 'Heretic's Ledger' (+1 VP per exiled tile)",
      "Asymmetric Patron characters with custom starting bags and unlocked Place tiles — Abbot (2 Monks + cheap Monastery), Marshal (2 Knights + pre-built Castle slot), Steward (4 Farmers + Beneficial Deeds discount)",
      "Daily Plague seed: fixed map + fixed event sequence + fixed starting bag, daily leaderboard by VP at end of run"
    ],
    "closest_mobile_genre": "bag-builder roguelite (placement-on-recipe puzzle, nearest neighbor Backpack Hero)",
    "live_service_potential": "medium"
  },
  "confidence": 1,
  "extraction_version": "v3"
}