El Grande

El Grande is a German-style board game for 2-5 players, designed by Wolfgang Kramer and Richard Ulrich, and published in 1995 by Hans im Glück in German, by Rio Grande Games in English, and by 999 Games in Dutch. The game board represents renaissance-era Spain where the nobility (the Grandes) fight for control of the nine regions. El Grande was praised for its area-control mechanism, and was awarded the Spiel des Jahres prize and the Deutscher Spiele Preis in 1996. Following its release, several expansions and an alternative version were published. The game is played in nine rounds. There are no dice in the game, and players have many chances to influence the turn order. The original game has a number of action cards that are turned up each turn, which is the only source of randomness in the game. However, the effect of this luck is very small, since these cards are potentially available to be used by any player in the game. Each player starts the game with a hand of identical cards (numbered 1–13) at the beginning of the game. These cards are used to bid for turn order.