Splendor (Base Game)

What I love most is how Splendor balances luck and strategy. The randomness of card draws keeps things fresh, but smart decision-making always shines through. It scales well with 2–4 players and never feels stale. If you’re looking for a game that’s easy to teach, fun to play repeatedly, and genuinely rewarding to master, this one delivers. Highly recommend for family game nights, casual players, and strategy lovers alike!

Splendor is an outstanding board game that’s easy to learn but offers great strategic depth. The rules are simple, making it perfect for new players, yet each game feels engaging and competitive as you plan your moves and adapt to others’ strategies. The components are high quality, especially the poker-style chips, which add a premium feel to the experience. It plays smoothly with different group sizes and doesn’t drag on, making it ideal for both casual game nights and serious strategy sessions. Every round feels rewarding, and the replay value is excellent. Highly recommended for anyone who enjoys smart, elegant board games.

This is one of my favorite board games! It’s designed for 4 players, making it great for smaller groups. It’s also easy to teach new players. Most people pick up the rules and gameplay after just one round. The goal of the game is to reach a specific number of points before the other players. You achieve this by acquiring gem cards and merchants. Cards are purchased using gems, which you collect on your turn. Each turn, you can take one of three actions: collect gems, reserve a card, or buy a card. The game itself doesn’t take too long to play, typically around 30–60 minutes. The artwork is stunning, and the quality of the game pieces is excellent.

My family adores this game. It took us a minute to figure it out, but that’s standard for us. Once we picked up how to play, we went feral. Not only is it fun, fast-paced, and great for competitive types, it’s really well made. The game pieces have heft to them - nothing about it feels cheap or flimsy in any way. I’m literally getting ready to purchase the expansion even though we played it for the first time yesterday. Did I mention we played it three times in a row? Instant favorite in our house. Get it and I swear you won’t be disappointed.

Bought this for my son, age 14, for Christmas. We really enjoy it - easy to learn, fun game! Good price too.

Overview Splendor is a quick strategy game where you assume the role of a wealthy merchant tasked with acquiring precious stones. I came across Splendor in my search for a good game to play with my wife, and it did not disappoint. With 2 people you can finish a game within 30 minutes, so we usually end up playing a few rounds. Components There are 3 decks of cards (going from most affordable/least valuable to most expensive/most valuable), a set of nobles cards, and 6 types of gem chips. The cards feel sturdy and are beautifully illustrated. They card designs look different (in a good way) than what is pictured on Amazon. The nobles cards are nice and thick. The chips feel very solid and have a nice weight to them. They do not feel cheap. Gameplay Splendor is deceptively easy to learn and plays fairly quickly - if people are paying attention. Paying attention is key, because everyone’s cards/tokens are available for all to see at all times. Setup involves shuffling the 3 separate decks of cards (labelled I, II, and III on the back) and laying out 4 cards from each deck next to the decks. There are also nobel cards that will be shuffled and placed on the table for everyone to see. Amazon’s picture shows how the playing area is set up. The last component are the chips which are stacked up and placed in view of all players. Players take turns deciding if they want to take 2 chips of the same color, 3 chips of different colors, buying a card with chips they already have, or reserving a card. Once you buy a card, it’s value can be put toward the purchase of other cards, and you do not lose any cards you’ve purchased. Some of the cards have numbers on them which represent victory points. The first to 15 victory points wins. The nobles can be earned by obtaining the number of cards listed on the noble’s card (ex 3 blue cards, 3 red cards, 2 white cards). Whoever is the first to obtain the required cards automatically gets the noble card and the victory points along with it. While the idea of collecting chips to buy cards is simple enough, there is a bit of strategy needed if you want to win. If you don’t have a plan to buy certain colors, in order to buy other colors, in order to finally acquire a certain noble, you may very well end up losing. And even when you have a plan, sometimes the chips you want or the card you want are no longer available, and you have to make a plan B. Part of the fun comes in when you figure out what your opponent is trying to do, and reserve or buy the card they needed, just to cut them down a peg. Some might think its a jerk move (AKA my wife) but I’m playing to win! If people are paying attention and thinking about what they want to do on their turn, then turns, and games can go by pretty quickly. 15 points is not a lot once you figure out how to play the game. But if you have that person that you always have to say “hey it's your turn” then the game will take a bit longer. The game plays great with just 2 people up to the max of 4 people. There is plenty of replayability and you will have to adjust your strategy a little each time depending on the cards and nobles in play. Summary I own a number of board games (such as Dominion, Smash Up, Munchkin, 7 Wonders, Citadels, Love Letter), most of which are more complex than Splendor. Whenever I want to relax and play a game with my wife, Splendor is one of my first choices. It’s quick enough that we can easily fit in a game or two, yet has enough strategy to make it an enjoyable game to come back to again and again. I paid around $30 for the game, which I felt was a fair price. It is a great for light gaming but people who have played heavier board games can also enjoy it.

Splendor is a really fun game. It is easy to understand how to play it, but you can get really strategic with it. I like the gems, they are nice and heavy. They remind me of heavy poker chips. The art on the cards are beautiful too. I highly recommend this game. It is super fun!

We've been playing this game regularly over the past couple years with friends and family. It's fairly easy to learn for newbies, and you can play through a game in around 45 minutes or so. It is a resource building game, where you obtain coins to purchase resource cards and the resource cards you accumulate count as coins to buy more expensive and more valuable cards. Some of the resource cards have victory points (you need 15 to win) and the more expensive cards have the most victory points. If you have enough resource cards of the necessary colors, you obtain noble cards that are worth 3 victory points each. Strategy involves attempting to monopolize certain resource colors, while at the same time building a resource base and depriving opponents of resources they need, building up resources to obtain nobles, while at the same time obtaining victory points as fast as possible. And it is the noble cards that make the game replayable. You don't have to get nobles to win, but it helps a lot. Each game features a different set of noble cards being displayed, and these control demand for certain resources. For example, if 4 of the 5 nobles displayed require 3 or 4 red resource cards to obtain, and none of the nobles require a blue resource card, then players are going to vie for the red resource cards because without them, your chance of getting a noble is limited. OTOH, the blue resource cards will be less in demand. Other games may feature a greater balance of resources needed to obtain nobles, and your strategy will be to build a more balanced resource base while obtaining victory points. Every game is a bit different in this way, making replay much more fun.