Timeless Journeys: The Italian Grand Tour review

Timeless Journeys: The Italian Grand Tour Preview

There’s a tradition labeled the “Grand Tour” that was a status symbol in 18th and early 19th century Europe. Around 21 years old, students would travel the countryside, down through Italy, soaking in the culture and intellectual pursuits. Timeless Journeys is a new release from Lirius Games (Age of Comics) that uses hand building, resource management, and set collecting to grow in the areas of art and culture.

Traveling the Countryside

Players will travel along branching pathways on the map of the Italian peninsula. There are major city hubs along the way that allow players to explore, learn, and build relationships. Movement, exploration, and building relationships are all done through a hand of cards. Everyone starts with the same seven cards that will change and grow throughout the course of the game.

Timeless Journeys travel route

In each of the five rounds of Timeless Journeys, players will play a card from their hand, moving around the table, until everyone has played five cards for the round. Each card triggers an action or actions that the player takes. The game allows players to chain card actions of the same category together, which will give you more overall actions for the round.

This chaining system in Timeless Journeys feels really fresh and leads to some tough decisions. Since players can only hold a total of 8 cards, adding new cards to your hand usually means dropping a card you really liked. There’s a balance to the card play here. Chaining cards of the same category give you more actions. Playing a wider variety of category cards allow you to draft a more powerful advanced card for free at the end of the round.

Timeless Journeys - advanced cards

Drafting new advanced cards are available during the round by playing a card facedown and/or by drafting a card at the end of each round. By the time you reach round five, pruning a card feels down right painful.

Intellectual Pursuits

The players cards will dictate the ways players interact with the activities on the map. In each city, players can explore, gaining a city tile or gaining a tile type that represents Art, History, Philosophy or Science. These tiles represent different areas of knowledge you gain as you travel. Players can write these tiles to their journals or spend them in the various cities.

These journals give players goals to focus on and will award points based on how many of the eight objectives they complete. Players can also build a friendship with a person in the city. Assigning one of their friendship tokens in the city will allow you to earn the associated action or tile. The best part is that you can later send letters to your friends to gain those actions or tiles even as you travel further into the map.

Timeless Journeys - player journals

Within the cities, players can discuss the topics of the day over tea if they have the correct tiles to turn in. For instance, in the city of Perugia, you can turn in two Art tiles and two Science tiles to earn eleven victory points when you go for tea. The next player to have tea on this same spot will earn less points for the same action. These are great ways to spend tiles that might not fit into your journal as you travel.

Timeless Journeys - city location

Famous Travelers

During the setup of Timeless Journeys, players will add three famous travelers to the central board with an itinerary under each card. Throughout the five rounds of the game, players can earn bonuses for performing specific actions in the same city as these famous historical figures. At the end of the round, the famous travelers will move on to the next city on their itinerary.

Timeless Journeys - influencers

Players might want to follow these historical figures as they move from city to city. Timeless Journeys challenges players to explore deep into the Italian peninsula by offering more valuable rewards at the bottom of the map. The famous travelers will entice players to follow them in the final rounds of the game as you work to collect more experiences and knowledge than your fellow players.

Final Thoughts

Timeless Journeys gives players familiar mechanics with a unique theme that really impressed us when it hit the table. Prior to playing this game, I had very little knowledge of this famous journey that was a right of passage. The hand building, set collecting, resource management, and drafting all work together seamlessly.

Timeless Journeys - city tiles

Players have plenty of opportunities to earn points using the path they choose in the game. At every turn, players are making tough decisions as they explore the Italian countryside. During end game scoring, players are awarded increasing numbers of points for exploring more cities and how much of their two journals they completed.

We already know that the final production of the game will include new famous travelers along with expansion content that we’re excited to hear about. Timeless Journeys is another excellent release from Lirius Games that you definitely need to check out.

Timeless Journeys: The Grand Tour is coming to Kickstarter on October 22, 2024.

A prototype of the game was provided for this coverage. Components and rules covered in this preview are not finalized. Read more about our preview policies at One Board Family.

Ryan Gutowski

I'm a huge fan of strategy games and pretty much anything that involves "city building". My love of board games goes back to my childhood and passion for building relationships with others.

Subscribe
Notify of
guest
0 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Hojo Pojo Preview

Meet the Designer: Thinh LeHuu, LeviathGames

Motor City Preview

The A.R.T. Project Review