Splendor - The Strongholds (DLC)

Splendor is one of those board games that earns its reputation through ruthless simplicity: collect gem tokens, buy development cards, race to fifteen prestige points before anyone else gets there. The Strongholds DLC introduces a territorial layer on top of that familiar engine, letting players place strongholds on the board to contest card access and apply pressure to opponents in a way the base game never attempted. On paper, that sounds like exactly the kind of added decision depth that turns a light card game into something a strategy crowd can sink teeth into. In practice, the execution is uneven enough to explain those mixed reviews. The core loop of the base game is preserved. You are still weighing gem combinations, scouting the card row for expensive high-point targets, and timing your noble grabs. What Strongholds adds is a spatial element: certain cards can now be blocked or contested depending on where your strongholds sit on the board. This injects a light area-control read into each turn, which forces you to think one level further than usual. Does your opponent need that tier-two card badly enough that you should pay the cost to lock it down? That kind of question is genuinely interesting for a few sessions. The problem is that the strategic ceiling is low. After a handful of games the optimal play patterns become readable, and the AI - even at higher difficulties - tends to undervalue stronghold placement in ways that make solo runs feel hollow fairly quickly. For newcomers to Splendor entirely, starting with the Strongholds variant is not the worst entry point, but I would strongly recommend a few hours with the base game first. The tutorial here assumes you understand the gem economy already, and the added rules layer can obscure what makes Splendor satisfying in the first place. Once you have internalised the base loop, Strongholds reads as a natural extension rather than an overcomplicated footnote. The interface is clean, turns move fast, and the digital version handles the fiddly bookkeeping that would slow a physical session to a crawl. Where this DLC stumbles most is in long-term replayability. The base game's elegance comes from how much reads from very few variables, and Strongholds adds variables without proportionally expanding strategic options. The mod ecosystem for this title is essentially nonexistent compared to the grand-strategy games I usually cover, so there is no community content patching the gaps. Multiplayer, which the base game supports, does make Strongholds more interesting since human opponents actually exploit the stronghold mechanics meaningfully. But if your circle does not own the DLC, cross-play between variants is not possible, which limits when you can even try it. Bottom line: if you already own Splendor and have exhausted the base game, Strongholds offers a genuine wrinkle worth exploring, especially in multiplayer. If you are buying Splendor fresh, establish your fundamentals first and treat this as optional homework.

Diego · Scout Team

Strategy & simulation

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