Caylus has a mix of building, producing, planning, and bargaining — without direct conflict or dice-rolling mechanics.

Caylus does not include the random elements found in many board games, such as cards and dice.

The only exceptions to this are the placement of the six neutral buildings (leading to 720 possible starting configurations) and the initial turn order, both of which are determined randomly at the beginning of the game.

Caylus also received the Trictrac d'or 2005 award from the eponymous French boardgame website.

[4] With the international attention gained via BoardGameGeek and Essen 2005, the first printing of Caylus sold out in December 2005.