# of Players: 2-5
Playtime: 2-3 Hours
Playtime: 2-3 Hours
Core Mechanic: Action Selection
Theme: Fantasy
Type: Euro
Type: Euro
Weight: Heavy
Year: 2012
Rating: 10*
When this game was first released, I took notice as everyone was saying how great it was and it shot quickly up the BGG rankings. However, even though it was on the edge of my radar, it kept getting buried under other new releases and I never felt the urge to go out of my way to get a copy of this and play it. Five years after it was released, the app version came out. I downloaded it right away because of its high BGG ranking at the time (#4) and played through the tutorial. Maybe it was just me, but I was extremely confused and overwhelmed. But I was determined to play this game so I downloaded the rules and read through it. There are a lot of rules.
The game is played over six rounds. At the start of each round is an income phase where each player receives resources based on structures built, favour tiles, and bonus tiles. In player order, which is determined in order of passing in future rounds (using the expansion rules), players will take one action at a time and continue until everyone has passed. These actions include terraforming a tile/building a dwelling, increasing your shipping, enhancing your terraforming ability, upgrading a structure, using a power action, using a priest, or one of several available bonus actions. To take most of these actions, resources are required, whether it be workers, coins, priests, or power.
Once players have passed, they will select a bonus tile which will benefit them for the next round, generally by providing additional resources or another way to score victory points. The winner of the game is the player with the most victory points in the end. Each round also has a scoring tile which will score players additional points during that round if they are able to complete the task shown, such as building structures or terraforming. Each scoring tile also evaluates one of the cult tracks and players who meet the requirements will score bonus resources. I will dive into the cult track in a bit more detail later on.
There are seven terrain types and each faction will have a home terrain. Each faction can only build structures on their home terrain so they must expand to territory that matches their home terrain or terraform their target territory. Terraforming requires the use of spades. The seven terrain types are situated on a terraforming wheel for reference throughout the game. For each home terrain, there will be two terrains that cost one spade to terraform into the home terrain, two terrains that cost two spades, and two terrains that cost three spades. Therefore, when choosing how to expand, players will want to probably try to select the areas of the map that require the least spades to terraform but must be mindful of where their opponents would like to expand as well.
On tiles matching your factions home terrain you are able to build dwellings or upgrade your dwellings to other structures. As you build structures, you will be removing them from your player board and placing them onto the map. However, if you are upgrading one of the structures you already placed, you put that structure you are replacing back onto your game board and losing the income from that building while gaining the income from the new building. It can be a stressful decision when deciding when to upgrade - the priests from the temples would be useful but you could also really use the coins from the trading posts in your next turn!
Another thing to take into consideration when building or upgrading structures is proximity to nearby opponents. Whenever you build a new structure in a hex adjacent to an opponent's structure(s), he or she has the option to exchange victory points for power. The more structures the opponent has, or the more upgraded they are, the more victory points can be exchanged. It is a delicate balance between building close enough to other players to gain the power benefits from doing so while also making sure that your own faction has room to expand. This might also be a good spot to talk about power, which might be one of the most loved or hated mechanics of the game.
Power is used in the game to take one of six special actions - take a priest, build a bridge, take workers, take coins, or use one or two spades. Each player usually starts off with 12 power tokens that are divided among three power bowls. To use power to take the aforementioned actions, the required amount of power must be available in Bowl III and moved to Bowl I. When gaining power, it moves from Bowl I to Bowl II if possible, otherwise from Bowl II to Bowl III. To speed up this process, you are able to permanently discard a power token from Bowl II for each power token you move to Bowl III. By taking this shortcut, players must make the difficult choice of giving up long-term power for short-term gain. I think the biggest problem that most people have with power is that it feels like a very game-y mechanic, but I think it adds to the interesting puzzle of the game and I like how it cycles throughout to provide you with what feels like bonus actions.
In addition to placing structures on the board, players will also be trying to gain higher and higher positions on the cult track, which will provide victory points and other benefits. Players move up on the cult track usually by using priests or via favor tokens. When using priests, they can be sacrificed permanently to the cult track to move up 2-3 spaces on a track, if there is still room for the priest to be sacrificed, or you can spend a priest to move up just one space so that the priest rejoins your general pool. Priests can be gained using power but are more commonly gained as income from temples and sanctuaries. Another bonus from building temples is sanctuaries are the favor tokens you earn immediately after building either of these structures. These allow you to move up 1-3 spaces on a track plus provide either an income bonus, scoring bonus, extra actions, or modify the rules slightly, such as requiring less power value to form a town.
Towns are another goal most players are trying to work towards building. Usually they require four connected structures with a total power value of seven. Each structure has an associated power value - dwellings have a power value of 1, trading post and temples have a power value of 2, and strongholds and sanctuaries have a power value of 3. Once a town has been created, you can take one of the town bonus tiles which give you victory points and a special one-time bonus, such as more workers, coins, or movement up the cult tracks. Founding a town is also necessary to move into the very top space on a cult track as you need the key represented on the town bonus tile to enter this final spot.
Did I cover all the rules? There are a lot of rules, but this is my favorite game so I thought I should go into depth. The mechanics are just fantastic. I did not even mention the 14 different factions that come with the game and how they each have unique abilities - one that they start with and one that is unlocked once their stronghold is built. For example, the Nomads start off with three dwellings instead of the normal two, and once their stronghold is built they can take a Special Action to each round to terraform a neighbouring space into their home terrain without paying any costs. With the unique ability of the factions and the varying bonus and scoring tiles that appear from game to game, it really feels like you are almost solving a puzzle of a game, with the goal being of course to have the most victory points, It is a fantastic puzzle that tickles the right part of my brain and consumes me long after as I wonder if there was a more optimal move that I could have made.
The light theme is the only thing I would consider that holds the game back, but even then I don’t think it is that big a deal because the game is that good and I can make the theme work in my head. The special abilities of each faction I feel is quite thematic as well. This game really surprised me and became my favorite game of all time in 2018. As such, it is the perfect fit in the Heavyweight collection and I think belongs in every Essential and Collector collection. I enjoyed the puzzle immensely and think that many other heavy euro gamers will feel the same as well.
The game is played over six rounds. At the start of each round is an income phase where each player receives resources based on structures built, favour tiles, and bonus tiles. In player order, which is determined in order of passing in future rounds (using the expansion rules), players will take one action at a time and continue until everyone has passed. These actions include terraforming a tile/building a dwelling, increasing your shipping, enhancing your terraforming ability, upgrading a structure, using a power action, using a priest, or one of several available bonus actions. To take most of these actions, resources are required, whether it be workers, coins, priests, or power.
Once players have passed, they will select a bonus tile which will benefit them for the next round, generally by providing additional resources or another way to score victory points. The winner of the game is the player with the most victory points in the end. Each round also has a scoring tile which will score players additional points during that round if they are able to complete the task shown, such as building structures or terraforming. Each scoring tile also evaluates one of the cult tracks and players who meet the requirements will score bonus resources. I will dive into the cult track in a bit more detail later on.
There are seven terrain types and each faction will have a home terrain. Each faction can only build structures on their home terrain so they must expand to territory that matches their home terrain or terraform their target territory. Terraforming requires the use of spades. The seven terrain types are situated on a terraforming wheel for reference throughout the game. For each home terrain, there will be two terrains that cost one spade to terraform into the home terrain, two terrains that cost two spades, and two terrains that cost three spades. Therefore, when choosing how to expand, players will want to probably try to select the areas of the map that require the least spades to terraform but must be mindful of where their opponents would like to expand as well.
On tiles matching your factions home terrain you are able to build dwellings or upgrade your dwellings to other structures. As you build structures, you will be removing them from your player board and placing them onto the map. However, if you are upgrading one of the structures you already placed, you put that structure you are replacing back onto your game board and losing the income from that building while gaining the income from the new building. It can be a stressful decision when deciding when to upgrade - the priests from the temples would be useful but you could also really use the coins from the trading posts in your next turn!
Another thing to take into consideration when building or upgrading structures is proximity to nearby opponents. Whenever you build a new structure in a hex adjacent to an opponent's structure(s), he or she has the option to exchange victory points for power. The more structures the opponent has, or the more upgraded they are, the more victory points can be exchanged. It is a delicate balance between building close enough to other players to gain the power benefits from doing so while also making sure that your own faction has room to expand. This might also be a good spot to talk about power, which might be one of the most loved or hated mechanics of the game.
In addition to placing structures on the board, players will also be trying to gain higher and higher positions on the cult track, which will provide victory points and other benefits. Players move up on the cult track usually by using priests or via favor tokens. When using priests, they can be sacrificed permanently to the cult track to move up 2-3 spaces on a track, if there is still room for the priest to be sacrificed, or you can spend a priest to move up just one space so that the priest rejoins your general pool. Priests can be gained using power but are more commonly gained as income from temples and sanctuaries. Another bonus from building temples is sanctuaries are the favor tokens you earn immediately after building either of these structures. These allow you to move up 1-3 spaces on a track plus provide either an income bonus, scoring bonus, extra actions, or modify the rules slightly, such as requiring less power value to form a town.
Towns are another goal most players are trying to work towards building. Usually they require four connected structures with a total power value of seven. Each structure has an associated power value - dwellings have a power value of 1, trading post and temples have a power value of 2, and strongholds and sanctuaries have a power value of 3. Once a town has been created, you can take one of the town bonus tiles which give you victory points and a special one-time bonus, such as more workers, coins, or movement up the cult tracks. Founding a town is also necessary to move into the very top space on a cult track as you need the key represented on the town bonus tile to enter this final spot.
Did I cover all the rules? There are a lot of rules, but this is my favorite game so I thought I should go into depth. The mechanics are just fantastic. I did not even mention the 14 different factions that come with the game and how they each have unique abilities - one that they start with and one that is unlocked once their stronghold is built. For example, the Nomads start off with three dwellings instead of the normal two, and once their stronghold is built they can take a Special Action to each round to terraform a neighbouring space into their home terrain without paying any costs. With the unique ability of the factions and the varying bonus and scoring tiles that appear from game to game, it really feels like you are almost solving a puzzle of a game, with the goal being of course to have the most victory points, It is a fantastic puzzle that tickles the right part of my brain and consumes me long after as I wonder if there was a more optimal move that I could have made.
The light theme is the only thing I would consider that holds the game back, but even then I don’t think it is that big a deal because the game is that good and I can make the theme work in my head. The special abilities of each faction I feel is quite thematic as well. This game really surprised me and became my favorite game of all time in 2018. As such, it is the perfect fit in the Heavyweight collection and I think belongs in every Essential and Collector collection. I enjoyed the puzzle immensely and think that many other heavy euro gamers will feel the same as well.
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