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Tigris & Euphrates
Feb. 6th, 2011 07:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yelosonT&E is a resource board game around building civilizations around the Tigris & Euphrates rivers. Sadly, the few character images the game shows are almost all the the whitest possible version of the people, rather like white-greeks or white-egyptian imagery that we typically see in media.
The game is for 3-4 players and consists of two major components- leaders and tiles. Each player has 4 leaders- a king, priest, merchant and farmer - each one is color coded to a type of victory point, and winning depends on getting the most of all 4. Players connect their leaders to various civilizations and play tiles representing the different resources/growth of the civilization.
If you have a Farmer connected to s civilization that is adding farm tiles, you get more victory points of that type, a Priest to a civilization adding temples, you get more priest victory points, etc. The only major exception is that if an appropriate leader isn't attached, but a king is, a king can collect in their stead.
That said, leaders can and do move around in this game. You can't have 2 leaders of the same type attached to the same civilization. When it happens, you have an conflict which is won by having your leader next to the most temples and sacrificing the most temple tiles out of your hand - which boots the loser and earns you some victory points in the process.
The other method which happens is when two civilizations build into each other via tile placement- which means if there's 2 leaders of any given type between them- they end up conflicting, except this time based on appropriate tiles available to them (Farms for Farmer, Markets for the Merchant, etc. etc.). The end of these affairs tends to generate a lot of one type of victory point and removes tiles from a civilization- which can drastically change the board.
Finally, it's possible to create Monuments, which are fountains of victory points of a specific type- you get points as long as you appropriate leaders attached to the civilization which has them- but it also reduces your ability to defend against the external conflicts previously mentioned.
A lot of the game depends on smart planning ahead and interaction. One of the most useful tactics is to drop a tile connecting to civilizations where they have multiple overlapping leaders- especially if none of your leaders are involved- you can force the other players to fight it out and try to take advantage of a power gap created by it.
There's also disaster tiles which allow you to destroy a tile, which can cut off certain leaders or split civilizations in two. These can drastically alter the play arena.
Overall, the game is medium complexity and pretty fun. It's got a few fiddly exception rules that take a bit to remember, but otherwise fairly straightforward.
The game is for 3-4 players and consists of two major components- leaders and tiles. Each player has 4 leaders- a king, priest, merchant and farmer - each one is color coded to a type of victory point, and winning depends on getting the most of all 4. Players connect their leaders to various civilizations and play tiles representing the different resources/growth of the civilization.
If you have a Farmer connected to s civilization that is adding farm tiles, you get more victory points of that type, a Priest to a civilization adding temples, you get more priest victory points, etc. The only major exception is that if an appropriate leader isn't attached, but a king is, a king can collect in their stead.
That said, leaders can and do move around in this game. You can't have 2 leaders of the same type attached to the same civilization. When it happens, you have an conflict which is won by having your leader next to the most temples and sacrificing the most temple tiles out of your hand - which boots the loser and earns you some victory points in the process.
The other method which happens is when two civilizations build into each other via tile placement- which means if there's 2 leaders of any given type between them- they end up conflicting, except this time based on appropriate tiles available to them (Farms for Farmer, Markets for the Merchant, etc. etc.). The end of these affairs tends to generate a lot of one type of victory point and removes tiles from a civilization- which can drastically change the board.
Finally, it's possible to create Monuments, which are fountains of victory points of a specific type- you get points as long as you appropriate leaders attached to the civilization which has them- but it also reduces your ability to defend against the external conflicts previously mentioned.
A lot of the game depends on smart planning ahead and interaction. One of the most useful tactics is to drop a tile connecting to civilizations where they have multiple overlapping leaders- especially if none of your leaders are involved- you can force the other players to fight it out and try to take advantage of a power gap created by it.
There's also disaster tiles which allow you to destroy a tile, which can cut off certain leaders or split civilizations in two. These can drastically alter the play arena.
Overall, the game is medium complexity and pretty fun. It's got a few fiddly exception rules that take a bit to remember, but otherwise fairly straightforward.
