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it, but that they liked it a lot. The game is a good story that has been well told, and
although there are a lot of ingredients, there are none that I would consider superfluous.
If you do like complex games, it is almost certain that you will have already played at least one of Vital Lacerda’s
games. If you have and you liked them, this is definitely one you’ll want to try. Just be aware that at first it might seem as though you are faced with a rather steep gradi- ent. If you like medium to heavy games, but haven’t yet tried any- thing from him but would like to,
my advice would be to start with one of the others. Kanban, The Gallerist or Vinhos would all make for slightly more gentle introductions to his world.
Stuart W. Dagger
REVIEW Tribes
Slim Shape
In 2013, Rustan Håkansson was a co-author of
Nations (sb 1/2014), a civilization game that enjoys
ongoing popularity. Now, with Tribes, he has single-hand-
edly created a thematic prequel. From the Paleolithic to the Bronze Age, it takes place long before Nations and has new core mechanics.
T
he technology tree is fairly con- ventional at first look. It con- sists of 15 technology tiles (five
them). After carrying out the action, the tile moves to the top of the row. Thus, the action that the player to your right chose automatically becomes the most expensive
per age in the standard version) that are available to everyone. Of these, only five are available at the begin- ning. The others are placed face-down, representing new ideas that will be coming later. As soon as one player has invented a particular technology, all connected technologies are revealed, typically a single tile. Unusually, tech- nology depend on another in no fixed manner, party because of their posi- tion on the board, partly because out of the ten technology tiles available per age, only five are used. The tech- nology tree is thus formed randomly in each game and only gradually re- vealed. In any case, the differences between the many technologies are not that great.
I Skipping costs shells The goal is to move up the tech tree efficiently, preferably reaching
an advancement first, since that gives you an additional victory point. Other players, however, ben- efit from tiles that were newly re- vealed in the process, which then makes planning easier.
Highly original, interesting and ex- tremely straightforward are the turn options. The four possible actions (move, grow, invent, and explore) are pictured on three large square tiles, with invent always found alongside one of the three others on each tile. The tiles are arranged in a vertical row to indicate the cost of the action in question. For each tile
you skip to get up
to the action you
want, you have
to leave a sea-
shell (at the be- ginning, each player having five of
option on your turn. If you choose a tile with shells, you snatch them (this is the only
way to get shells!).
Exploration, growth, and movement
take place in your own private territory. This is made up of hexagonal terrain tiles, each of which
Title: Publisher: Designer: Artist: Players: Age: Duration: Price:
Lisboa
Eagle-Gryphon
Vital Lacerda
Ian O’Toole
2–4
about 13+ years
about 90–150 minutes about 105 €
Reviewer Playing appeal
Stuart W. Dagger . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Oliver Grimm*. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Matthias Hardel**. . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Alan How. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
* Even though the game is unwieldy and not so easy to grasp, the interweav- ing of the mechanisms is fascinating. Plenty of playing fun, once “the beast” has been tamed.
** The functionality severely suffers from the (admittedly, impressive) esthet- ics. The positional relationships of the buildings are highly original. But many things are not straight to the point and many an element is superfluous.
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