I've been seeing some common questions about the "actual" length of the game, and realize that I probably wasn't as clear as I could have been. It's on the long side for a euro, and other games with some of the sames sorts of mechanisms. The box says 60-120 minutes, and I'd guess that 60 might be accurate for a very experienced player playing it solo. Once players have some experience with the game, a 3-player game should probably be in the 120-150 minutes range I think. Learning games with higher player counts are going to be 3+ hours in many cases.
I just want to say Im from Peru (the land of the Incas) and I reallly apreciate your effort to pronounce the names correctly when even for peruvians are hard to say those names. Blessings :)
This is a great format btw. It feels tightly scripted and highlights the most pertinent facts and opinions to determine if I should buy. Especially lines like "only one *felt* long." That tells me exactly what I need to know. Well done!
Thanks Daniel! We appreciate the feedback. We're working on posting more reviews than we have in the past, and trying to approach them quite differently. It's always nice to hear that people are noticing that.
I agree with Daniel on every single point. Additionally its also all in a pretty short video. (helps when Im doing my yearly 'which games should I buy' thing wading through many games).
Your recent reviews in this format have knocked it out of the park and I actually look forward to them. This definitely seems like a game for me and I appreciate your take.
Glad you liked it. It's amazing how much we forget to say about a game sometimes, and doing our reviews this way helps. But I'm sure I still wish I'd made a few more points.
I've played both at 2 on more than one occasion. I think they work alright, but I think both benefit from more players. With Tawantinsuyu specifically, the area majority feels less significant than is probably intended, but that's often the case with many games that have area control or area majority. My favorite player count in general is 3, and I think that holds true with this game as well.
Wow, I'm really hyped right now! In fact, both Tekhenu and Tawantinsuyu are in my wishlist for a long time. Saddly we can't buy the game here in Brazil, even with the huge free shipping worldwide thing that Board&Dice did this month because, well, because Brazil sucks.
They're two of the best euros we've seen this year. Board & Dice are really making the most of this crazy year that is 2020. It's always nice to get away from it all, and get to enjoy some great board games. Sorry about the Brazil thing. Maybe I'll set up a demo sometime in the near future on Tabletopia.
Fantastic review as always! Just curious to know couple of things: Balance of the game, specially those cards? Run away leader paradigm? As in opportunities to recover once you commit a mistake? Is this more sandboxy than say Agra?
Excellent review... Regarding the length, I recently played it on tabletopia and can agree that it's very long... 6h including teach!! We could probably shrink that in half if we play on a real table with no teach, but still... We all wanted to play again though.
Another great review, thanks MvM! Really enjoy the mix of instruction and personal opinion both you and Jeremy have done with the two T games. One question I have for you on this one David, is there a preferred player count? On some parts it felt like there is scale while others did not.
Thanks for the compliment, and the comment. Regarding the player count and scaling, I have a couple thoughts. I said somewhere in the comments below that I think 3 is the sweet spot for me on this one (and Tekhenu), but that's also the case with me on just about any euro. Tawantinsuyu has two elements that I think may be the most affected player count. First is the fact that the following aspect of the Move Your High Priest action. Since it has the mechanic, the pace and the activity of a game with 4 players is just going to likely feel more robust than in a 2-player game. And second, the area majority element associated with the Conquest action is also far more intriguing at higher player counts. With all that said, I've played this at 2 players a couple times at least, and enjoy that as well. There's still plenty of decisions and little puzzles to figure out, but just less on those two particular fronts.
@@meeple Another hard agree :) Almost all my favourite euros (and ones I designed) are best at three. It's the nature of their design: at 2p there is less people to make things dynamic, at 4p you only get a marginal increase in dynamism but a bigger increase in downtime. Can cite several Portugese, Italian, or Czech games :) Certainly true for all of my games :)
I love games like these. The core actions are simple (place workers/secondary actions), but with tons of depth tied to those simple actions. It makes it a lot easier to teach too. My only concern is on replayability/variability; as the board remains the same for all games. Granted, the starting cards and god cards play a major factor in this, but is that sufficient to make every game feel different?
Thanks for the comment and question. I've always enjoyed that approach to game design too, and it's definitely present in this one. Regarding your question, there is another element that I failed to mention that can change things up each game. There is a separate Coricancha tile for variable setup. This is the area in the very center of the board where the high priests move around. The order of the high priest actions around the Coricancha will always remain the same, but this tile covers the Coricancha printed on the board, and allows you to associate each high priest action with a different section of the overall board. If I could share a picture I would, but I hope this makes sense.
@@meeple Your explanation makes sense, that's interesting! Some form of board variability is definitely good to hear. I hope future expansions capitalize on this (too soon to touch on this, perhaps); that being said I'm not a big fan of an entire new board (i.e. Concordia's/Ticket to Ride's approach)
Wow, this one looks really good. I saw Dice Tower review of Tehkenu and I"m not sure that's up my alley though this one intrigues me more because of the 'worker placement' and how the action are done to which workers you are using. This is one of my favorite aspects of some worker placement games like Anachrony and Manhattan project. I'd say that this one I will look forward to above Tehkenu at the moment.
Both are great, and while Tekhenu might end up being the slightly favored one by many, I tend to agree with you on the fun-factor of this worker placement. And even that is just a portion of this game. Speaking of Manhattan Project, have you ever played Energy Empire (sequel in name, but really quite different)?
That game length thing sounds potentially a bit like what I think Terraforming Mars suffers from, which is a player-controlled endgame (which is interesting in other aspects) that people will be hesitant to trigger unless they're absolutely sure they're winning, and the game drags on.
That is very much what I mean. Those experiences are a mixed bag. In most cases they are long, but often don't feel "too long" while you're playing them. With that said, I played a 5 player TM game once that was painfully long.
Personally, I can easily say that I enjoy both this and Tekhenu more than I do Teotihuacan. To be fair though, I've only played Teotihuacan a couple times. It just didn't grab me like it grabbed a lot of other people. On the same topic, I would say Tekhenu has more in common with Teotihuacan in terms of the "experience" of playing it. All are completely different games, but I'd more confidently say, "If you liked Teotihuacan, you'll like Tekhenu." Tawantinsuyu just feels different that those two.
@@meeple awesome comparison! Tawantinsuyu like many of my previous works (Dice Settlers, Rome and Roll, and to a degree Anachrony itself) are all put together as "how can the most weirdly-fitting mechanisms create the deepest, choice rich environment". Teo and Tekhenu are much more driven by Daniele's elegance, whereas I tend to prioritize depth of choice above elegance to a certain degree.
Thanks for this very informative review. I have one question though, to help me decide if I should get myself a copy: I read in your reply to a comment, that you played it at two players. So, how does Tawantinsuyu scale? I mostly play with my partner only and unfortunately there are some, actually great games, losing it for me, due to kinda quirky/restricting 2-Player rules. Would you recommend this one for (mainly) two player games? Thank you for your honest opinion!
The game plays well at two, but shines more with 3 players. As I've said with many euro games though, 3 players is generally my favorite player count. I would say that if you play mostly at two players, but might sometimes get it to the table for more than that, it gets a recommendation from me. :)
Great review! I am very curious at what game is behind your shoulder, which looks like it has pictures of mythical gods on the cover (like Anubis?). Does anybody know?
I love the Look of Trismegistus, but i dont think i'd be able to wrap my head around it. What complexity would you say Tekhenu and Tawantinsuyu is (bgg complexity rating)
Yeah, Trismegistus is a bit of a beast for me. Both of these new games are in the low to mid 3s I think. This is a total guess on my part, but I'd peg Tekhenu at around a 3.3 and Tawantinsuyu at 3.6+
For me it very close. The things that start differentiating them for me end up being things like, "Which one will be easier to teach to more groups, and more casual groups?" I would say that Tekhenu would likely find its way to the table more frequently for a lot of people, but I honestly could go either way. I just depends on which I might be in the mood for more at the moment. I know that's a bit of a non-answer, but they really are that close for me.
You're in luck! I'm playing on Thursday June 25th at 12:00pm EST with Steph Hodge and Rainer from Board & Dice on the Virtual Con 2020 main event stream. Come check it out, and root me on. I'll need all the help I can get.
Really excellent video, just like the Tekhenu review! I was really torn, but decided on Tekhenu. This one looks really interesting, but I think the AP would completely overwhelm us. It also looks more complex than Tekhenu (as you confirmed in this video). I do think this one sounds really unique, though, and I’m sure it will be a hit with heavy gamers. It is interesting that you rate it higher than Jeremy and Ryan, because I recall you typically don’t like heavy games. Maybe it is your gateway into heavy gaming. :)
Thanks! I too was surprised by how much I took to this game. I'm not the "heavy gamer" as you know, but immediately after I played this for the first time, I really found a lot to like. I've played Tekhenu even more since then, and consider them both equally satisfying, but in different ways. I will admit that Tekhenu is likely to find its way to the table more often, just due to it being more digestible by more people.
That's what I call it anyway, but that could just be me. So, when a player chooses the secondary action of moving their High Priest around the center (Coricancha), they do they "initiate" the corresponding action, but other players at the table also get to participate--just to a lesser degree. For example, if I were to initiate the Conquest action that way, EVERYONE at the table gets to do the same action. BUT as the one who initiated it, I get to do it first, and then once more after every other player (two times to their one), and I'm given more flexibility in the associated costs with the action. I one way or another, this is how each of those High Priest actions operates. The person who initiates it gets to do it more, or more cheaply, etc. It's fun to anticipate what other players are up to, because you might see opportunities to increase your efficiency.
Wow! Very excited for this one! So sad to think of all the games we could have picked up at Gen Con early. Now we have to wait months for these games and also another year for Gen Con.
I'm not sure exactly when they'll be available, but I believe that Board & Dice has an online pre-order open on their website for both this game and Tekhenu. I think Tekhenu is supposed to be available in late July or early August, and Tawantinsuyu is slated for October.
Hmmm...I would probably have the give the edge to Tekhenu in that respect. All are very different games. Even though some share mechanisms from the same "category" of mechanism, they all do very different things.
Tekhenu has more in common with Tzolkin's "4 dimensional planning" aspect, which is more dominant, so it'll make it more Tzolkin-y. However, Tawantinsuyu has the "setting up a combo through several worker placements" and the "when to start moving up the tracks" feel of Tzolkin.
Great review David, really enjoyed it and loving the format. What are your thoughts on replayability? And the strategic vs. tactical balance? I'm most likely getting this and Tekhenu given how much I enjoy the T games, especially Trismegistus.
There are a number of different way to go about getting your points, so I would say replayability is higher because of that. This largely has to do with some of the more engine-buildery elements though. I've played games when I got a couple building synergies that made the tapestries particularly attractive, and I scored over 40 points at the end of the game with just those. In that sense, it can feel strategic when you identify a plan, and stick with it. But there is a massive tactical side as well for sure. The amount of things that might happen or change between your last turn and your next really forces you to pay attention to what other players are doing. Someone might move their High Priest, allowing you to follow that action. Then you find yourself with potentially different options than you expected on your turn. I would say it favors strategy a little bit. The tactical element has more impact on immediate changes you might make to your plan, but less on your longer term plans (if that makes sense).
Great review format. 1) What was the average length of a game? BGG says 60-120min, but I get the impression it lasted longer than that? 2) I love the different worker "types"; are there any other games off the top of your head that you'd recommend that also have a variety of workers?
Thanks! We're trying to produce most if not all of our reviews this way going forward, and plan to introduce "quick take" format as well. See my other comments for more detail, but I played at various player counts, so it varied. With that said, I've not yet played a game of this at more than 2 players that didn't take well over 2 hours. Keep in mind that some portion of players were learning in all of those games. So, other games with worker "types". One game comes to mind that plays NOTHING like this one, but has various types of "workers", and that's Five Tribes. Again, it's nothing like this, but if the idea of meeples of different colors having different powers interests you, then you should absolutely try Five Tribes. It's one of my all-time Top 10 games.
First foray? I've tried almost all of them I think, but I'm most taken with this and Tekhenu for sure. I probably need to give Teotihuacan another try.
@@meeple I have never tried any of this series of games... At one time a couple of years ago, had a chance to pick up T'zolkin but didn't know what it was, and that turning wheel thing looked like a gimmick so passed up on it 😅
Right?! I really like this one too. It's getting overshadowed a bit by it's Board & Dice brother Tekhenu, but I hope that more people get this to the table now that it's getting out into the wild.
Four. The reason that I rate it so high because of the amount of decisions that the designer put into the game. The board isn't pretty, but deciding your main action based on the God card you use, whether you chain off the meeples that are adjacent, the color meeple that you use...my head hurts now.
I love watching you guys, and you guys (and gal) definitely have more games played under your belt. So you probably have a lot more games to compare it to.
Both have a solo variant, but I haven't tried either. David Turczi kind of specializes in solo variants, so I imagine they're solid. From glancing at the rule book for the solo instructions, they seem like it represents a 2-player game with AI of sorts in the other player's spot. It doesn't do ALL the things the same as the player, and scores their points in a more abstracted way. When I try the solo for Tawantinsuyu, I'll share more. This is the first I've been interested in something like that.
I'll take this :) Tekhenu's solo mode is best described as "Teotibot, but simpler", and Tawantinsuyu's bot is best described as "Chronobot with more tie breakers" :)
I've been seeing some common questions about the "actual" length of the game, and realize that I probably wasn't as clear as I could have been. It's on the long side for a euro, and other games with some of the sames sorts of mechanisms. The box says 60-120 minutes, and I'd guess that 60 might be accurate for a very experienced player playing it solo. Once players have some experience with the game, a 3-player game should probably be in the 120-150 minutes range I think. Learning games with higher player counts are going to be 3+ hours in many cases.
Yup, can confirm. We've been playing solo games at 60, 2p games at 60-90, 3p-4p games at or just above 2hrs.
@@davidturczi5713 Alright, this is pretty darn cool! Thanks for commenting David, and BIG thanks for designing this game!
I just want to say Im from Peru (the land of the Incas) and I reallly apreciate your effort to pronounce the names correctly when even for peruvians are hard to say those names. Blessings :)
@@abejaranoblega I appreciate you noticing the effort. Thanks!
This is a great format btw. It feels tightly scripted and highlights the most pertinent facts and opinions to determine if I should buy. Especially lines like "only one *felt* long." That tells me exactly what I need to know. Well done!
Thanks Daniel! We appreciate the feedback. We're working on posting more reviews than we have in the past, and trying to approach them quite differently. It's always nice to hear that people are noticing that.
I agree with Daniel on every single point. Additionally its also all in a pretty short video. (helps when Im doing my yearly 'which games should I buy' thing wading through many games).
Your recent reviews in this format have knocked it out of the park and I actually look forward to them. This definitely seems like a game for me and I appreciate your take.
Awesome! Thanks for the comment. I'd say if you're a fan of med-heavy euros, it's certainly one to look out for.
This is a really well-written review. I also like that your background isn't just piles of games but other nerdy things to look at!
What can we say? We're nerds. ;) And thanks!
You guys make videos of great quality and are always an easy watch. Thank you for all your passion.
Thanks!
I really like the explanation of how to play, great balance of describing details as well as what it feels like to play the game!
Thanks Blayne! We're hoping that this new format is something everyone enjoys.
Fantastic review, David. Informative and so well written!
Glad you liked it. It's amazing how much we forget to say about a game sometimes, and doing our reviews this way helps. But I'm sure I still wish I'd made a few more points.
I really like this format. You and Jeremy put out a nice pair of reviews on the two T games. I mainly play at 2; any comments on that count?
I've played both at 2 on more than one occasion. I think they work alright, but I think both benefit from more players. With Tawantinsuyu specifically, the area majority feels less significant than is probably intended, but that's often the case with many games that have area control or area majority. My favorite player count in general is 3, and I think that holds true with this game as well.
Wow, I'm really hyped right now! In fact, both Tekhenu and Tawantinsuyu are in my wishlist for a long time. Saddly we can't buy the game here in Brazil, even with the huge free shipping worldwide thing that Board&Dice did this month because, well, because Brazil sucks.
They're two of the best euros we've seen this year. Board & Dice are really making the most of this crazy year that is 2020. It's always nice to get away from it all, and get to enjoy some great board games. Sorry about the Brazil thing. Maybe I'll set up a demo sometime in the near future on Tabletopia.
@@meeple Please, let me know. ;)
Same for India 😭
Fantastic review as always! Just curious to know couple of things:
Balance of the game, specially those cards?
Run away leader paradigm? As in opportunities to recover once you commit a mistake?
Is this more sandboxy than say Agra?
Excellent review... Regarding the length, I recently played it on tabletopia and can agree that it's very long... 6h including teach!! We could probably shrink that in half if we play on a real table with no teach, but still... We all wanted to play again though.
Wow! that is a long game. I've never had anything close to that, but I do agree that it's something I wanted to play again.
Another great review, thanks MvM! Really enjoy the mix of instruction and personal opinion both you and Jeremy have done with the two T games. One question I have for you on this one David, is there a preferred player count? On some parts it felt like there is scale while others did not.
Thanks for the compliment, and the comment. Regarding the player count and scaling, I have a couple thoughts. I said somewhere in the comments below that I think 3 is the sweet spot for me on this one (and Tekhenu), but that's also the case with me on just about any euro. Tawantinsuyu has two elements that I think may be the most affected player count. First is the fact that the following aspect of the Move Your High Priest action. Since it has the mechanic, the pace and the activity of a game with 4 players is just going to likely feel more robust than in a 2-player game. And second, the area majority element associated with the Conquest action is also far more intriguing at higher player counts.
With all that said, I've played this at 2 players a couple times at least, and enjoy that as well. There's still plenty of decisions and little puzzles to figure out, but just less on those two particular fronts.
@@meeple Another hard agree :) Almost all my favourite euros (and ones I designed) are best at three. It's the nature of their design: at 2p there is less people to make things dynamic, at 4p you only get a marginal increase in dynamism but a bigger increase in downtime. Can cite several Portugese, Italian, or Czech games :) Certainly true for all of my games :)
I love games like these. The core actions are simple (place workers/secondary actions), but with tons of depth tied to those simple actions.
It makes it a lot easier to teach too.
My only concern is on replayability/variability; as the board remains the same for all games. Granted, the starting cards and god cards play a major factor in this, but is that sufficient to make every game feel different?
Thanks for the comment and question. I've always enjoyed that approach to game design too, and it's definitely present in this one.
Regarding your question, there is another element that I failed to mention that can change things up each game. There is a separate Coricancha tile for variable setup. This is the area in the very center of the board where the high priests move around. The order of the high priest actions around the Coricancha will always remain the same, but this tile covers the Coricancha printed on the board, and allows you to associate each high priest action with a different section of the overall board. If I could share a picture I would, but I hope this makes sense.
@@meeple Your explanation makes sense, that's interesting! Some form of board variability is definitely good to hear. I hope future expansions capitalize on this (too soon to touch on this, perhaps); that being said I'm not a big fan of an entire new board (i.e. Concordia's/Ticket to Ride's approach)
Wow, this one looks really good. I saw Dice Tower review of Tehkenu and I"m not sure that's up my alley though this one intrigues me more because of the 'worker placement' and how the action are done to which workers you are using. This is one of my favorite aspects of some worker placement games like Anachrony and Manhattan project. I'd say that this one I will look forward to above Tehkenu at the moment.
Both are great, and while Tekhenu might end up being the slightly favored one by many, I tend to agree with you on the fun-factor of this worker placement. And even that is just a portion of this game. Speaking of Manhattan Project, have you ever played Energy Empire (sequel in name, but really quite different)?
@@meeple I've seen and was intrigued but never pulled the trigger.
@@Fighterfan69 PULL THAT TRIGGER! It's so good, that now that you have me thinking about it, I think I may play it this weekend.
That game length thing sounds potentially a bit like what I think Terraforming Mars suffers from, which is a player-controlled endgame (which is interesting in other aspects) that people will be hesitant to trigger unless they're absolutely sure they're winning, and the game drags on.
That is very much what I mean. Those experiences are a mixed bag. In most cases they are long, but often don't feel "too long" while you're playing them. With that said, I played a 5 player TM game once that was painfully long.
How would you rate it against Teotihuacan?
This is what I want to know
Personally, I can easily say that I enjoy both this and Tekhenu more than I do Teotihuacan. To be fair though, I've only played Teotihuacan a couple times. It just didn't grab me like it grabbed a lot of other people. On the same topic, I would say Tekhenu has more in common with Teotihuacan in terms of the "experience" of playing it. All are completely different games, but I'd more confidently say, "If you liked Teotihuacan, you'll like Tekhenu." Tawantinsuyu just feels different that those two.
@@meeple awesome comparison! Tawantinsuyu like many of my previous works (Dice Settlers, Rome and Roll, and to a degree Anachrony itself) are all put together as "how can the most weirdly-fitting mechanisms create the deepest, choice rich environment". Teo and Tekhenu are much more driven by Daniele's elegance, whereas I tend to prioritize depth of choice above elegance to a certain degree.
@@davidturczi5713 Which is why Dice Settlers, with the expansion, is such an amazing game that needs more love and attention!
Thanks for this very informative review. I have one question though, to help me decide if I should get myself a copy: I read in your reply to a comment, that you played it at two players. So, how does Tawantinsuyu scale? I mostly play with my partner only and unfortunately there are some, actually great games, losing it for me, due to kinda quirky/restricting 2-Player rules. Would you recommend this one for (mainly) two player games? Thank you for your honest opinion!
The game plays well at two, but shines more with 3 players. As I've said with many euro games though, 3 players is generally my favorite player count. I would say that if you play mostly at two players, but might sometimes get it to the table for more than that, it gets a recommendation from me. :)
Great review! I am very curious at what game is behind your shoulder, which looks like it has pictures of mythical gods on the cover (like Anubis?). Does anybody know?
Thanks for the comment, and question. That game is Flick of Faith. It's a Crokinole inspired dexterity game from Awaken Realms, and it is a blast!
I love the Look of Trismegistus, but i dont think i'd be able to wrap my head around it. What complexity would you say Tekhenu and Tawantinsuyu is (bgg complexity rating)
Yeah, Trismegistus is a bit of a beast for me. Both of these new games are in the low to mid 3s I think. This is a total guess on my part, but I'd peg Tekhenu at around a 3.3 and Tawantinsuyu at 3.6+
@@meeple Allright, think ill preorder Tekhenu. it looks very good :D
Do you still like it more than Tekhenu or has your opinion changed?
For me it very close. The things that start differentiating them for me end up being things like, "Which one will be easier to teach to more groups, and more casual groups?" I would say that Tekhenu would likely find its way to the table more frequently for a lot of people, but I honestly could go either way. I just depends on which I might be in the mood for more at the moment. I know that's a bit of a non-answer, but they really are that close for me.
Lets see a playthrough video! I actually kinda like the player controlled end game. Kinda like the dark eclipse variant in Teotihuacan.
You're in luck! I'm playing on Thursday June 25th at 12:00pm EST with Steph Hodge and Rainer from Board & Dice on the Virtual Con 2020 main event stream. Come check it out, and root me on. I'll need all the help I can get.
ManVsMeeple thanks for letting me know, I’ll be there. Hooray for working remotely!
Really excellent video, just like the Tekhenu review! I was really torn, but decided on Tekhenu. This one looks really interesting, but I think the AP would completely overwhelm us. It also looks more complex than Tekhenu (as you confirmed in this video). I do think this one sounds really unique, though, and I’m sure it will be a hit with heavy gamers. It is interesting that you rate it higher than Jeremy and Ryan, because I recall you typically don’t like heavy games. Maybe it is your gateway into heavy gaming. :)
Thanks! I too was surprised by how much I took to this game. I'm not the "heavy gamer" as you know, but immediately after I played this for the first time, I really found a lot to like. I've played Tekhenu even more since then, and consider them both equally satisfying, but in different ways. I will admit that Tekhenu is likely to find its way to the table more often, just due to it being more digestible by more people.
Great review!
What I did not quite get is the "follow" mechanism. How does that work?
That's what I call it anyway, but that could just be me. So, when a player chooses the secondary action of moving their High Priest around the center (Coricancha), they do they "initiate" the corresponding action, but other players at the table also get to participate--just to a lesser degree. For example, if I were to initiate the Conquest action that way, EVERYONE at the table gets to do the same action. BUT as the one who initiated it, I get to do it first, and then once more after every other player (two times to their one), and I'm given more flexibility in the associated costs with the action.
I one way or another, this is how each of those High Priest actions operates. The person who initiates it gets to do it more, or more cheaply, etc.
It's fun to anticipate what other players are up to, because you might see opportunities to increase your efficiency.
@@meeple Thank you.
Wow! Very excited for this one! So sad to think of all the games we could have picked up at Gen Con early. Now we have to wait months for these games and also another year for Gen Con.
I'm not sure exactly when they'll be available, but I believe that Board & Dice has an online pre-order open on their website for both this game and Tekhenu. I think Tekhenu is supposed to be available in late July or early August, and Tawantinsuyu is slated for October.
Teotihuacan comparisons aside, which one is the better pick for Tzolk'in fans?
Hmmm...I would probably have the give the edge to Tekhenu in that respect. All are very different games. Even though some share mechanisms from the same "category" of mechanism, they all do very different things.
Tekhenu has more in common with Tzolkin's "4 dimensional planning" aspect, which is more dominant, so it'll make it more Tzolkin-y. However, Tawantinsuyu has the "setting up a combo through several worker placements" and the "when to start moving up the tracks" feel of Tzolkin.
Great review David, really enjoyed it and loving the format. What are your thoughts on replayability? And the strategic vs. tactical balance? I'm most likely getting this and Tekhenu given how much I enjoy the T games, especially Trismegistus.
There are a number of different way to go about getting your points, so I would say replayability is higher because of that. This largely has to do with some of the more engine-buildery elements though. I've played games when I got a couple building synergies that made the tapestries particularly attractive, and I scored over 40 points at the end of the game with just those. In that sense, it can feel strategic when you identify a plan, and stick with it.
But there is a massive tactical side as well for sure. The amount of things that might happen or change between your last turn and your next really forces you to pay attention to what other players are doing. Someone might move their High Priest, allowing you to follow that action. Then you find yourself with potentially different options than you expected on your turn.
I would say it favors strategy a little bit. The tactical element has more impact on immediate changes you might make to your plan, but less on your longer term plans (if that makes sense).
Great review format.
1) What was the average length of a game? BGG says 60-120min, but I get the impression it lasted longer than that?
2) I love the different worker "types"; are there any other games off the top of your head that you'd recommend that also have a variety of workers?
Thanks! We're trying to produce most if not all of our reviews this way going forward, and plan to introduce "quick take" format as well.
See my other comments for more detail, but I played at various player counts, so it varied. With that said, I've not yet played a game of this at more than 2 players that didn't take well over 2 hours. Keep in mind that some portion of players were learning in all of those games.
So, other games with worker "types". One game comes to mind that plays NOTHING like this one, but has various types of "workers", and that's Five Tribes. Again, it's nothing like this, but if the idea of meeples of different colors having different powers interests you, then you should absolutely try Five Tribes. It's one of my all-time Top 10 games.
Different worker types: Argent the Consortium, Paladins of the West Kingdom, Keyflower... those
Come to mind
@@johnathanrhoades7751 ... and Anachrony? :) I do get inspired by myself sometimes....
>can score points during setup
man that is quite the next level of euro AP
There really are very few moments when you're not thinking about what you need/want/can do next...and SO many points.
Great review, Dave. This is a balanced take on the game. 😀
Thanks!
Another stellar review!
Thanks!
When will it be retailed in Germany?
I'm not certain, but I would imagine around the same time as in the US, which is October/November.
@@meeple thanks mate
Great review and this is an insta buy for me... First foray into the T-Series
First foray? I've tried almost all of them I think, but I'm most taken with this and Tekhenu for sure. I probably need to give Teotihuacan another try.
@@meeple I have never tried any of this series of games... At one time a couple of years ago, had a chance to pick up T'zolkin but didn't know what it was, and that turning wheel thing looked like a gimmick so passed up on it 😅
@@technoleo9 Jeremy is a HUGE fan of T'zolkin. I've only ever played that 1 or 2 times, but it IS a solid game for sure.
Just played this game this evening. Really liked the game, but boy does my head hurt!
Right?! I really like this one too. It's getting overshadowed a bit by it's Board & Dice brother Tekhenu, but I hope that more people get this to the table now that it's getting out into the wild.
I think this might be my top game of the year. I'm amazed at the thought process that went into designing this game.
@@blackboardgaming5348 Wow! It's not my top game for 2020, but it could be in my Top 10. At what player count did you play it?
Four. The reason that I rate it so high because of the amount of decisions that the designer put into the game. The board isn't pretty, but deciding your main action based on the God card you use, whether you chain off the meeples that are adjacent, the color meeple that you use...my head hurts now.
I love watching you guys, and you guys (and gal) definitely have more games played under your belt. So you probably have a lot more games to compare it to.
This or Tekhenu for solo play?
Both have a solo variant, but I haven't tried either. David Turczi kind of specializes in solo variants, so I imagine they're solid. From glancing at the rule book for the solo instructions, they seem like it represents a 2-player game with AI of sorts in the other player's spot. It doesn't do ALL the things the same as the player, and scores their points in a more abstracted way. When I try the solo for Tawantinsuyu, I'll share more. This is the first I've been interested in something like that.
I'll take this :)
Tekhenu's solo mode is best described as "Teotibot, but simpler", and Tawantinsuyu's bot is best described as "Chronobot with more tie breakers" :)