25 years already since Tigris & Euphrates was released, and the game has not aged a bit- which is absolutely remarkable when you see the explosion of games we have had during all these years.
Players build civilizations by placing tiles. Players have four different leaders: agriculture, trade, religion and government. Leaders are used to collect victory points in these same categories. However, your score at the end of the game is the number of points in your lowest category, which encourages players to not be too specialized. External conflicts occur when civilizations connect on the board, and only one leader of each type survives such a conflict. Leaders can also be replaced within a civilization by internal conflicts.
Tigris & Euphrates is therefore a game of territory development (kingdoms) and war.
The flow of the game is very simple: on their turn, a player may take 2 of the 4 available actions (the same action can be performed twice):
1. Place a tile (there are 4 different colors)
2. Place or move a leader (one leader per color)
3. Place a catastrophe (2 times maximum per game)
4. Exchange tiles (you always have 6 in your hand at the beginning of your turn and can do this if you are not satisfied with your tiles. Rarely used because it uses an action, which is quite risky since you have no guarantee that the new tiles will be better.)
Each time a tile of a given color is placed on a realm where a leader of that color is present, the player who holds the leader in question scores 1 point of the color (so logically and most of the time we will place the tiles where we have leaders).
So far so good. But as you cleverly guessed, all players play all colors. In other words, everyone has a leader of each of the 4 colors. And what happens when 2 leaders of the same color end up on the same kingdom? Well, they hit each other.
And here comes one of the specificities of the game which has not aged a bit: there are 2 different types of conflicts, which give completely different results. Depending on whether you enter a conflict because you "parachute" a leader of color x onto a kingdom where there is already another leader of the same color, or whether you enter a conflict because two different kingdoms (but ruled by a leader of the same color) come into contact following the placement of a tile, the way you settle the conflict (and the victory points you get from it) will be quite different.
It is enough to make you think twice!
In addition, you can build a monument (if you form a square with 4 tiles of the same color), which will give extra points at the end of the round for the leaders with the colors of the monument (bicolor). Plus the fact that you can use the 2 catastrophe tiles to break an existing tile (and mess up someone else's kingdom for example). And that you can get treasures during the game, i.e. victory cubes placed at the beginning of the game, which are jokers (=the color of your choice) at the time of the final count. And, last but not least, the winner will not be the one who has accumulated the most victory cubes, but the one who has the most cubes in the least good color (as a reminder, there are 4 colors), which will forbid de facto strategies like: "ok I develop everything in green, I am the king of green, I beat everyone and I explode everything". Instead, it will force a balanced and varied strategy.
But there is more to it than that. The game really makes you feel the rise and fall of kingdoms and rulers. The way kingdoms expand and are then devastated, the way rulers can succeed and then fall to their rival dynasties, it all has an epic feel. The game feels abstract, but that is partly because it makes little effort to hide its mechanics. It does not try to connect everything to a thematic point. It is only when you examine why things are done the way they are that you see those little touches that make the game richer.
Tigris & Euphrates departs from a ton of established dogma in European games. There are no victory points as such. It is not really an efficiency game, since a hot start will often be rendered null and void by the end. The board can be very dynamic and change in a single move. And the tile draw is relentlessly inconsistent, depriving players of the colors they need at the worst possible time. It is strange that these qualities have not been much emulated in the years since its release.
Again, this is not an easy game to solve. It doesn't reveal its mysteries quickly, and that pays off with the game experience.
You can try the game now by clicking on the link below (we offer a few variations, and both normal and advanced boards), from 2 to 4 players:
https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?ga ... seuphrates
We would like to thank Dr. Reiner Knizia and his team for their kind permission to port the game to Board Game Arena and Z-Man Games for letting us use their art.
All the adaptation work was developed by thenmal, and if the whole thing is rather sober, it should highlight the mechanical qualities of the game whatever device you use. Thanks to him for this great adaptation!
That's it for today, the summer calendar continues to deliver its daily releases,
don't forget to click on each square, each day, between two dives in the water (we know it's not summer everywhere, but it's hard to realise when you have your feet in the water)!*
**
Take care and play well!**
兩河流域:由 Reiner Knizia 原創的必玩佳作。
自《兩河流域》發行以來已經 25 年了,而且這款遊戲還沒有衰退的跡象——當你看見這些年來遊戲數量爆炸式增長時,這絕對是個了不起的成就。
玩家們通過放置板塊來建立文明。
玩家有四個不同的類別:農業、貿易、宗教和政府。
這些產業用於收集這些相同類別的勝利點。
但是,遊戲結束時的分數是採用玩家最低類別的分數,這鼓勵玩家不要過於專注發展同一個產業。
當文明在棋盤上相互連接時,就會發生外部衝突,而每種類型中僅有一個領導者能在這樣的衝突中倖存下來。
領導者也能在一個文明中被內部衝突所取代。
因此,兩河流域是一款關於領土(王國)發展和戰爭的遊戲。
遊戲流程非常簡單:輪到該名玩家時可以採取 4 個可行動作中的 2 個(或者同一動作可以執行兩次):
1.
放置一個板塊 (有4種不同的顏色)
2.
放置或移動領導者(每種顏色一個領導者)
3.
放置一場災難(每場遊戲最多 2 次)
4.
交換板塊(在你的回合開始時,你的手牌總是有 6 個板塊,如果你對自己的牌不滿意,可以這樣做。
最好謹慎使用,因為它佔用了一個動作,這是非常冒險的,因為你不能保證新的板塊能夠更好。)
每次將指定顏色的板塊放置在存在該顏色領導者的領域時,持有相關領導者的玩家將獲得 1 顏色分數(在邏輯上和大多數情況下,我們會將板塊放置在我們有領導者的地方)。
到目前為止一切都很好。
但正如聰明地的你所想,所有玩家都會玩過不同顏色。
換句話說,每個人都有 4 種顏色中每種顏色的領導者。
當兩個相同顏色的領導人最終進入同一個王國時會發生什麼事?
對,他們會打起來。
這是遊戲的一個特點,也從來沒有發生任何變化:兩種不同類型的衝突,導致了完全不同的結果。
取決於玩家是否因為將特定顏色的領導人“降落”到已經有另一個相同顏色領導者的王國而發生衝突,或者是在你放置板塊後兩個不同王國(但由相同顏色的領導人統治)而進入衝突,你解決衝突的方式(以及從中獲得的勝利點數)將完全不同。
是足以讓你三思而後行的!
此外,你可以建造一座紀念碑(如果你用 4 個相同顏色的板塊組成一個正方形),這將在回合結束時為具有紀念碑顏色(雙色)的領導者加分。
再加上你可以使用 2 個災難牌來破壞現有的板塊(例如,搞亂別人的王國)。
並且你還可以在遊戲中獲得寶物,即
在遊戲開始時放置的勝利方塊,在最終計數時是百搭的(=你選擇的顏色)。
而且,最後但並非最不重要的一點是,獲勝者不會是積累最多勝利方塊的人,而是那位擁有各自不同顏色中數量最少但跟其他玩家比較後最多的人(提醒一下,共有 4 種顏色),這將禁止直接性的策略,例如:“好,我用綠色開發一切,我是綠色之王,我打敗了所有人,我征服了一切”。
相反地,它將強制採取平衡和多樣化的戰略。
但不止於此。
這遊戲可以真正讓你感受到王國和統治者的興衰。
王國擴張然後被摧毀的方式,統治者成功但然後落入敵對王朝的方式,這一切都具有史詩般的感覺。
遊戲感覺很抽象,但這是因為它很少努力隱藏其機制。
它並不會嘗試將所有內容與主題聯繫起來。
只有當你檢查為什麼事情會如此發展時,你才會看到那些讓遊戲變得更豐富的小細節。
底格里斯河和幼發拉底河背離了歐洲遊戲中大量既定的教條。
沒有這樣的勝利點。
這並不是真正的追求效率遊戲,因為壯大的開場後通常會在最後變得空虛。
棋盤可以是非常動態的,並且在一次移動中發生許多變化。
並且板塊抽籤是無情的隨機性,在最糟糕的時候也不會給玩家所需的顏色。
奇怪的是,自發布以來的這些年裡,這些內容並沒有得到太多效仿。
同樣,這不是一個簡單易解的遊戲。
它不會很快揭開它的神秘面紗,而是逐漸在遊戲體驗中得到慢慢回饋。
你現在可以通過點擊下面的連結來嘗試遊戲(我們提供了一些變體規則,包括普通和高級版),支援 2 到 4 名玩家:
https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?ga~...~seuphrates
我們在此感謝
Reiner Knizia 博士和他的團隊允許我們將遊戲移植到Board Game Arena和Z-Man Games ,讓我們使用他們的創作品。
所有的移植工作都是由thenmal開發的,如果整個事情順利,它應該會突出遊戲的品質,無論你使用了什麼樣的設備。
感謝他精彩的改編!
今天就是這樣,夏季日曆繼續發布其每日發布,
不要忘記每天在水中潛水之間點擊每個方塊兩次(我們知道現在不是到處都是夏天,但是當你的腳在水中時很難意識到)!
保重,玩好!