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Euphrat & Tigris (Tigris & Euphrates) Designer: Reiner Knizia Times Played (3 four-player games) Initial Impression Hardly a new game, and one with a pretty big reputation, but I have played it only a few times – a feature shared with most of the 100 or so games I own – so it still feels pretty fresh to me.
The game combines several established mechanisms of the genre – tile laying, resource management, deep thought and no dice – with some new and substantial ideas. So what do we get in the box? Straight away a reassuring weight: lots of tiles; nice wooden cubes in a variety of shades; thick wooden disks representing each player’s leaders; nicely shaped wooden pieces which fit together to form a set of two-coloured monuments and flimsy cardboard screens a la Modern Art to hide each player’s holdings in tiles and victory points. The largish board has a square grid superimposed on a pleasantly atmospheric topographical depiction of the desert and the two eponymous rivers. Nothing too eye-catching, and quite rightly so, since the board will soon be covered with tiles, which need to be the main visual focus as the game progresses. (I understand that in more recent editions the board design is quite different, I haven’t seen it, so I cannot comment.) The aim of the game is to develop the most balanced civilisation in four separate spheres: trade, fishing, religion and population. Each player has four leaders which specialise in each of these areas, a priest, a trader, a fisherman and a king, and also holds a secret hand of six randomly drawn tiles, which are regularly replenished after use. Through various combinations of leader and tile placement victory points are gained – in the shape of the coloured cubes. A player’s turn consists of a couple of actions and will see some combination of leader and tile placement and the occasional swapping of tiles if current holdings do not match a player’s requirements. The game has the winning combination of being subtle to play while being relatively easy to learn. Rather than go through the rules, I will concentrate on some of the key mechanisms that make this such an original title. Like many other aspects of E&T, victory is calculated through an elegant device. At the end of the game players will have gained a variety of wooden cubes in the four colours. The player whose lowest total in these four categories is higher than any of the other players’ lowest totals wins the game – hence the requirement to build up a balanced holding. It is no good if you have beaten all of your rivals hands down, for example, in dominating the fishing industry, if you have only picked up a handful of green trading cubes. There are also ten white ‘treasure’ cubes to be picked up, which also act as a game timer. These can be used as wild cubes to boost your smallest category. Tile play is central to the game. These have several functions. As well as forming the geography of the emerging kingdoms on the board, they are also played from the hand to resolve conflicts – either helping you to oust your rivals or to defend your holdings. So, for example, a player can add green tiles from behind his screen to defend a green leader under attack on the board. In this way there will usually be some element of uncertainty when an attack is announced. The conflicts are probably the most difficult aspect of the game to teach to newcomers. The rules are not complex, but the concepts are certainly unusual, and possible unique. There is no Risk-style die rolling here! Conflicts centre around leaders and kingdoms. The easiest one to handle is the civil war, sparked by a leader placement action, where one leader will try to oust a similar leader within the same kingdom. In this case the only tiles which matter are the red temple tiles, which can be used in both attack and defence. There are some red victory points to be gained here, but not many. The other conflict can occur when two kingdoms are joined by a tile placement action. These conflicts can be quite complicated affairs, as similar leaders in the now amalgamated empire must fight each other for the right to retain their positions. Each leader will be supported by tiles of the same colour and, in the case of large holdings, quite a few victory cubes can be gained by the winner, while tiles will also be removed from the board by the loser. The other major influence on victory points are the monuments. These begin to appear in the middle game, when the kingdoms have developed into large enough entities to support such a drain on manpower. Once built, each of these churn out a regular supply of victory points, in two colours, to whichever player or players have the appropriately coloured leader in that kingdom. There are many other things to think about. The king has some extra powers which can allow it to gain different coloured victory points in certain circumstances; fishing tile placement is limited to river squares; players can play catastrophe tiles to disrupt the plans of opponents… basically, there is a lot going on. Adding to the confusion, unlike many German games, there is limited intelligence as to the relative position of the players. Only the most dedicated counter can keep track of who has the most balanced holding in victory points, and often the perceived leader is the one who has been the most aggressive but, as a result, actually possesses an unbalanced mix of cubes. And so the game progresses. Wandering leaders set up shop in some God-forsaken corner of the desert, small settlements gradually develop along the riverbanks sparking a few internecine struggles for power. Eventually monuments are built and region-spanning wars break out as the end of the game approaches. Unusually for a Civilisation game, this is not about each player developing their own kingdom in competition with others (although this is one possible strategy). Rather, it is about competing families of leaders, who can roam the region, settling in kingdoms where they can build up their own power bases, either aiming to settle permanently in one place, or engage in a few hit and run raids. Often several players will coexist quite peacefully in the same kingdom, pursuing independent interests. E&T is a deep game. It is easy to stare at the board for quite a while, searching for that optimum placement. Also, because the layout of tiles can change dramatically during a round, it is not always possible to plan ahead with precision while other players are taking their turns. In the games I have played this has not been a problem, although I can imagine in groups cursed with the presence of overly thoughtful players this could lead to frustration. Also, a related feature is that E&T is probably more of a tactical rather than a strategic game. The varied nature of the hands of tiles available from one turn to the next will reward players who can think on their feet as opportunities arise. Pursuing a fixed strategy can often come unstuck if the appropriate tiles do not come to hand. This is certainly not a criticism, merely an observation. So there we are. An undeniably abstract game but one with enough atmosphere to make the theme seem more than something tacked on to help the in-house artist come up with an appropriate box cover picture. It is a sophisticated design where everything works – often in more than one way – with a wide range of routes to victory and where an experienced player will have a definite edge over a newcomer – marking this out a game of skill. The rules can be a little difficult for new players to grasp, particularly in the relationship between different coloured leaders and the different types of conflict, but this is the price you pay for playing something which avoids tired mechanisms. I suppose it is possible to be hampered by poor tile draws, but I suspect even this can be overcome with a flexible approach. This really is a high-class piece of design from Dr Knizia and fully deserving of its reputation as his most impressive piece of work so far. Rating 9
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The game tackles a favourite theme of
game designers, both of the board and computer variety; the rise and fall
of ancient civilisations. Fortunately E&T has a unique flavour (as far
as I know), so do not think that if you already have History of the World,
Civilisation and Vinci supporting one of your bookshelves you can do
without this one. For fans of Germanic board games in general, and Reiner
Knizia in particular, this is an essential purchase.