New Rule

The other day I enjoyed this one with my friends from high school, all back in town for the holidays. While not quite as avid about games as I, they were all stalwart members of our LAN group back then, and all certainly formidable gamers and strategic minds. It was my first time at the game, and their second.  The description excerpted from BoardGameGeek:

Everyone knows of the pyramids on the Nile - eternal monuments of a powerful and beautiful culture, that can still take our breath away. The pharaohs choose their sites, build their pyramids, and thank Amun Re and the other Gods for their bounty.

Each player wants, as pharaoh, to build the most pyramids. To accomplish this, he must first acquire a province, where he can trade and farm. With his profits, he can buy new provinces and building stones to erect pyramids. For all his actions, the player must make clever use of his power cards, and always offer appropriate sacrifices to Amun Re. Players must always keep their eyes on his goal of the building of the eternal pyramids or risk falling behind in points.

An empire builder in the classic sense and clearly centered around an “acquire-trade-build” mechanic, Amun Re walks a parallel path to old favorites like Settlers of Catan, but it is noteworthy in its incorporation of a multiple viable, balanced paths to success, similar to what you would see in a digital RTS. Many empire builders have options for the players that are all valid in certain circumstances, but Amun Re’s balancing is much deeper and more versatile than I have often seen in a board game… and  in a mere six game turns, too.

The game is divided into phases–bid, buy, sacrifice, harvest, and score. Of the fifteen provinces around the board, five are dealt out to be auctioned each turn. Players bid in a strikingly subtle bidding system: each province card has spaces corresponding to nine bidding amounts ranging from zero to more than thirty. Players lay a token on the province of their choice, at the amount of their choice. However, if a player lays a higher bid than another on the same province, the edged-out player cannot rebid on that province: they must bid on a different one. Similarly, you cannot change your bid either in amount or in province selection on your turn unless someone has overbid you. The bidding phase is over when all players have one province to themselves. What this produces is a complex system of bluffing and prediction, where players attempt to lay false claims to drive up the prices on favorite provinces while ensuring that they will be overbid and can move to the province they really want. It’s all about timing and gauging, weighing the price of certain provinces against what each player seems to be after. When I played, this is where I centered my strategy. In almost every round, I managed to force the other players to pay at least six coins for their territories while getting mine for free. And the beautiful thing is, no province is really worthless. There are viable strategies that can be employed with all kinds of different resources.

Provinces support farming and building, and no two are the same. Some support many farmers, some none at all, some support one but also support a free income each turn from the camel caravan trade, and so on. Every province can have as many pyramids as the player cares to build, and that’s where the majority of the points from from. Farmers are only good for money, which equates to power and favorable position in the later game, but doesn’t produce many points. Here again, opportunities abound for different attitudes towards the best way to make money and spend it, and numerous seemingly opposite tactics are equally lucrative.

But by far the most interesting facet of the game is the sacrifice phase. Every turn, after each player has bought their province and populated it however they see fit, players count out a secret amount of money from their hand. Simultaneously revealed, the combined total from all the players is that turn’s sacrifice to Amun Re. Players can hand in as much or as little as they like, including a special, reusable “-3″ card which actually pays them back three coins from the temple. But the sacrifice is a subtle process, and this is where those opposing strategies are made or broken.

Depending on the amount given him, Amun Re raises the river to one of four levels, and these levels directly correspond to how much gold every farmer earns that turn. If you have a lot of farmers, it’s in your interest to try to get the river to level three or four and reap a big harvest. But others are working against you for the same reasons. Remember that camel trade I mentioned? Those only produce if the river is at level one or two. Any higher and Egypt is rich enough to feed itself—your camels produce nothing. Additionally, the three highest sacrificers get boons from the god: first place gets three free items (farmer, building stone, or power card), second gets two, and third gets one. Toss in a few more gold than your neighbors, and Amun Re could give you enough free stones to build a brand new pyramid right then and there. And to round it off, the highest sacrificer gets to go first in the next round. You can go desert trader and try to keep the river low but write off the free stuff, go Nile farmer and shell out for all those expenses but gain boons and the first turn every time, you can go builder and hold off your power play to the second half (did I mention the game’s six turns are divided into two halves, between which all holdings are wiped clean except pyramids? Think about that…), or you can go gambler and try your luck with the power cards for a sneak victory. And these are just the most obvious strategic choices.

As you can probably imagine, this phase changes the whole equation. All your efforts in this and previous turns hinge on how high the river goes and how generous your neighbors are. I discovered too late the importance of this phase and came in second as a result, but if I ever get a chance to play again I’ll pay closer attention. As you can see, this game has a lot under the lid; I highly recommend it to all of a strategic-minded nature.

Tags: Game Criticism, General //