Author Topic: The Great Zimbabwe  (Read 3388 times)

Offline Hounk

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The Great Zimbabwe
« on: June 15, 2017, 03:35:10 AM »
I mentioned already in Decar's new review index thread, that I want to feature this game, so here we go. There's a caveat, though with this game (and any other by Splotter, a Dutch company run by the designers), I want to mention upfront: they do quite small printruns and go OOP notoriously fast. TGZ was reprinted last autumn, yet it was already OOP at publisher level, when I ordered my copy a couple of months ago. At that time, as of now, it is still easy possible to get a copy from several retailers of BGG's "GeekMarket", for around 70~80 € which is the normal price, you would pay at the publisher's site as well, and imho very reasonable considering, what great a game you'll get. This might and probably will change within a few months to double or tripple the price and take several years till the next reprint. So if this review peaks your interest, I'd rather get the game sooner than later.

In TGZ you are playing the kings of different tribes in pre-colonial Africa aiming at building the most impressive monuments for the renown of their tribe and god and to become an UNESCO World Heritge Site in the future. :) Building these monuments, as well as educate craftsmen, who make the ritual goods needed for raising the monuments will reward you with victory points, and at the start of the game, everybody needs 20 to win the game. The very special twist on this game is, that to build monuments, you must first gain some knowledge, in the form of cards. There are so called "specialist", which let you for example breed cattle (the main currency of the game) or place new resources onto the board. There are several gods, you can choose from to worship, for a rulebreaking special power and finally there are the different technologies you need as requirement to place your craftsmen on the map. Each of these cards will increase your reputation and therefore the expectations of your and the other tribes in your leadership. In game mechanics this means, they will raise your "victory requirement" (VR), 20 VP will not be enough anymore, it can go up to 40 VP! (As a fun twist, there is one "easy going" god, you can potentially choose, who gives you no special ingame benefits at all. But he will lower the expectations in you, so you need actually 2 VP less to win the game.)


Scoring track and tiles for the turn order auction; picture from BGG by Game Junkie Canales

Gameplay gets pretty deep and thinky, in particular during the last few rounds, but the rules are really simple, intuitive and straight forward for such a "heavy" game. Each round starts with an auction for player order, in which the player who bids most for going first (normally) has to pay something for the player last, while the ones in between often pretty much break even. All cattle spend in the auction are distributed among the players, nothing goes back into the bank. This felt to me mindblowing unique and not making much sense at first glance, but it is a straight forward and easy to apprehend mechanic, which really works out nicely and gets an important part of the game. At first, the only benefit of first player is getting first pick on the cards, which still can be worth it to spend a little, but not overspend it. But because the resources you need to make the sacred goods to upgrade your monuments are very limitated, it gets HUGELY important in the end game.

In the main action phase you can (optionally) pick a specialist or god card, (optionally) use one or more of your specialist cards) and choose one of three main actions:
1) Place a new monument: Straightforward, 1 VP for free. You can place it on any space on the board, that is empty and not (orthogonal or diagonal) adjacent to another monument.
2) Raise up to as many of your monuments, as you can afford by one level: monuments grant you significant more VP the higher they get. 1 VP for level one, 3 VP for lv two, 7 VP for lv three, 13 VP for lv four and 21 VP for (the maximum) lv five. You need sacred goods delivered to your monuments to raise them, and they have to be different from level three onwards. So you will need (your own or somebody else's) craftsmen to do so. And you have to pay them for their goods one to three cattles. (This is set by the "owner" of the craftsman, and the cattle goes back to him or her at the end of the turn.)
3) Place craftsmen: This action can be taken to increase the price of your craftsmen's goods (from 1 or 2 cattles to 2 or 3), but only one of the gods allow you to ever make them cheaper again (even on turns, where you take one of the other two actions)! Also you can take a new technology card (increasing your VR!) and most important placing new craftsmen (increasing your VP, and potentially granting yourself a revenue in cattle and you and your fellow players options to increase their monuments.


Game in progress with sample technology cards in front, including their "price tag" of one, respectively two cattles; picture from BGG by Derek Lee

These are not all the rules, but most of them, and I think sufficient to get an idea of the game. Now what makes the game imho special enough to justify the high price? At first there are the two truely unique and sweet mechanisms: the way the auction for turn order works out and the "Achilles and the tortoise" resembling way, you are running with your VPs behind your VR.

Then, the board is highly modular and will grant different paths to optimize each game. There is one starting tile and 10 other tiles, you will form a board of with a random subset of tiles (depending on player count 3 to 8 plus the starting tile) in 4 different possible orientations. This is the same in "Food Chain Magnate", another very fine (and more famous) game by the same company. While I like both games, I would still recommend TGZ over FCM as a starter, because it is "less cutthroat mean". (You will still feel achieving at least something, building your monuments when loosing, while with FCM it is possible to end the game with $5, never getting your business to run.) Also distances are important in this game, and some of the spaces are water, on which you can not built anything, but which are considered one space for distance in case of orthogonal adjacency to other water spaces. And it makes a big difference in setup, if several of these areas form a big lake or river, or not.


2 player game with comparable few water spaces and player aid in front (very useful, as it condenses pretty much all the rule on a small sheet!); picture from BGG by Alessandro Celestini

Replayability is ramped up further by the gods. There are 12 different in total, but only 8 of them in each game. And their rulebreaking powers are huge! African tribes had been in general monotheistic. This is represented in the game in that way, that you can choose only one of them and have to stick with him or her for the rest of the game. So you must play accordantly to make most use of the choosen one, and potentially reduce the use for others of their gods, to play successfully. Still the game seems to be playtested to exhaustion, and while some powers might be more obvious in their usability then others, it is considered perfectly balanced at BGG.


Sample of gods; picture from BGG by Joris Wiersinga, co-designer of the game

The artwork is also gorgeously looking, and very thematic, resembling true native African art. I played the game 3 times to date with different groups, and while not everybody was equally impressed with the game, there were several players, who too found it truely amazing, and acclaimed it half an hour into their game for it's intriguing and unique, yet clean and easy to grasp design.

Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=3401.0
« Last Edit: June 15, 2017, 06:12:57 AM by Hounk »

Offline Decar

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Re: The Great Zimbabwe
« Reply #1 on: June 15, 2017, 04:39:04 AM »
Sounds like an interesting game Hounk!  Thanks for taking the time to describe it here - I hope you can share a few pictures when you have time!

Offline Hounk

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Re: The Great Zimbabwe
« Reply #2 on: June 15, 2017, 05:04:07 AM »
I don't own a digital camera, so I can't make pictures myself. There are a lot in the gallery at BGG, though. So I might use some ot them, giving credits to the people, who made them.

Offline dirk2112

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Re: The Great Zimbabwe
« Reply #3 on: June 15, 2017, 05:08:08 AM »
I watched Rahdo's run through.  The game looks well done and because of how the water is variable based on the tiles and which Gods are purchased, it appears like each game will play differently.  Good review Hounk  :(y)


Offline Hounk

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Re: The Great Zimbabwe
« Reply #4 on: June 15, 2017, 05:52:49 AM »
I now updated the review with a few pictures, like suggested. Thanks dirk2112 for the video link!

Offline Decar

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Re: The Great Zimbabwe
« Reply #5 on: June 15, 2017, 05:54:37 AM »
wow looks as interesting as you described it  :(y) :(y)

Nice pictures  ;D ;D

Offline jungleboy

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The Great Zimbabwe
« Reply #6 on: December 17, 2017, 06:46:56 AM »
To hijack the thread a little bit, here is the jungleboy/junglegirl podcast episode about Great Zimbabwe (the place, not the game), from our recent visit:

And some photos. Unfortunately we didn't have a sunny day.





« Last Edit: December 17, 2017, 06:49:42 AM by jungleboy »

Offline franks

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Re: The Great Zimbabwe
« Reply #7 on: December 17, 2017, 07:50:42 AM »
This is starting to look like Zimbabwe Central!!  :)

Hounk, nice write up. Looks like there is a lot going on but wouldn't take long to get a hang of the game basics.

jungleboy, nice photos from your visit!
Franks

Wanna play Carc? Can we add just one more expansion?

Offline Hounk

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Re: The Great Zimbabwe
« Reply #8 on: December 18, 2017, 12:48:08 AM »
If "game basics" mean rules, then yes absolutely. I'd say, rules complexity lies somewhere in between "Carcassonne" and "Castles of Burgundy", not in the range of other "heavy" games like "Great Western Trail". But to play it good is tricky, at least for me. In fact, I've quite often lost against first time players, with several games of experience, which is quite unusual in a "no luck game", but also indication, that it can be picked up pretty fast. I most time was able to see my failure a turns in advance, and even able to name, what I did wrong. In which case it was always something different! Often a butterfly will raise a hurricane in this game. But for me, it is tremendous fun to play, even if I suck at it.

Thanks @ JB for the "hijack", these pictures are awesome!


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