I’m a big fan of Carcassonne and always smile when people on the internet get a kick out of saying negative things about it, because it’s one of the best games that I’ve ever used to introduce folks to the wonderful world of board games. When I saw that Mesopotamia (Mayfair and Phalanx Games, 2005 – Klaus-Jurgen Wrede) was designed by the same person, I was certainly interested. Seeing the extremely cool tiles – basically hexes with some interlocking parts had me even more intrigued, so I was glad to receive a copy of it.
After my first playing, I was quite happy – as the game was very easy, enjoyable to play – and allowed one the feeling of accomplishment; as they moved their pawns around, accomplishing different tasks. On subsequent plays, I was slightly less impressed, as the variety of strategies isn’t as great as I would prefer. One has to follow a specific path, and the lack of resources in the game forces part of the game to become a race, and a lucky one at that. I like the different options, and Mesopotamia works well enough that I wouldn’t turn down a game of it; but it’s not something that I would ask for or desire to play often. It’s interesting and fun, but the replayability is low.
A group of tiles is set up on the board, according to a reference card in the game, with a “Holy Place” marker in the middle, and each player places a hut and three tribe markers on the board. Players also receive four more huts, five more tribes, four offering markers (numbered “2”, “4”, “6”, and “7”), and a few holy place markers of their color. A pile of resources, wood and stones, is placed near the side of the board, and a deck of eighteen card is shuffled and placed near the board. Each player receives a “Mana scale”, to keep track of their mana points and places one marker to show their current amount (starts at “0”), and another marker to show the maximum amount of mana they may accumulate (starts at “3”, can go to “8”). The remainder of the tiles are shuffled and placed in stacks face down on the table, and a temple marker is placed on the central holy place. The oldest player goes first, with play proceeding clockwise around the table.
On a player’s turn, they conduct three phases. In the first phase, they move their tribes on the board. A player has five movement points, using one movement point to move a tribe one adjacent hex. They may split the movement between their different units. Other things a tribe may do are as follows:
- They may NOT move through a volcano hex.
- They may carry one wood, one stone, or one offering as they move.
- They may steal wood or stone from an opponent, as long as the stealing player has more tribes in the hex than the tribes being stolen from. This can only be done once a turn.
- They may deliver one stone to the temple. By doing this, the stone is removed from the game, and the player’s maximum and current mana is increased by one. A player cannot increase their mana more than eight but can still deliver stones to increase their current mana.
- They may discover new lands by moving off a tile onto the table. A new tile is flipped over and placed there, and the player’s tribe is moved to the new tile. If a player flips over a volcano tile, they instead place it anywhere, and then flip over a new tile. If a player draws a forest or a quarry tile, they take one matching resource for each player in the game and place it on each matching tile on the board. (For example, if Sam flips over a forest tile in a four-player game, he must place four wood tokens on the board on four different forest tiles, if possible).
- They may deliver an offering chip to the temple. The tribe moving into the temple flips the offering chip over and pays Mana points equal to the number on the chip. The offering is placed near the temple, and the tribe who delivered it is removed from the board.
In the second phase, a player must choose one of the following actions:
- Draw a card.
- Population growth: A player may add a new tribe to a tile in which they have an empty hut and at least two tribes.
- Build a hut: A player may build a hut on a plains tile in which there is one or less hut already (of any color), two of their tribes, and one wood resource. The wood is discarded, and the player adds a hut AND an offering counter face-down underneath the hut. Players may build more than one hut a turn, if they can.
- Erect a holy place: A player may build a holy place on an empty plains tile, which has two of their tribes and one stone resource. The stone is put back in supply, and a holy place of that player’s color is placed on the plains tile.
In the third phase, a player gains one mana point for each of their own holy places, if they have at least one tribe there; and one mana point for each opponent’s holy place, if they have at least two tribes there. The mana is adjusted accordingly, although it cannot pass that player’s maximum.
Cards affect the game in a variety of ways, allowing players to have more movement points on a turn, increase their mana, steal mana from an opponent, teleport a piece, look at the draw pile of tiles, and more. Play continues until one player has delivered all four of their offerings to the Temple. At this point they win the game!
Some comments on the game…
1.) Components: As usual with Phalanx and Mayfair, the components are of the utmost quality. The cards are laminated, high quality, and the stones are – well, real pebbles that add a bit of flair to the game. The wooden tribes are hexagonal wooden pieces, which while lacking theme, helps to explain why any two of them can produce offspring. The wooden sticks, temple, and huts also add a lot of eye candy to the game. The tiles are the most striking feature – with their interlocking feature – causing them to look slightly like jellyfish. While this helps keep them together in place, it does cause some confusion as to which side borders which side. The artwork in the game, done by the great Franz Vohwinkel, is absolutely fabulous, and adds a bit of the Mesopotamian theme to the game. Everything fits inside a nice custom made plastic insert, and the box shows another rather striking illustration. Say anything else about the game – it will catch people’s attention.
2.) Rules: The rulebook is six full color pages with nicely formatted rules, although no examples are included, which might have been nice. Still, there is a VERY nice foldout that shows an illustration of all of a player’s possible moves. This was a great addition to the game and caused us to never go back to the rules; we simply looked at the card. The game takes about five to ten minutes to teach and is understood fairly well by teenagers.
3.) Stones: After one terrible mistake in a game, I now admonish all players to realize the importance of increasing their Mana. In fact, it is honestly critical that a player not put this off. If a player dallies at all doing this, they may find themselves in a situation where there are no stones left, and they haven’t increased their Mana high enough to deliver their “7” offering. A player who can’t do this is effectively out of the game. I find this a small flaw, as players must rush to increase their mana as fast as they can, decreasing the strategy of the game. A player simply cannot afford to take a chance that the others will leave enough stones for them. Stones are used to erect holy places, increase mana, and are frankly much more useful than wood, so the fight for them is fierce.
4.) Interaction: From reading the rules, I thought that the interaction in the game would be higher than it actually was. In the games I played, stealing was only done a few times, in desperate circumstances (usually involving stones). I’m glad that this is in the game, although I would have liked to have seen it more. A few of the cards allow players to interact with one another, and the race to get resources is surely interactive; it just wasn’t enough for me.
5.) Options: It is fun, however, deciding what to do. Once you’ve gotten your crew underway, increasing your mana, what should you do next? Multiply your tribes? Build all your huts? Deliver your offerings as soon as you can? The game is essentially a race game, and players will have a lot of fun, as they try to make the best decisions per turn.
6.) Luck and Fun Factor: The game is a bit too much lucky in some ways, because it’s very frustrating to need a plains tile and turn over three forest tiles in a row, or vice versa. Also, some of the cards are clearly better than others, having three extra movement points is better than getting one Mana in most circumstances. However, I felt that for a game this light, the luck was fair enough, and a clever player just learned how to deal with the ever-growing, ever-changing board.
7.) Replayability: It seems like the same strategies and tactics kept resurfacing in our games, and the importance of getting one’s Mana to at least seven seemed too important to skip. Each game was remarkably similar, which I think will hurt replayability in the long run.
In short, while I enjoyed my playings, I’m not sure that there’s enough here to make Mesopotamia shine out from other games. It’s fun and light but feels like it should have more strategy and tactics than it really does. Beautiful components, excellent rules, and a breezy, relaxing game will cause this to appeal to many. The lack of replayability and strategic options bring it down slightly for me.
Tom Vasel
“Real men play board games”
www.tomvasel.com
