Terra Mystica

Recently acquired into the club library for all our members to enjoy!

Players: 2 -5. Though a game of this weight of rules i recommend 3 – 4 at least until the players are very familiar with the rules.

Length: 30 min per player. (is it just me or are a lot of games using this guide line?) A little longer for new players.

Components: All good quality. Heaps of parts which i like in a game. Nice solid wooden pieces with a matte paint finish and the cardboard parts punched out with no trouble and all look great. The player parts were all sorted into size and had to be separated into bags for each player but there were plenty of bags provided and i came away with spares. (bonus!) There are english and foreign rules so you can read the one that suits you without the other getting in the way. The board is nice and bright with a fully printed back with all the factions lavishly displayed which is unusual as this will be rarely seen. Player boards are also good and covered in icons the the players will enjoy learning about as they may be confusing at first but are actually very intuitive.

my kind of game, icons are better than reading!

an average game will look like this about half way through.

Rules: I wont give a blow by blow of every rule but will try to convey a feel of the rules. Now how do i do this! My problem is this game “feels” like a whole lot of other games and i cant help but feel the designers were inspired by a few other popular games. When i play this game i am reminded of Eclipse, Setlers of Catan, Agricola and Puerto Rico.

Victory points are awarded for almost every thing you do in this game from having large area control at games end to even simple things like making a few upgrades on your player board. Seems to lend itself to multiple strategy’s which i will enjoy exploring.

Every round you take a tile that gives you bonuses, you use workers for building and upgrading, priests for upgrading and helping with devotion to the element cults and (probably this games defining feature) shovels for terra-forming surrounding terrain. You have to do this because your faction can only build on a specific terrain type. Gold, Workers, Priests, Shovels and Victory points are all resources in this game and that is pretty standard to alot of other games.

There are a few different actions you can perform and knowing the right action to take and when can be tricky. You have a terra-form/build action which is probably the most important but others like improving shipping so you can cross the river and increasing your terra-forming efficiency can also be important.

Buildings are important as the give you various income and are upgraded in a strict chain (dwelling>trade house>stronghold/temple>sanctuary) each give production of a certain resource or access to new actions or rewards. but as the upgraded building comes back to your player board you will have to make sacrifices in order to upgrade.

One last note on the rules is POWER! Another resource that i thought deserved a separate mention as it is this games unique and most powerful commodity.

POWER! is POWER!

The above picture shows your bowls of power and they start with a certain number in bowls 3 and 2. But you cant spend any until it gets to bowl 1 and to do that you need to gain power there a few ways to do this and once you realize how powerful power is you will find yourself doing this often. Whenever you gain power you move around the purple discs from 3 to 2 first then when 3 is empty from 2 to 1. Phew! now that’s done you can finally spend it. what makes it worth all this effort is that power can be traded in for priests, workers and money at any time during your turn helping with all the other actions in the game. You can also sacrifice power by removing some from bowl 2 to move the same number into bowl 1 to spend. A very drastic measure but might be just the thing to get you out of a tight spot and as power inst worth victory points you will find yourself doing this as the game wraps up.

Verdict: This is a great euro style game that combines a few favorites in unique ways and still feels fresh and new. Has a lot of variation and replay, there are 14 different factions that all have a certain play style.

Has a medium weight rules wise and the rule book can be a bit confusing but if you stick with the suggested first play steps you will find the game slowly reveals just how great and simple it can be. Not one for options paralyses as there is a lot that you wont know at the start and asking for an explanation of all the options can bog the game down and suck the enjoyment from it.

But if you are willing to set it up and dive in you will find that it that this is a beautifly crafted game that will keep you coming back for more.

I personally give it the presidents seal of approval and look forward to seeing it being played for many more meeting to come

Thanks, Eddie. Club President.