1951: Terra Mystica

We gave another new board game a go today — Terra Mystica. This was a game I had heard of but didn’t know much about, so I was interested to try it, particularly as I understood it to be a fairly well-regarded game.

First impressions were daunting. It comes with an absolute ton of very nice quality wooden components, stuff to punch out and a rulebook that makes the game look a lot more complicated than it actually is. Once we were underway, though, all became fairly clear, and the game started to take shape. By the end of our “practice” game, we were all agreed that it seemed to be a very good game indeed, and we liked it enough to play it for a second time this evening — a rare occurrence for us, since we usually hop from game to game for a bit of variety.

Terra Mystica is a strategy game focused on empire-building, with pretty much nothing in the way of luck and only a slight degree of randomness in the initial setup. Taking on the role of one of a number of different factions, it’s your job to lead them to victory by amassing the greatest number of victory points by the end of six rounds of play, each of which allows all players to keep taking turns in sequence until no-one has anything left to do (or everyone has chosen to end their input this round, at least). Interestingly, and unlike a number of other vaguely similar games, victory points are not necessarily attained for everything you do throughout the game; each round has a specific bonus condition that allows you to earn points for building specific things, and there are a number of randomly selected “bonus cards” that are in play throughout, with one player taking a different one each round.

Instead, the main bulk of your points comes from two sources at the end of the game: the area your empire covers in geographical terms, and your influence with the four main religions of the game world. In both cases, there’s a hierarchical scoring system: first place gets a ton of points, second place gets a few less, third place gets a few less still, while anything below that gets nothing. Ties aren’t broken; instead, two or more “tiers” of points (according to how many players are tied) are added together then the resulting total divided between those people who are tied; this generally means that everyone involved still gets a reasonably significant amount of points, but it works out slightly less than what they would have had in the case of an uncontested victory. It’s an interesting system.

What’s interesting about the scoring is that it forces you to prioritise on every turn. Although the first-place bonuses are significant and will probably make the difference between winning and losing, a couple of playthroughs makes it clear that taking aim for the bonus points available on at least some of the rounds is very important to get ahead, too. And it’s here where you need to start building your more advanced structures and setting up various “engines” to produce the various resources you need to continue progressing.

Pleasingly, the game isn’t overly complicated, though; there’s a sort of “tech tree” of buildings that denote the order you’re allowed to build and subsequently upgrade them, and a system for “terraforming” the world into your faction’s “home” terrain type, but aside from that it’s mostly about wisely picking the areas you control and choosing the right buildings to ensure you’re generating the resources you’ll need each turn. Mechanically, it’s quite simple; the challenge factor, however, comes from the application of these mechanics to come out ahead while simultaneously making life a little difficult for your opponents.

There’s not much in the way of direct conflict — you can’t attack each other, for example — but as with any sort of area-control game, there’s an element of getting in one another’s way. Interestingly, though, there’s an incentive to build close to one another, since someone building or upgrading adjacent to your structures allows you to take one of the resources you need in exchange for victory points. As the game progresses, the map gradually starts to take shape in very interesting ways, with factions carefully building around one another, attempting to put themselves in an advantageous position while trying to limit their opponents’ room to manoeuvre.

It’s a good game, and because it’s mechanically fairly simple I find it somewhat less daunting than something like Agricola and, consequently, feel like with a few more attempts I might even be able to win it, maybe, possibly. (I didn’t win it this time around, but I didn’t come last in our last game, either.) I’m actually quite looking forward to trying it again; it seems like a good time, and likely one that will hit our table fairly regularly.