Date: 12th September 2014
Game played: Five Tribes ( Days of Wonder ) BGG Id: 157354

After Pathfinder, I pulled out the new Days of Wonder game from Bruno Cathala, Five Tribes. This is an excellent game where a relatively simple rule set hides a fascinating brain burner of a puzzle game. There are eight different ways of scoring points, the board set up is different every time and the board changes every turn so this is one where you have so much to weigh up that analysis paralysis could be a real issue. It wasn't too bad for us although we were still taking a while over our turns but I could see Guy's head exploding with the number of things to take into account.

The game, however, is one where you can't do everything and focussing on a few things where you don't have much competition can be beneficial. Steve went for goods early on and this can yield lots of points at the end. However, I messed him up a couple of times by taking goods that he needed and I actually ended up with a longer set of goods than he did. Mark G made an early play for the yellow viziers so I decided to completely ignore them. I grabbed a couple of early 10 point Djinns but we all went for these at some point during the game. However, as the board started to empty of meeples, I made really good use of the red assassins and allowed me to place all eight of my camels, ending the game. And it was the camels that made the difference as I scored 60 points from those alone and ended up with 161 total, which was 31 ahead of Steve in second place. I see this getting a lot of play and it is one of my favourites of the year so far.

 
Player
Rating
Score
Position
Winner
Garry
8
161
1
Steve
8
130
2
Mark G
9
128
3

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