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Gentes is an interesting civilization game with an innovative timing mechanism.
"Gentes" is the Latin plural word for greater groups of human beings (e.g., tribes, nations, people; singular: "gens"). In this game, players take the role of an ancient people who are attempting to develop by building monuments and colonizing or founding new cities in the Mediterranean sea.
The game is played in six rounds, each consisting of two phases: action phase, and tidying up. There are three eras — rounds 1-2, 3-4, 5-6 — with new monument cards entering the game at the beginning of rounds 1, 3 and 5. Each player has a personal player mat with a time track for action markers and sand timer markers. In the action phase of a round, the players take their turns in clockwise order, conducting one action per turn. Each action requires an action marker from the main board that is placed on the time track. Depending on the information on the action marker, you have to also pay some money or take sand timers that are placed on the time track. When you have no free spaces on your time track, you must pass for the remainder of the round. Therefore, the number of actions per player in a single round may vary significantly if, for example, you choose double sand timers instead of two single ones or take action markers that require more money but fewer sand timers. Single sand timers are dropped in the tidying up phase, while double sand timers are flipped to become single sand timer markers and stay for another round. The actions are:
Buy new cards from the common display
Build monuments (playing cards from your hand to your personal display for victory points and new options)
Train/Educate your people
Build/found cities
Take money
To play a card, you must meet the requirements printed on that card, such as having specific persons on your personal board (e.g., two priests and four soldiers). These requirements are why training — i.e., getting specific people — is important, but that is not that easy because there are six different types of people — three on the left and three on the right side of your personal player board — and you have only six spaces in total for the two types in the same line. If you have three merchants, for example, you move your marker for counting merchants three spaces toward the side of the soldiers and thus you have only three spaces left for soldiers. By educating a fourth soldier and moving your soldier marker forward to its fourth space, you automatically lose one merchant because that marker is pushed back to its second space.
It is crucial to generate additional actions by using the specific functions of monuments in your display and cities you have built. Cities are expensive, but they create benefits at the end of each round or provide new options for taking an action without acquiring an action marker, gaining only a sand timer marker instead.
Try to have a steady income to avoid wasting actions to take money. Pay attention to the display of common cards, which is new in every single game, because the monument cards are shuffled randomly within the decks of eras I, II and III. Collect identical achievement symbols on the cards to benefit from the increasing victory points for a series of symbols. Build cities to enlarge your options!
The differences between the Deluxified and regular edition:
Includes "New Cities" Expansion
A foil stamped box
6 oversized meeples
24 normal sized meeples
89 metal coins
28 wood action tokens
21 wood lock tokens
60 wood hourglass tokens
4 dual layered player boards
4 custom shaped score tokens
folded space custom insert
1 drawstring bag
1 upgraded round token
Ages | 12+ |
---|---|
Players | Solo, 2 Players, 3 Players, 4 Players |
Play Time | 90m – 90m |
Designer | Stefan Risthaus |
Mechanics | Action Point Allowance System, Card Drafting |
Theme | Civilization, Ancient |
Publisher | Game Brewer, Spielworxx, Tasty Minstrel Games, Maldito Games |
bubblepipemedia
Not a bad game at all. A few years ago probably would have stayed in my collection a short while. But there’s so many great games out there. This one is a pretty simple game that ends up being a bit too complicated for what it is or needs to be. I’d recommend Concordia or Council Of 4 instead. In the end I doubt I would want to play this again, but I’d be happy to play it with friends who were really set on playing this game (though I’d probably suggest another game first). (Played deluxe version)
baschleicher
Pure euro game with a bunch of interesting switches and levers to give some tough decisions. I love the time component in addition to the cost for all of the actions. The choice between spending more of one or the other really makes for some thinky turns. It also plays super fast and although I haven't tried to teach it yet, it seems like a reasonably easy to convey game.
Bobekistan
Pro's 1) The time vs efficiency vs cost mechanic of action selection is magical. The game does a great job of giving you these amazing decision spaces that don't seem especially complicated but add a lot of tension and brain burn. 2) The art, graphic design and general aesthetics are gorgeous. Choice of colours, the artwork depicting people doing various civ things on the cards + the big tree that shows the threads of generations are very evocative. Bonus if you have the TMG deluxified edition. 3) You never feel quite like you have enough time to do everything you want to do or need to do. As result every action has a weight to it. However, a lot of this is mitigated by the game giving you multiple ways to do the action you need to do. The question then becomes, how do you both plan and tactically deal with this while competing AND having the necessary engine to generate the points you need. 4) In a multiplayer game you will commonly find yourself kicking yourself for not taking the first player marker. This is because the most efficient actions or the ones you ABSOLUTELY needed could easily be taken from you. Makes the gameplay more engaging. 5) Replay value is high, particularly if you throw in solo mode. I feel I have only scratched the surface when it comes to game mastery. I struggle to see how people get those high point scores the rulebook suggets as the good plays. No doubt there is waaaaay more to explore. Con's 1) This is going to trigger the AP players. It can be very hard to see all the elements together and how they relate to your strategy. Furthermore, if the efficient actions get snapped up, you may spend time trying to figure out how to get yourself out of the hole. 2) Theme, setting and feedback doesn't really come through as far as representing generations of a civilisazation. Unfortunate, given that the designer's previous game: Arkwright was quite thematic despite it's heavy euro pedigree. 3) I do wish the game didn't emphasize the cards/buildings to the degree it does. Everything kind of builds towards getting the right combination to keep your engine alive, but also makes sure you can get those big scoring buildings at the end of the game. If you don't know this is coming, you'll be completely screwed and wont have any hope in scoring the points you need.