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The Great Zimbabwe
90m - 150m
2 - 5 Players
Ages 14+
This mechanic requires you to place a bid, usually monetary, on items in an auction of goods in order to enhance your position in the game. These goods allow players future actions or improve a position. The auction consists of taking turns placing bids on a given item until one winner is established, allowing the winner to take control of the item being bid on. Usually there is a game rule that helps drop the price of the items being bid on if no players are interested in the item at its current price.
Auction/Bidding
Play occurs upon a modular board that is composed of multiple pieces, often tiles or cards. In many games, board placement is randomized, leading to different possibilities for strategy and exploration.Some games in this category have multiple boards which are not used simultaneously, preserving table space. Unused boards remain out of play until they are required.
Modular Board
Tile Placement games feature placing a piece to score VPs, with the amount often based on adjacent pieces or pieces in the same group/cluster, and keying off non-spatial properties like color, "feature completion", cluster size etc.
Tile Placement
Variable Player Powers is a mechanic that grants different abilities and/or paths to victory to the players.
Variable Player Powers
Prehistoric
85.00
€
30 day low:
Out of stock
Search for:
Kickstarter – Gamefound
Board Games
Strategy
Family and Children
Party
Adult
Thematic
Ελληνικα Παιχνιδια
LCG
Arkham Horror: The Card Game
Marvel Champions: The Card Game
The Lord of The Rings: The Card Game
RPGs
D & D
Pathfinder
Gamebooks
Others
Accessories
Game Mats
Bags
Dice
Sleeves
Sapphire Sleeves
Paladin Sleeves
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Plunder boxes
Marvel: Crisis Protocol
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bcnevan
The Great Zimbabwe (TGZ) is a deep game that feels both fresh and familiar. For the familiar, it shares a number of aspects I like from both Brass and Caylus. With respect to Brass, this game incentivizes positive interaction between the players via resources being in supply. With respect to Caylus, this game allows players to obtain certain powers (e.g., god cards, specialists and technologies in TGZ; buildings in Caylus) and interfere with some of those powers (e.g., the tiers of craftsmen in TGZ; the provost in Caylus) in a way that allows for a fluidity to game's progression. But TGZ surpasses those designs due to its ratio of depth to rule set, and the variation in strategies from play to play. For a few of the fresh aspects, TGZ implements interesting wrinkles on turn order bidding and using VPs as a currency. Regarding VPs as a currency, by requiring a player to increase the end-game target VP upon gaining a power, TGZ finds a good balance between gaining power and remaining efficiently lean. Regarding the turn order bidding, by allowing for the various bids to be re-distributed among the players, TGZ adds a layer of strategy that isn't over complicated. As a whole, TGZ manages to interweave many interesting, yet fairly simple, sub-systems in a way that allows the spotlight to remain on the players and their actions. Aside from the constant need to check for resource supply, a player rarely struggles against the game. Finally, for better or worse, the players provide some balancing to the game. Thus, you will need all players fully engaged with the game state (and perhaps equally experienced). Under some game states, players will have to coordinate to stop one of the players from running away with the game (this typically shows up more often in lower play count games, like 3 players). If one player is not aware of what's going on, the remaining players may not be able to counter sufficiently. Luckily, the game is fairly short, so if one player messes up a session, the game is over even more quickly. Edit: One way to reformulate the above discussion regarding player balancing is that the game requires players to know certain counter moves. For example, players will need to know how to counter players that go for certain gods (e.g., Anansi) or other cards (e.g., The Herd)--this knowledge is gained through analysis and experience. The random god draw is the key. Depending on the set of gods, the counter moves can vary a bit in implementation each game.
aquariankate
Have only played two and three player games so far, thinking it will continue to improve / evolve at a higher player count.
behr77
After first play at 4P: a lot of elements to like about this game. Simple-ish rule set that lends itself to very interesting decision space. Turns themselves are very fast (if you discount AP) as you are only make 2 or so major decisions, but they have weight that really affects the rest of the table. Bidding for turn order is a mechanism I really enjoy, especially in an economy that is as tight as TGZ. In later turns, going last could mean you do nothing for a turn. The VR mechanism is very interesting and choosing the right time to sacrifice victory points is crucial as different gods and specialists become more or less powerful as the game progresses.