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900 Ratings - Board Game Rank: 2480 Strategy Game Rank: 1117

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Board Game Geek Reviews

6 out of 10
curtc
Update: I'm cooling on this after 2nd play. It's just incredibly restrictive. And offer very little wiggle room on opening plays. Gold is king early game. Since you don't know what scoring cards are going to come up each round, it's highly tactical. Maybe there's some groupthink, I dunno. Note to self: To salvage this, figure out how to mock up this: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameexpansion/350471/zapotec-quick-start Very clever game. Interesting tradeoffs between going early/late in turn order. First is good, last is good. Middle not so much. And you have influence over turn order position based on the number of the card you play, but cards are played simultaneously, so you have to guess a bit, kind of like bidding for checks in For Sale (or Turn The Tide). Interesting scoring opportunities both during the game and at game end. But oh boy is this game short! The game is only 5 rounds, and you play 1 card per round! That's literally 5 turns per player in the whole game! But the turns can be a bit more brain burny than many games of this length. I can imagine that experienced players could play this game in half the rated time.
7.5 out of 10
ILoseAtLife
I was impressed by Zapotec. The card system is quite interesting and makes you consider multiple aspects of the game at the same time (resources, building, initiative, and scoring). With so much to accomplish in so few rounds, decisions are tight. Scoring can feel a bit opaque at the start of a game (particularly with the pyramids), but as a game and the board state progress, this becomes clearer. Plays admirably fast.
8.64 out of 10
Geroid
It was really good fun. The cards remind me of how dice works in Coimbra, and the game feels like Tzolkin, but a thinky filler that takes less than 45 mins. Good setup variability too. Nice rules to depth ratio.

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The Zapotec were a pre-Columbian civilization that flourished in the Valley of Oaxaca in Mesoamerica. Archaeological evidence reveal their culture going back at least 2,500 years. Remnants of the ancient city of Monte Albán in the form of buildings, ball courts, magnificent tombs, and finely worked gold jewelry testify of this once great civilization. Monte Albán was one of the first major cities in Mesoamerica and the center of the Zapotec state that dominated much of the territory that today belongs to the Mexican state of Oaxaca.

In a game of Zapotec, you build temples, cornfields and villages in the three valleys surrounding the capital to generate resources needed for building pyramids, making sacrifices to the gods, and performing rituals.

Each round, players simultaneously pick a card from their hand to determine their turn order and the resources they collect. Players then perform individual turns and spend resources to build new houses, gain access to special abilities, make sacrifices to the gods and build pyramids. The played action card determines three important aspects of each player’s turn:

The resource printed at the top of the card determines the row or column to activate on the resource grid to collect income.

The icon in the middle of the card matches one of the nine properties of the building spaces on the map (one of three building types, one of three regions, or one of three terrain types). On their turn, players may build only on spaces that match that icon.

The number at the bottom of the card dictates the turn order for the round when the card is played.

At the end of the round, players draft new cards from the central offer, with the final undrafted card becoming the scoring bonus card for the following round.

After five rounds, players score points for pyramids, for their position on the sacrifice track, and for their ritual cards. The player with the most victory points wins.

—description from publisher

Ages	12+
Players	Solo, 2 Players, 3 Players, 4 Players
Play Time	60m – 75m
Designer	Fabio Lopiano
Mechanics	Area Majority / Influence, Open Drafting, Solo / Solitaire Game, Turn Order: Stat-Based, Hand Management, Simultaneous Action Selection
Theme	Territory Building, Ancient
Publisher	Board&Dice, Kobold Spieleverlag, Pixie Games, Maldito Games