Bored? Game! – Five Tribes

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Bruno Cathala is having a productive year with no less than seven releases to his name (including Abyss, which we will also be reviewing), and amongst them is this little gem. Five Tribes, a break out hit at this year’s Gen Con, is one of those games that has pretty simple core mechanics, but putting those into practice leads to an incredible range of strategic decisions and nuance. The ancient city of Naqala is lacking a Sultan, and you play as one of a number of enigmatic strangers who have arrived to fulfil a prophecy and take his place. You’ll do this by manipulating the five tribes, represented by different coloured meeples (wooden people) that are scattered randomly over the board at the beginning of the game.

You may have heard of the worker placement mechanic, where figures are placed on the board to gain actions, well this is a worker removal game. The board itself is made up of a randomly arranged 5X6 grid of tiles, each with one of a number of special actions (depending on whether it’s a market, an oasis, a cave etc). So that’s 90 meeples scattered over 30 tiles.

As the game progresses and the meeples thin out, planning your moves ahead becomes ever more important.
As the game progresses and the meeples thin out, planning your moves ahead becomes ever more important.

On your turn you’ll pick up all the meeples on one square and walk them across the board, dropping one off at each space you pass through. When you drop the last meeple off, you pick up all meeples of matching colour from that space (there has to be at least one other) and take the action associated with its colour. Green meeples are merchants, and let you take a number of goods cards from the market equal to their number (these are made into sets and turned in for money); blue meeples are builders and allow you to collect money based on the number of blue marked squares around them; white meeples are elders and allow you to buy powerful Djinn cards; yellow meeples are viziers and score you points (the player with the most getting a bonus; and finally the red meeples are assassins and allow you to kill meeples off other squares or elders and viziers in front of players (these get increasingly powerful as the game progresses and the board thins out). If you empty a space of meeples through using its action or via an assassin, then you immediately place a camel on it to mark it as yours and it earns you points.

There are 9 different resource and selling a complete set nets you a ton of points.
There are 9 different resources and selling a complete set nets you a ton of points.

The random set up of tiles and meeples and the Djinn cards (which introduce really interesting game breaking bonus powers) ensures an infinite variety of plays, but the game essentially comes down to skill and planning. Central to this is the clever bidding system that determines player order. Each round players bid 0-18 coins to place themselves on the turn order track. But since money also equates directly to victory points, this is often a very difficult decision. Desperate to go first? Well the only guarantee is to bid the maximum amount, or risk bidding high enough that your opponents don’t jump ahead. But if you bid too much other players will just bid zero and watch you throw away your lead. As the game goes on and players settle into different strategies dependent on different coloured meeples, different actions become more or less valuable to each player, making the bid for turn order a vital game of bluffing and second guessing in its own right. Even if you’re sure the other players don’t want to take the same move as you, it’s entirely possible that their move will mess up your plans, or that they’ll clear out the market (which only gets refreshed at the end of each round).

As the game goes on and players settle into different strategies dependent on different coloured meeples, different actions become more or less valuable to each player, making the bid for turn order a vital game of bluffing and second guessing in its own right.

Aside from getting your head around the extremely original and yet elegantly simple core mechanics, you’ll make three startling realisations whilst playing Five Tribes. Firstly you’ll realise that you can use current moves to set up future moves, seeding certain spaces with the right coloured meeples (and if you manage to get two goes in a row, bidding for last place and then first place on the turn order, you can make some incredibly powerful combos); secondly, you’ll realise that you can use moves to scupper the plans of your rivals; thirdly, you’ll realise that you can set up tempting lures for your opponents to redirect them from moves you want to make. Then your head explodes with the possibilities.

The combination of original gameplay, quick play time, balanced and multiple paths to victory, complex strategising and deep, yet simple mechanics makes this hands down the best game I have played this year, a testament to Bruno Cathala’s current top form.

five tribesDesigner: Bruno Cathala
Publisher: Days of Wonder
Mechanic: Bidding, worker removal, combo building
Number of Players: 2-4 (Best with 4)
Complexity: Light-medium


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