Queen Games Peter Prinz Thebes - Game

Genuine product, price is decent. Gameplay is great, we've only played at 2 players, but I'm sure it will work at higher player counts as well. The "dig" has a big luck element which can be frustrating for the person losing sometimes. Check board game geek to see if this is your type of game.

"12 Weeks!? It'll take that long?"If you want to find a treasures you seek you are going to have to spend the necessary time excavating."But is there any treasure left? My competitors have already picked over those ruins..."The legends say some significant treasures were buried there that haven't been unearthed."But I feel my chances are as good as, as good as... as drawing coins out of a cloth bag and most of them will be blank! I'd rather spend time hob-knobbing with senators..."If the shoe fits...Gameplay:In this game you can hop around between a couple of grand cities in Europe during 1900 for a few years. What are you doing in those cities? recruiting helpers, gathering rumors, and studying books about ancient ruins in the Mediterranean and North Africa. That's all board-game-theme-speak for set-collecting. It costs time in weeks to travel and each card you pick up at one has a cost in weeks. The cooler to card, the longer it takes to get it.While most of your collecting is to build your count of books of a certain color, you can also visit the senate meeting in each city. The more of those you attend the more points you get at the end.For those who would rather be in the dirt, you can take your books to the old country. Each set of ruins has it's own cl+-oth bag that has cardboard coins that are either blank or have pictures of treasures on the each with varying point values. The first to get to each site is sure to get at least one treasure, but after that it's a matter of luck. Each player has a spiffy dial that reminds me of Ralphy's Little Orphan Annie Decoder ring only it's much larger and made of sturdy cardboard. It may be meant to be like the medallion that got scorched into the hand of that evil nazi in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Anyway, you turn the dial for the number of the books you've got and then it tells you have many disks you get to draw from the cloth bag, depending on how many weeks you choose the stay for the expedition.There are legends (read: cards) that tell how many pointer coins are in each bag. But be warned, each person who draws from the bag puts the blanks back in, so it becomes less likely that you'll draw out the remaining counters on subsequent visits. Usually more than four visits to a location dries it up.The turn order is interesting in this game, depending on who has spent the least time in the game, get to have a turn. kind of like Patchwork.In addition to finding treasure, you can show them off at exhibitions. These are periodic and temporary opportunities to show of combinations of treasures found from various ruins. This gives another avenue to score points, adding to the multiple paths to victory.Once the number of years have passed, you count up who has the most books of each color, granting more points and see who wins.BalanceNo player has a distinct advantage over the other, each can be rewarded with luck or smacked by it when treasure hunting. But as there are so many other ways to score points, this luck factor is mitigated. Making it fun to jaunt down to the old countries and see what comes of it.InteractionThere are only four cards showing things that can be had in the European cities, sometimes the selection isn't great or people take what you want before your turn. But it's also a race to see who gets the best pickings at each of the sites. Is it worth the time to get the books that count as any color? Should I go down now even though I don't have the optimum amount of books? Should I visit another site or two while I'm down here? What will they do while I'm buried in my excavation?Down time:Turns are short and while your choices feel important you can only make one per turn. I haven't noticed much analysis paralysis while playing this game.I love the theme, love the multiple paths to victory, love that the game is easy to learn/teach. It's a game I'm delighted to have in my collection.Collateral Endorsements:My kids, ranging from 6 to 10, really like the game and have called for it often.

Fun thematic board game, which has balancing issues. Good bit of luck based gameplay which may be fun or frustrating for players.

Who doesn't want to be an Archaeologist find buried treasures in the early 1900s? This is a great family game for up to 4 players. First your wooden meeple archaeologist has to journey to various cites of Europe to acquire knowledge through collecting cards representing the 5 different archaeology dig sites. Every city you visit and card you collect with knowledge on, costs time in weeks and this is tracked around the outside of the board by your coloured marker. The player in last place always goes first so if an opponent has travelled say to Moscow from London and acquired a knowledge card with 3 books for Eygpt on, they will have used up 7 weeks of time, allowing the player in last place to move next and acquire a knowledge card. When you've collect enough knowledge cards (this can be specific to one of the dig sites or general knowledge or using rumour cards) you can move your meeple to one of the dig sites. The first person to each of the 5 sites receives a bonus artefact token worth 1 point. Next you decide how many weeks you're going to dig for and then look at a special wheel each player has that indicates how many tokens you can draw from the bag for that site. Now it's the best bit - there's a lot of luck here but great fun for everyone else as you reveal whether you've managed to find any artefacts, or ended up with a load of dirt tokens! Any dirt is put back into the bag for the next player to visit and you turn over your permission to dig card for the site just visited. You can't re-visit that site until your marker has passed week 52 and the next year begins. As the game continues, you'll carry on visiting cities to collect more knowledge cards or instead pick up other cards which will gain gain you additional points. These can represent lectures given or an exhibition held of your found artefacts. For the exhibition cards, you'll first need to have enough artefact tokens from at least 2 or 3 different dig sites before you can take one of these but they are worth either 4 or 5 extra points..The lecture cards are also worth collecting as the more you acquire the more points you gain, so if you can collect say 4 of these cards by the end of the game, you'll get 10 extra points. The game end after 3 years of time has been tracked around the outside of the board. The player with the most points wins! All the components are well made, the board is nicely illustrated and the cards are of good quality. The 5 bags with the artefacts and dirt tokens are great fun. All in all a great game that's not too long, easy to teach and suits all ages.

A terrific Euro-Style board game about archaeology.The game drips with theme and uses a unique time-based turn mechanism. Thebes takes place over a three year period (1901-1903) and each turn represents a single week. Each player can take a single action his/her turn. However, each action will cost that player a certain number of weeks to preform. For each week 'spent', the player moves his player marker forward along the game's calendar/turn counter that many weeks.So, if "player 1" spends "8 weeks" to do a certain action, he/she would move 8 spaces forward on the calendar. The key is the player who is LAST on the calendar actually get to go first! So, player 2 now has 8 weeks worth of actions he/she could do before "catching up" (or surpassing) to player 1 on the calendar. If player 2 does 9 weeks worth of actions, then player 1 is now last on the calendar and becomes the first player! This can go around and around and really make planning turns fun and interesting, especially with 3-4 players. It sounds weird and counter-intuitive, but it works!The central point of the game is to spend actions (weeks) travelling around Europe gathering cards that give you special knowledge and/or special abilities that will allow you a CHANCE (note: CHANCE) to have a successful archaeological expedition in one of five expedition zones on the game board: Egypt, Crete, Greece, Mesopotamia and the Holy Land. Once you think you have enough knowledge in one or more areas of the ancient world, you can go on an expedition to find priceless artifacts that are worth victory points at the end of the game!Now, here is the part of Thebes where the theme shines as bright as the sun.....and will drive other players MAD with frustration. Archaeological expeditions in Thebes consist of RANDOMLY pulling tiles out of a bag and hoping to find riches! Yes, the game is INCREDIBLEY RANDOM! Some players find this completely realistic and fitting perfectly with the theme of the game; others will want to flip the table in anger! Because the bags are mostly filled with BLANK tiles! Yes, you can go into an expedition, loaded for bare, and find NOTHING! Hence why the game loses a star in the ratings.Now, Thebes allows some mediation on the randomness. Your knowledge cards will have a number on them that gives you your 'knowledge level" of a particular archaeological region, to which you can spend weeks (actions) digging at that particular sight. Your knowledge level, plus the number of weeks you spend digging, are added together using a dial provided by the game called a 'time wheel" which tells you how many tiles you can pull from the bag. Spend more weeks digging, the number of tiles you can pull increases! However, you can draw blanks-literally! I have played games were players have repeatedly pulled 8-9 tiles from the expedition bags and come up empty.....MULTIPLE times!Some players loves this mechanism.....other loath it. Thebes is a great game, but a very, very....very RANDOM game. If you hate randomness, avoid this game. Otherwise, enjoy! I do....usually. :P

Thebes has good quality components and is visually appealing. It plays in about an hour, which is the perfect amount of time for a game with it's intended audience.This game is not for the serious gamer. Too much luck involved. Strategy, while required, isnt complex.It's a kids game. A serious gamer isn't going to like it. It's too easy to build an engine that will obliterate your opponents by focusing in on 2 colors and then drawing almost all the tiles in the bag.Kids are going to love the theme and the excitement of drawing tiles. The passage of time mechanic is a good one. But if your looking for a game adults would enjoy, with an Egyptian theme look elsewhere.