by Soledade
In a fantastic land players interact by building dwellings that give resources, trading houses that supply money and energy, temples for priests, strongholds or sanctuaries. All of these structures may only be built in your own faction's type of terrain. You must succeed on this demand by changing the type of terrain to the one that fits you and these changes would cost you from a few to a ton of resources to make!
Each player has its own faction with different abilities. They don't seem unbalanced at first sight, they only seem different to play with. Some are obviously more difficult to manage if one has no experience with the game. After knowing better they can represent a challenge within the game itself. Also because the interaction is based on small indirect things that aren't at all confrontational and so, it can be interesting to have yourself struggling to make good things with a different uneasy 'Ivy League' faction.
The novelty, mechanically speaking, is nothing. No news in Terra Mystica. Players adapt to what they have as an income and try to accomplish their goals using that. The basis is simple: make one of 8 possible actions. And they are really pretty simple to execute. The actions to take are mainly based in costs. Players want to get the best cost/benefit on each action and that's no news. The path that every and each player chooses seems to come from the benefit they get by making that choice. Each building gives something to its owner and the way they are built means a lot for the choices players are making: if I want to build a Trade House I have to upgrade an already built Dwelling. This means that I will get the benefits of the Trade House (money) but lose the benefits of the Dwelling (resources). Choices aren't that obvious because sometimes, depending on each turn or even a player's special ability, the equation is altered and so is the result of the choice.
Special actions are also a must in Terra Mystica. For those, energy gets important. One may say that there's something new in the supply mechanism of the energy but I really don't see the point on that. It's kind of like waiting for a wine to age or for some wheat to grow into food. But I miss the control on that. I feel that there is no real business there as I control only a few times during the game which is not enough for my needs when taking such a contender. You would want, in an optimum world, to secure all the energy you can in the available part of the tri-motor mechanism but that's too obvious. The tweak may be not to expend energy when you know you're getting some soon, but that's all. And not enough in my opinion. I would rather want something more related to timing strategy but controlable.
Also the priests and the cult tracks in the cult board are absolutely expendable. There's no need of that in the game. Cult tracks are only there for VP's at the end of the game and also, of course it counts for something, some important energy is given. But it's not a fun action to perform and, more important than that, it really gets annoying when players are able to save a huge quantity of priests that can be added to these cult tracks in the last turn of the game. This is by far the part or the game that I enjoy the least and it really, really, bothers me a lot.
In the end, and as a resume of what was supposed to be a simple commentary but turned out to be a large text, I like the game. It's very well structured and it adds a lot of alternatives to the players. The interaction is not obvious and direct, which I like, slightly remembering the key series of games from Richard Breese. Not that they are at all related, it's just the competitive feeling of the 'non existent' conflict. It plays in less than 2 hours, the pieces are great and the artwork, works as art, well enough. The player boards are very well done. On the bottom line there's the priests' board. Cult is everything in this board but it lacks interest and fun to the action. For a more detailed critic I would also say that there could be shovel tiles! Nothing big, I know, but with the ammount of material the game offers for 50€ why can't we get a couple of those instead of the ridiculous 100VP points markers?!
After Terra Mystica, Essen 12 is playing 'hardball' now. Keep them coming chef!
This started as a commentary and ended like a review(ish) text. That's why I've chosen to post it here in the review Forum. If for some reason you'd be interested in following other comments on other new Games from Essen, here they are: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/148839/essen-12-played...