Five Tribes

One of the places we went over the long weekend was up to Fantasy Flight Games to have some lunch (and coffee) and see what we could play.  Eryn was all over Alhambra again which we've played every time we go.  It's a good game, and I think we play it every time we play at Kyle's as well.  I won, but based on longest contiguous wall which is something I never do.  It was all backwards.

Five Tribes was on Table Top which is why I think Eryn picked it to play.  Now that I've played a game I'll have to watch that episode again to see what I think of their playing.  It took us a round to figure out what we were doing, but after that we had a lot of fun.  It's basically a 5x6 grid with three random meeples on each square.  When you play, you pick up the meeples in one square and drop them one at a time without immediately backtracking or going diagonal.  The last meeple you place determines the color of the meeples you pick up (all of them of that color).  Additionally, there's an action on the square (an oasis or palace worth points, a market worth goods that are worth points, and a genie which you can buy with certain meeples which is worth points and has special actions).  And, if you clear the last of the meeples off a square, you can claim it with your camel and.....score points.  That's 95% of the game.  The rest of it is half mancala and half chess and watching how all the bits interact to take advantage of the combo you're working.

This is a strange angle on my wife's part, but here's Eryn working the board.

From our scores, you can see we each took a slightly different approach.  I focused on genies.  One of them allowed me to procure additional genies, and one of those genies allowed me to steal one of the white meeples when I assassinated it, which allowed me to buy more genies.  It was a nice little feedback loop.  My wife focused on the yellow meeples (ten points for each person you have more than) and a land grab (the camels).  Eryn focused on money and palaces.  She gave  me a few points at the end which pushed me just past my wife for the win.  She was very annoyed.  Great game - I'd consider owning a copy - definitely worth repeat play.