This week we tried a game that has been sitting in my ThoughtHammer.com wish list for months: Egizia. In Egizia the players are builders constructing the famous monuments of Egypt. Each player manages three main resources: food, bricks, and laborers. There are also three main building areas on the board: the Sphinx, the obelisk and graves, and the great pyramid and temple. The game only lasts five turns, but each turn is busy with the players gathering resources, increasing their laborers, and finally building. One interesting dynamic of the game is how you gather resources and set your plans for building. You have eight ships that you place along the Nile at various points. Each of these points either grants you a special card and/or grants you a special ability. The twist is that once you place a ship, your next ship must always be downstream of your previous ship.
We began our game and it was obvious that none of us knew exactly what we should be doing. Building at the Sphinx earns you a few victory points and grants you cards that earn you bigger points at the end of the game under certain conditions. So not only do you need to earn points during each turn, you have to be mindful of what points you can earn at the game’s end. When the game was over we decided that the Sphinx cards are very important to winning the game…as Ben and Owen showed us by their point scores.
We liked the game and want to try it again now that we have an idea how everything works. Ben won our game with 105 points. Owen was a close second with 100 points. I was a distant third with 87 points and Mike the Builder came in last with 79 points.
Chaos Steve