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A Gaming Life
Board & Dice Announcement – Tawantinsuyu!
Say that 3 times fast.
I received an email from Board & Dice overnight with a cool new announcement! They keep coming with these things.
Yes, it’s Board & Dice with another unpronounceable board game name (though the picture shows that they obviously don’t think it is!)
Tawantinsuyu is the new game coming from the brilliant mind of David Turczi.
I can just see the pitch now.
Board & Dice: David! People are starting to figure out how to pronounce Teotihuacan! We need another weirdly named game, stat!
Turczi: They ain’t seen nothing yet.
Board & Dice: ooooooooooo
So all we have is a picture of the box cover (another beautiful design, by the way) and no picture of the actual game (even in prototype form).
We do have a description, though.
From the email (it’s Monday and I’m lazy):
“The great Sapa Inca Pachacuti called on his offspring to worship Inti, the Sun God, and to expand the Inca Empire as far as the llamas roam. With Chinchaysuyu, Antisuyu, Qullasuyu, and Kuntisuyu — four regions of the new empire — now ripe for conquest, the time has come for Pachacuti’s true successor to arise.
Gather your people from the villages and use their unique abilities to strategically place them where they can perform the greatest tasks for you. Climb the steps of the Sun Temple, reaping the rewards of your piety. Build structures that both nourish your people and provide you with benefits no other has at their disposal. Muster an army and conquer villages in the four realms of Tawantinsuyu. Prove yourself a worthy successor to Pachacuti and lead the Inca to glory!”
The email states that those of you who have figured out Teotihuacan will feel right at home, which sounds great considering how much I love that game.
Instead of a pyramid, you’re going to have a hill which has terraced sides and divided into five sections. On top of this hill you have the Coricancha, or the Golden Temple.
If you click on the Tawantinsuyu link above, you’ll go to the Boardgame Geek page that has a lot more information than the email does (good thing I checked before finishing this post!)
Another blurb:
On your turn, you must either:
• place a worker onto a location outside the Coricancha
OR, choose two of the following:
• recruit 1 worker,
• take 2 God cards,
• draw 2 Army cards (keeping 1), or
• move your High Priest, 1 or 2 steps clockwise within the Coricancha.
God cards will allow you to either do special abilities if you’ve already built a matching statue. Or they are required in order to place workers on spots with a matching symbol to a God card you discard (if you don’t discard the card, you have to pay a Gold resource to place your worker there and gold is pretty valuable).
Workers you place are stuck for the rest of the game, so choose wisely! And recruit often, I guess.
The game appears to have some area control too where you are vying with your opponents to take control of villages and regions in the surrounding area (hence the Army cards).
You will be getting points for constructing stairs up the hill, sculpting statues, having other players use your stairs, among other things.
I definitely encourage you to go to the BGG page because there is quite the extensive “what can I do and what do these things mean” explanation on the page.
I know I’m intrigued!
Tawantinsuyu is scheduled to be released around Spiel in the Autumn (assuming no delays, but since they’re announcing this now, I’m assuming they have taken the current world situation into account).
Are you as hyped as I am?
Let me know in the comments.
Dude! Take Your Turn! 