Trading Against the Tide – Tides of Trade Review (Wayfarers of the South Tigris Expansion)

The recent Kickstarter from Garphill Games with all of the South Tigris expansions recently showed up on my doorstep, so apologies for the fact that you’re going to be inundated with South Tigris content for a little bit!

After getting through the Scholars of the South Tigris expansion, it was time to get into the second expansion, Tides of Trade (for Wayfarers of the South Tigris).

Tides of Trade was released in 2025 (if you’re reading this in the future) and designed by Shem Phillips and S J MacDonald.

It was published by Garphill Games and (maybe) eventually by Renegade Games Studios.

My review of the Body of Books expansion mentioned that some expansions “fix” things that are wrong in the base game (though there weren’t any in that one).

Tides of Trade does fix something that some players really didn’t like about the original game, though I didn’t mind it that much.

Granted, I’m happy with the “fix”!

But I’m not sure it needed fixing.

Let’s explore what we have here.

As with Body of Books, Tides of Trade doesn’t add a whole lot to the base game, but what it does add can make quite an impact. Even more so than that other expansion.

As you may know (or you should if you’ve read my Wayfarers review), this game is about exploring the Middle East from Baghdad, both the land, the sea, and the sky.

One of the major aspects of the game, as well as being the driver for game length, is the Journal track.

Progress along the Journal is the clock for the game, as well as giving you bonuses and benefits depending on what route you take.

One of the main issues with the base game, at least for some people who don’t plan out what they want to do ahead of time (or who are too new to realize that they need to) is that you can get stuck in Journaling, because each space going forward requires a certain number of something.

In the picture above, blue and red need either two Open Water tags or two Vistas.

If they don’t have either, then when it comes time to Journal, they can’t move forward.

Early on, that’s not usually a problem, but as you get near the end, it can be as the requirements are steeper.

Tides of Trade adds the Hourglass.

Whenever you can’t move ahead when Journaling (or if you choose not to), you can flip the Hourglass to its “full” setting.

This way, the next time you need to journal, you can flip your hourglass back to reduce the advancement requirement by one.

If you don’t ever have to use it, you’ll get two points.

Definitely an incentive not to do it arbitrarily, as two points is really nothing but a nice bonus.

Another new addition to the game is the Red guild, which gives the player who controls it 5 points instead of 3 because it’s harder to gain Red influence.

Even more, the Red guild influence can actually be used in place of one of the other guilds’ influence when doing something (blue when wanting a ship, yellow when wanting to change the pips on dice, black when wanting to journal again).

It’s harder to get Red influence, but it’s much more versatile.

It’s also instrumental in the other new parts that Tides of Trade adds to the game.

First, there is a new Market addition to your player board that lets you trade with a trader. Any dice value will do.

You bring a trader over to your board and do the action underneath it.

This could allow you to spend Red influence to do some cool stuff, or there’s the minor trader which lets you gain Red influence and do a little thing.

Finally, if you choose an action that lets you do it, you can upgrade your workers.

This is the very cool thing in this game, though I didn’t actually use it much in our games.

I just love the concept.

Normally, the yellow/blue/green workers you put out on cards just do the actions where you put them.

Now, when you use a specific colour of worker, you also can get a potential bonus as well (though some of the upgrades are just victory points at the end of the game).

You choose a top/bottom pair of upgrades and place them on your board.

That worker is upgraded for the rest of the game, and can be quite lucrative!

For this one, placing a yellow worker will also allow you to gain a Red influence and move an influence from one guild to another (another good way to get Red influence).

Another new thing is a change in how influence can be placed on cards.

In the base game, when something lets you influence a card, you put your influence on it and if anybody interacts with that space at all (taking the card, putting a worker on it to use an action, etc), they had to pay you a silver.

Now, there’s an additional option.

You can put that influence in the inkwell.

You can use this influence for various things, like spending a coin to remove the provision requirement of an action (or vice versa).

Maybe you need a pigeon? Or a camel or telescope?

That can happen too.

You can even use three of that influence to get a Red influence or steal a worker from anywhere (even another player, though you have to pay them a silver for that).

Finally, there is new scoring that looks at your minor tags, like observatories, trading posts, and libraries.

This is welcome, because in the base game these only mean something if they are preventing you from journaling, or if you get a bonus card that gives you points for them.

It also adds one of the more confusing scoring options, where you get a point for each 4-square caravan or worker area covered by upgrade tiles.

It sort of makes sense, but this is the scoring that really makes people scratch their heads, at least in my play group.

This includes your upgraded worker spaces, but they don’t connect with your caravan. They’re scored separately.

All in all, Tides of Trade is a great expansion for Wayfarers of the South Tigris because it “fixes” a couple of areas where some people had problems with the base game, while adding enough interesting stuff that it will enhance some of your strategies from the base game.

The expansion does add a bunch of cards of all types to use the new market options and Red guild influence.

The above Open Water card will let you either upgrade a worker for free or allow you to trade with a trader.

This City card gives you a trading post tag as well as giving you an action that will let you get two Red influence.

What Tides of Trade does is just give you more options, but some aspects of it almost become necessities just because they give you so many nice options.

Tartan, the guy in our group who rarely interacts with expansion material, made great use of the upgraded workers and the Red guild and did really well.

The new Overseer townsperson can slide under your Market (so you can only have one) and they give you a great bonus when you rest if you’ve already traded.

They can also be dismissed (unlike the other townsfolk) for lucrative benefits.

While Tides of Trade does add options and enhances some of the things from the base game, it didn’t noticeably add any time to playing the game for us.

Which is good because it already can be a long game.

Is this a necessary expansion for the game?

Like Body of Books, I would say it’s not necessary, though I think it’s more necessary than that one is, simply because some people don’t like being stuck while journaling and this expansion does fix that somewhat.

It doesn’t help you if you need three City tags and you only have one, so you still have to do a modicum of planning.

But you’re not as restricted as the base game.

The “influence in the inkwell” can also get around those times where you have a lot of money and only one provision (or vice versa).

Upgraded workers are just fun and I wish I had used them more in my plays.

I think that’s the bottom line with Tides of Trade: it’s just fun.

And it helps if your fellow players are reluctant because of that potential “stuck” aspect.

Options are always great and Tides of Trade offers them in spades.

You should at least give this one a try.

It might save the game for some people, and just add to the options for those who didn’t have any trouble with the base game.

(This review was written after two plays with the expansion)