Developing on eight years in the past, I had the pleasure and displeasure of reviewing the primary version of Ethnos. For these bored with studying that assessment, the TLDR is I felt it was a terrific sport however the map and the parts had been poor. This led to a 3.5 star rating that some readers felt was inadequate. Effectively, for an additional TLDR, let me simply say that the brand new Ethnos: Second Version is great and, in my humble opinion, price discarding the primary version in case you nonetheless have it.
For everybody else who’s simply coming to seek out out about this sport and desires some assist understanding what the fuss is all about, Ethnos: Second Version (Ethnos 2e) is an East Asian-fantasy themed sport of set assortment, card play, and space management with particular powers layered on. It has a large participant depend vary (2-6 gamers) and knocks out in 60 min, even with a excessive variety of gamers. For me, the candy spot is 5 gamers, however you’re not lacking a lot until you go right down to a two-player sport.
Gameplay Overview:
The parts of Ethnos 2e, like its forebear, are exceedingly easy. There’s a board, a deck of playing cards, a set of management tokens per participant within the form of pagodas, and a few small cardboard tokens for varied functions. With these utensils, gamers can be drawing playing cards or enjoying them to put management tokens on one of many six areas of the board. To win, gamers accumulate factors primarily based on management of those areas and in addition for the units of playing cards they’ve performed. Every set of playing cards of a sure measurement positive aspects a sure variety of factors, and, in fact, extra playing cards equal extra factors.
On a flip, participant have two primary decisions. They might both take playing cards from a card row of playing cards just like Ticket to Trip, or they might play a set of playing cards of the identical swimsuit or the identical colour. A set of playing cards may be as few as 1 card, however the variety of playing cards performed additionally impacts what number of management tokens you might place on the board (once more, just like Ticket to Trip) in a selected area. For instance, if a participant already has 1 token in a area, they need to play a set of two playing cards (at the least 1 greater than what number of they’ve within the area) so as to play an extra management token into the area.
Now, the significance of this management placement is affected by the sport’s pacing. The deck of playing cards that gamers are drawing from has sure “Dragon” playing cards that don’t do something besides presage the top of one of many sport’s rounds (3 complete). As soon as the third Dragon card is drawn, the spherical ends instantly. As soon as a spherical ends, the gamers’ complete factors for management of the areas are decided by the variety of management markers.
The scoring values of a area are decided by cardboard tokens on the board that point out the area’s level worth for first, second, and third place, and these are changeable from sport to sport. For spherical 1, solely the participant with probably the most management earns factors. In spherical 2, the very best two gamers with management earn factors, and for spherical 3, it’s the very best three gamers. Along with these factors, gamers achieve factors for units of playing cards performed with gamers needing at the least 2 playing cards in a set to attain any factors. Gamers might additionally go for the massive enchilada and rating 15 factors for a set of 6 or extra playing cards.
So the place does the sport’s nuance are available in? Effectively, it simply so occurs that while you play playing cards of a selected set, you additionally select a single card with a personality (swimsuit) on it, who turns into the set chief. This determines the activated energy for that set.
Throughout setup, gamers don’t play with all of the playing cards within the sport. They randomly choose 6 of the whole 12 fits to make use of and put the remainder again within the field. As a result of every swimsuit has a particular energy, gamers are solely seeing that exact mixture of powers in play, and the range right here creates actually attention-grabbing sport challenges from session to session.
So what do the powers do? Typically, they support a participant’s skill to play playing cards out of set, make it simpler to play units of playing cards to achieve management markers, or improve the manageability of playing cards in hand. Some powers have additional boards that additionally grant bonuses and add new challenges. On the entire, the range added from the completely different energy sorts and the variable level values for areas creates the principle participant choice house within the sport.
Recreation Expertise:
As you may see from the Gameplay Overview, the sport is just about the identical as its earlier model with some elements tightened up and the artwork and parts redone. You may shortly ask “WHY?” is all this crucial and the way might that probably create a greater sport. The reply is that there are some new gameplay modes, and the designers have rebalanced scoring values for areas.
Nonetheless, the principle enchancment for me is the standard of the parts and the top-to-bottom retheming of the sport. The Asian anthropomorphic animal artwork actually works alongside the board, and when the pagodas are positioned, it actually appears to be like like a village slowly being populated.
There are some slight visible annoyances while you want to have the ability to inform which playing cards go together with which area, however when you learn to spot these points, they shortly fade into the background. Total, the manufacturing worth is far, a lot better.
So, in case you haven’t performed the primary sport, is that this price selecting up? YES! Greater than many different video games, that is a straightforward sport to convey for a sport night time the place you could have a gaggle of indecisive buddies, or perhaps you don’t actually know what participant depend you’ll want to accommodate.
I’ve been to many board sport meetups the place I don’t know the talent stage of gamers, how many individuals I’ll be enjoying with, and even how a lot time can be affordable. This sport very appropriately handles all these complexities. I discover it to be versatile, straightforward to study, and with sufficient selection to maintain me sport after sport. And it simply so occurs that I really like space management video games.
Ultimate Ideas:
Way back, within the earlier than instances, there was a sport known as Ethnos which used a map of Slovakia for example a legendary kingdom. That island is lengthy forgotten and a brand new one rises from the mists. This island has a wonderful creative type and useful pagoda items that gasoline an space management sport of robust decisions and difficult turns for a variety of gamers. Ethnos: Second Version is very really helpful.
Ultimate Rating: 4.5 stars – The NEW Ethnos: Second Version outshines its forebear and is certainly price buying for quite a lot of sport teams.
Hits:
• Glorious replay worth
• Works at many participant counts
• Difficult and interesting turns from first to final
• Simple to study even for brand spanking new gamers
Misses:
• Some colour mismatch with the map and playing cards
• Two participant expertise isn’t pretty much as good
