REVIEW

Settlements and sacrifices

Meduris

CAll of the gods

Obeying the call of the gods, you must settle and cultivate Mount Meduris. This settling and cultivating is done by obtaining row materials on the high plains, building huts or temples with those row materials and using them to make sacrifices to the gods when the Druid appears.

Due to their use as building materials and donations for sacrifices, raw materials are the central element of the game and need to be acquired cleverly and you need to plan their collection and the timing of their use very well. Planning, however, does not end with obtaining raw materials, because well-placed huts give you rune stones for the Druid and temples next to big settlements make the gods more merciful and content.

You begin the set-up with distributing bonus chips on six cases of the side of the board suitable for the number of players, have a starting capital of five victory points and take one piece of raw materials - wool, stone, wood and copper - behind your screen and huts and temples of your color in front of your screen.

In a game of three or four players each player uses two workers, in case of two players three workers, and places them in turn of any of the high plains, each high plain can take three workers which are stacked on top of each other.

A turn of the active player begins with Phase I, Small Yield: You roll the die: For a result of +1, each player takes one raw material available on a plain for each of his workers there and puts it behind his screen. For +1 in a circle arrow you take any raw material; for -1 in a circle, arrow you return one of your raw materials to the corresponding plain.

Then comes Phase II, Big Yield, of your turn, with a choice from three options:

1. Acquire raw materials - You take one worker, also from a stack, and put him on another high plain, on top of other workers already on this plain. Then all workers on the plain give their owners as many raw materials as correspond to their position in the stack.

2. Build a Hut - You choose a case on the board and return the raw materials indicated there to the respective high plains (any three goods can replace one good), put a hut on the case and take the corresponding rune stone, if necessary from another player. Finally, you advance the Druid by one step.

When there is a bonus chip on the case you selected, you take it and either get two victory points or build for free or leave it place and use it in a sacrifice to the Druid when applicable.

When there is a hut next to the selected case, you are building a settlement and must invest more raw materials, always as many per indication icon as there will be huts in the settlement when you have built your hut.

3. Build a Temple - A temple is build just like a hut, but only on a case without bonus chip, always only for the materials indicated on the case, regardless of huts on adjacent cases, and you get no rune stone.

If the Druid arrives at the last stone case of his path, he then, in a step, moves along his path to the next hut. There he stops and the owner begins a sacrifice ritual: He can sacrifice one or both raw materials as indicated on the case of the hut. If he sacrifices one, he receives a victory point. If he sacrifices both, he receives a number of victory points equal to the number of huts in the settlement. If you cannot make a sacrifice or do not want to, you lose a victory point. Then the druid moves to the next hut of the settlement and the owner begins the sacrifice ritual, and so on. After the last hut in a settlement, the movement of the Druid following the building of a hut or temple ends.

When the Druid crosses the river, a scoring of rune stones is done, you receive one victory points for each rune stone that you own.

When someone has build all his huts and temples, all other players have one more turn. Then the position of the druid is marked and he moves one complete circuit with a sacrifice ritual for each hut, but without a rune stone scoring when he crosses the river. Finally, you receive victory points for your temples, equal to the number of huts in uninterrupted sequence to the left or right of a temple. Rune stones give you one point for one stone, three points for two stones, six points for three stones, etc.

With Meduris, Haba has published an impressive and harmonious extension for their range of ambitious family games; the first impression of a simple placement and collecting game is deceiving, the game begins slowly, but then the challenges mount up quickly, because you must acquire your raw materials very deliberately and manage their deployment and you must never forget the sacrifices the Druid will demand. It pays to spend more raw materials to build huts in settlements and then a temple next to the settlement, and, especially, to always have the two necessary materials available for the Druid ambling by, because that gives you an extraordinary amount of victory points. A game for experienced players, or so it seems, but all families whose children grew up with Haba games, must be considered to be experienced.

Dagmar de Cassan

Players: 2-4

Age: 10+

Time: 75+

Designer: Stefan Dorra, Ralf zur Linde

Artist: Miguel Coimbra

Price: ca. 35 Euro

Publisher: Haba 2016

Web: www.haba.de

Genre: Settlement, Worker Placement

Users: With friends

Version: multi

Rules: de en + es fr it nl

In-game text: no

Comments:

Good for families with gaming experience

Standard topic

Worker placement nicely implemented

Very nice design

Compares to:

Worker Placement with resources scarcity

Other editions:

Currently none

My rating: 6

Dagmar de Cassan:

With Meduris, Haba has established itself firmly in the orbit of ambitious family games, this is a worker placement game not with scarcity of workers, but scarcity of resources.

Chance (pink): 1

Tactic (turquoise): 3

Strategy (blue): 0

Creativity (dark blue): 1

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 1

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0