Take a step back to ancient Mesoamerica to build an ancient pyramid, and stroll down the Avenue of the dead in Teotihuacan: City of Gods.
Teotihuacan: City of Gods is a 1-4 player game designed by Daniele Tascini and published by NSKN Games. Clocking in at an average game length of 90-120 minutes, Teotihuacan leans more on the longer side of gameplay. Despite that, the game mechanics aren’t as difficult as it looks at first glance.
Teotihuacan: City of Gods: $49.99
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Travel back in time to the greatest city in Mesoamerica. Witness the glory and the twilight of the powerful pre-Columbian civilization. Strategize, accrue wealth, gain the favour of the gods, and become the builder of the magnificent Pyramid of the Sun.
Teotihuacan is a strategic game of worker and resources management, clever planning, and adaptability. Each player commands a group of worker dice which move around locations on a modular board. With each move, a player relocates one worker to a new location, always choosing one of its two areas to perform an action (and upgrade their workforce), or a powerful bonus (but no upgrade).
As the mysterious twilight of Teotihuacan approaches, players research technologies, raise the magnificent Pyramid of the Sun, build houses for the inhabitants of the city, collect precious masks, and climb the steps of three great temples to secure bonuses granted by the favor of the gods.
Strategize, adapt to a different board layout every time you play, and look to the skies, as each coming eclipse means that your efforts will be evaluated – and your fame tested against the passage of time.
Contents:
Main Board
6 Action Boards
32 Pyramid Tiles
15 Decoration Tiles
18 Starting Tiles
11 Buildings
9 Royal Tiles
9 Technology Tiles
7 Temple Bonus Tiles
2 Calendar Discs
4 Player Order Tokens
60 Wooden Resources
4 Multiplier Tokens
Cocoa Tokens
1 Rulebook
Ages: 14+
Players: 1-4
Game Length: 90-120 minutes
Build The City of the Gods With Teotihuacan Board Game!
Teotihuacan has so much going on when you have everything set up. There are multiple ways to gain points and several routes to victory. You play through multiple rounds until the final eclipse is triggered and the highest score wins. There are two ways to trigger the end game. For the first trigger, you simply play until the third eclipse occurs. The other trigger happens when the final piece is added to the Pyramid of the Sun.
Each round you can only take one of three possible actions. You can take the main action from one of the eight action boards. You can take a worship action in which you lock your worker in order to gain steps on the temples or other bonuses. The other action you can take is harvest cocoa. Cocoa is used to pay for taking actions when other player’s workers (as well as your own) are in the space you’re trying to activate. You must also feed your workers cocoa at the end of each eclipse or lose victory points.
Each player starts with three level-one workers. Each time they take an action they can power up. Once they hit level six they ascend. Ascending grants you a bonus and resets the worker to level one. This also shortens the round by a turn and moves closer to an eclipse. There are several action tiles your workers can visit as they move around the board. Many of them allow you to gather resources such as wood, stone, and gold.
These are used to create masks, build houses, and construct the pyramid. The palace has three areas for worship. The alchemy board grants you powerful technologies that make your turns much stronger. The building action board lets you build houses, which advances you further on the Avenue of the Dead. And last but not least, is the Pyramid of the Sun action board. This space lets you help construct the pyramid. You gain several points as well as an advancement on the three temple tracks.
All in all, Teotihuacan is a very fun game. There are so many ways you can plan out your path to victory. Once you compartmentalize the action boards it’s quite simple. I was very worried about having to teach this one, but once we started a game it was relatively easy to explain the phases and actions.
Component quality is very nice in this game. I especially like the pyramid tiles and once it’s complete, or close to completion, it looks awesome. The artwork is just fantastic and adds to the theme and atmosphere of the game. The dice that act as workers are fairly standard but they are nice quality. The wooden resources are nicely done and look good. The rest of the components are heavy duty punch board, so it should stand up to many playthroughs.
Overall, if you’re looking for a mid to heavyweight euro, then Teotihuacan is a fantastic choice to bring to the table. Hope you get a chance to check this one out.
