Founders of Teotihuacan is published by Board and Dice and is designed for 1-4 players and is created by Filip Głowacz with art by Chuy de Leon, Odysseas Stamoglou, Aleksander Zawada.
Overview
Founders takes place over multiple rounds where players compete to build the best design of the city of Teotihuacan. Players build temples, cities and pyramids to see who will have the most points when the eclipse comes.
Gameplay
The game takes place over three or four rounds with players taking turns to place their discs on actions spaces until all have passed. At the end of the passing phase the sun marker moves closer to the eclipse. Once the sun hits the eclipse marker the game ends.
On a player’s turn they can take an action or pass. The actions are taken by placing one or more of your discs on an action space but each space can only hold up to four discs. The Action strength is equal to the number of all discs there including your own, other player’s and the bonus disc.
Each action can only build a temple or building in the two district spaces where your architect is. The actions include:
-Construct a building. Here you determine the action strength to see which piece you build. Then you place the building in your city. Once placed you add the resources it produces around the building on the flat sides of each edge. If you completely cover a cluster of masks you gain a mask and score the victory points accordingly.
-Construct a Temple. Here players can select any temple on the main board, pay the resource cost and build it. You can always use two gold as a wild resource type as well. You place these in your city and take the worship tile that matches up to it.
-Construct a Pyramid. Determine first the action strength for the pyramid tile you want and then you place it on the lowest level you are able to. Victory points and rewards are then assigned from there.
-Influence Action-Produce Resources. Here you can add a resource next to each of the edges of your existing buildings. This will increase your supply back on your board into areas you have already spent. These resources much match the building type.
-Influence Action-Make An Offering. Choose a worship tile, resolve the effect. Here you must have the prerequisites on the card and score points or bonuses as per the card.
-Influence Action-Gain Favor. Here you move up the favor track, gain the victory points and you may exchange one of your worship tiles with another one and replace it to the bottom of its appropriate stack.
At the end of your turns you move your Architect forward clockwise one rotation around the edge of your board. This will change the reach for your Architect and determine where you are able to build into the next turn.
Once all players have passed the round ends. The Sun marker moves one space forward and if it is in the same spot as the Eclipse marker the game is over. Score points accordingly and the player with the highest point total is the winner.
Impressions
Founders of Teotihuacan is a great time in polyomino and resource management and brings something different to this family of games. Most are used to the Founders line of dice placement and medium weight style decisions but in this one you spend your time away from dice and instead on building by using tiles and action selection. I love that they didn’t lean hard into the familiar and instead made an effort to try something different in the mechanics.
This game is tight. In fact it is probably one of the tighter polyomino games I have ever played. Games like Barenpark require you to play the same types of tiles but the addition of on the board resources here make this less of a “fill your board” game and more of a management in real estate and which spaces to fill when. Learning where combos will kick and resources will show up on the map help to balance out the play here. It isn’t a race to fill everything as fast as possible but instead is something you must weave to produce the right resources in the amounts you need them. I found a few different times in playing this that I was fast running out of resources and the space to place anything to make more especially the first time we played where the natural tendency is to rush and fill your board.
I also really like the unique play of the rotating meeple who dictates which areas you play into as well. That aspect gives your gameplay another challenge that you must navigate throughout and really think through. I found myself not making plans and then really wishing I had the first play of this one, and moving forward I tried to plan out my turns ahead of the game each time. The restriction leads to another aspect of this game being tight in your decisions. The rotation of the figure is cool however I think there have been a few times where players have forgotten to rotate him and you can tell because it gets out of the rhythm of where everyone else’s are.
I love games that give you a big sandbox to play in and make all sorts of decisions with some flexibility to do so but Founders is not one of those games. The decisions you make need to be intentional and will lead into all the other ones as you move on. The actions you pick and the amount of discs you use on them will determine what else you can pick this round. You will never feel like you have things leftover and instead will always be hurting for “just one more”. That keeps this game in the front of my mind as I think through what I could have done differently.
Overall this game involves some of the more consistent strategy for a polyomino game this side of Odin. It will make you think as you progress not only for how you build to score majority points in a section to match your pyramid but where you need to leave room on your board as well to gain the right amount of resources for those built pieces. The push and pull will keep you coming back for more throughout and I suspect that anyone who loves the other Teotihuacan games will also find things they love here. And if you are a polyomino fan, you are bound to find this one interesting as well. So give Founders a try and see where it takes you on your next exploration!
Be the first to comment