Terra Mystica: Automa, Multi

So this has been one of those board games I bought awhile ago and let it set on my shelf without playing for months. We finally had a game night with some of my adventurous players, and we pulled it out. It took us about 1.5 hours to read the instructions and get the components ready. That seems really daunting I am sure, but here's the thing. Even though we scratched out heads a lot, once we started playing... it was pretty awesome. The rules, and there are a lot of them, just start to make sense as you play although I don't see how you can skip doing the first read through. I won't go into super details about how to play the game since there are hundreds of videos and sights for that. I want to talk about what makes this a rich experience for some gaming groups. Components: These are really well done. The wooden pieces are vibrantly colored and vary enough where it's easy to see which vacation is which. The faction boards themselves are beautifully colored with clear information on it. The board is beautiful. This really is a stunning game to look at and play. Your Game Group: This is great for people who love a variety. The factions play differently. If you are the Cultist faction, you're probably going to spend a lot of time trying get points from the cults, for example. The mermaids can use the river system in ways others can't. This means you can have a different experience with each faction playing against other factions. It keeps the game fresh and interesting. Of course we only played with the recommended original three, but it quickly became obvious that we were really interested in seeing how the others play. There are a lot of words in that manual, but if your group is like mine, and you have 2-3 others like yourself who will dive into a new game and then guide others through playing it the next time around, your impatient members will be fine learning as they go. It's not as complicated as it seems. And like a lot of great strategy games, once you get the concepts down, it's all about the experience of playing with others... what they're doing, and what that should mean for what i am doing. This game is also about balance. You can wind up with too much money and not enough workers and vice versa, but generally, you're not going to have someone sitting around unable to do something just because they made a few mistakes early on. There's a chance to overcome that. Our first run through proved that the early leader lost their advantage once someone else started taking advantage of their faction's special actions. I'd love to give you an example of another game this compares to, but I've never played game like this before, nothing like it. If you have a group that loves being different, as in the colors mean more than just a different color, and they like planning ahead, but don't agonize over every decision, this will work for them. It can play pretty quickly too once you get going. Great fun. The components make it worth the price, and the experience will keep you going back for more. This will be a great addition to any collection.

My wife and I finally had a chance to try out Terra Mystica this past weekend. The game seemed a bit daunting, just due to the sheer number of pieces in the box. But the reviews were good, and the videos of gameplay we had watched looked like the game would be fun, so we set everything up and gave it a try. We had played other games with lots of components before and enjoyed them. (Lords of Waterdeep and Pandemic come to mind, but this one has even more parts than those do.) So we weren't too intimidated by the mass of pieces in the box. The instruction manual is good at helping everyone get things set up and ready for play. There were a couple of very small details that would have been helpful to mention in the "First Play" instructions, but we figured them out anyway. (Each player chooses to place two dwellings at the start of the game. This is mentioned later, but they tell you to just use the pictured setup without much explanation.) Overall, we found the instructions to cover nearly all of the situations that we came across. The part quality is good. Items are typically made from thick cardboard and punch out of their holes easily the first time you open the box up. The player components are all painted wood, just like the meeples in other games, like Carcassonne. All of the components should be pretty durable. We've only played with the two of us, so far. Our first game took a while, since we were learning and reading directions. But now that we're familiar with it, the game usually doesn't last more than an hour. Once we got the mechanics of the game down it flowed pretty smoothly. The game looks overly complicated because they offer a lot of different actions or choices within the game, but it's really quite easy once you start playing. These actions are usually quite easy to remember just by looking at the action "cheat card" provided for each player, or by looking at your player card. Just make sure to read the rules, as there are certain things that trigger that are only in the instruction booklet. (Towns are founded automatically when your interconnected structures are worth enough power, or you get favor tiles when you upgrade to certain buildings.) We had so much fun playing Terra Mystica that we ended up playing it 3 or 4 times in just two days, and plan to keep on playing it regularly. The several factions allow for a large variety of gameplay and strategy. Each faction has its own special ability or action. Other items, such as round tiles and bonus tiles can be randomly chosen to add extra variety, as well. I think that my only gripe with this game (and it's a very minor one) is that they didn't use different sized bags for the pieces. Certain pieces are very small or there might only be a few of one component, yet they provided a large bag for them. We ended up using our own smaller bags to make things a bit more compact inside of the box. Otherwise, there's just a lot of empty plastic in there. Just a couple suggestions: We ended up sorting out the parts into their own bags for each of the player colors. Each player simply grabs their color and has all of the pieces they need. We also use small dishes to put pieces in when we set up the game, just to make sure things stay on the table and are organized. We're extremely happy we purchased this game. It's a bit pricey, but it's well worth the investment, and it's a lot of fun to play! We highly recommend this game. If you're already looking at it, chances are you're not intimidated by games that have lots of parts or might be complex. Just get it! You won't regret it.

Absolutely one of the best games I've ever played! My wife and I play this game constantly. Although it might seem complicated at first, the mechanics and rules are actually really simple and intuitive. After one play, we were very comfortable with developing different strategies. There is really no luck involved in this game - everything is based on your decisions, so if you're into games where you can strictly try to outplay your opponent, this is the game for you. There are a lot of characters/factions to choose from and each seems to be pretty balanced with what they bring to the table, so re-playability is very high. The artwork is fantastic, and the pieces are very well-made. I really appreciate the fact that they seemed to go out of their way to make the artwork great (even the back of the game board is beautifully decorated). This is another game that comes with a LOT of pieces. I built some trays out of foam core to hold everything and it makes set up and clean up much less of a hassle. If you're a casual gamer, this one might seem more complicated and involved than other worker-placement games, but it's still really fun and definitely worth the time to learn and play.

Played once with my group and was enjoyed by all. Many more hours to come i think. And a bargain at the $129 on sale, albeit I paid $149. :( Still great game and would recommend. Can see why ranked so high on BGG.

The game is good but the box was torn on arrival. The contents inside were fine though.

Sitting down to the Terra Mystica rule book felt like preparing for an exam, but after a first play through, the mechanics work smoothly and I’m itching to play again. Moderately long set up time means this is likely to be the main event rather than a palate cleanser at a gaming session.

El juego incluye todo el contenido base mas las dos expansiones y el modo solitario. Es una caja muy honda, mas que por ejemplo Feast For Odin. Una cosa que me agrado bastante fue que te incluye la guía de como guardar el contenido para facilitar el identificar que es que, a través de bolsitas que les pones stickers para identificar que contenido es. Lo único que estaría mejor es imágenes para esa guía. Pero ayudo bastante para tener todo bien organizado. No trae inserto ni nada, así que todo el contenido será a través de bolsitas.

This game is a lot of fun and has really good replay value. Initially there are a lot of different aspects to learn, and it took a couple games to get comfortable. Also if a new player comes along, it takes a good 15 minutes to go over everything with them and they won't quite get it until you play. My copy came missing a piece, even though it was 30 days past purchase when I finally noticed. I emailed Z-man games and they sent out a replacement piece for free, the next day. ++ Pros: No two games are the same, depending on what race you choose, it can drastically change your play style. However so far they all seem to be very balanced against each other. There are many different paths to earning points for victory. Games never run long, each one only takes about 60-90minutes if everyone has played before, we often find ourselves wishing there were more rounds with how quick it goes. The game is a lot more skill based, than other games like Catan, with very little luck involved. No dice to roll, no random event cards. Cons: Only supports up to 5 players, I'm hoping that they come up with an expansion to allow more players.