Any new Geek member will undoubtedly stumble across Tigris & Euphrates fairly quickly. It is labeled as Knizia's best game, his masterpiece actually, it is classed as a "gamer's game" and some contend it ought to be the #1 ranked game on this site, ahead of Puerto Rico. Yet the game also has an instant turn-off factor - new players introduced to the game improperly (as in, on their own or with a player who does not explain the game well) will often get turned off with the first play. It's no small investment either - most retailers (if they even carry it, which I've found smaller game stores do not) sell the game for $50 to $60, and even an eBay purchase will run about the same with shipping added in. How can a new user decide if Tigris & Euphrates is destined to be a crown jewel in the game collection, or should be given a pass for something else altogether?

Check these traits in yourself and your gaming group and see.

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Must enjoy confrontation and conflict

No doubt about it - if you or your game group members aren't much into heavy conflict, this is not a game for you. Although Tigris & Euphrates is not a war game, nor is conflict even the central focus of the game, conflict is nearly inevitable, and frequently is a player's only or best available option for scoring points and/or trying to take another player out of a strong front-runner position. It is common enough, and profitable enough, that if you pointedly avoid conflicts in this game you will nearly ensure your own loss.

Conflict comes in two flavors in this game (called "internal" and "external" in the rules, though the reasons for these labels are not immediately obvious). An "internal" conflict arises when you attempt to place one of your leaders in a kingdom that already contains someone else's leader of that same color. These small conflicts reap small rewards in terms of points, but are frequently the easiest and cheapest way to knock out a competitor and steal his/her building and scoring potentials. An "external" conflict comes when two separate kingdoms join through tile play, and only if the resulting single realm has competing leaders of the same color. These are larger conflicts and often reap large rewards, both in terms of scoring points and in terms of hampering or destroying an opponent's position.

Knowing when to make an attack, knowing how to defend against someone else's potential attack, are both keys to enjoying and winning the game.

Must be willing to adjust/abandon strategies

Some games allow players to pick a general strategy at the beginning of the game, pursue that strategy and develop it during much or all of the game, and win or lose as that strategy clashes with someone else's game-plan. Try that in this game, and you'll probably end up hating it.

Like Puerto Rico, Tigris & Euphrates is more tactically oriented than strategic. At the outset you can certainly choose to adopt a particular game strategy (occupy strong defensive areas, or dominate a single kingdom with your own leaders, or build monuments, or build for external conflict scoring, etc.), but pursuing your strategy to the exclusion of factoring the actions of the other players will net you nothing gained. An aggressive player looking for a fight can destroy your hold on monuments easily, just as easily as a player that strongly defends his monuments can withstand the attacks of competitors. Leaders that are well-defended against an external conflict can be easily exposed to an internal defeat, and hand over that strong position to another player! This kind of reversal can be frustrating for players who doggedly pursue a particular course, and end up being unable to recover because of it.

Recovery is possible in this game, of course, but it usually requires a change of tactics, and being able to adapt to what the other players are doing or have done. But prevention is the better remedy - and that often means changing your immediate tactics and short-term strategies.

Must be able to think outside of the box - any box

This is not a straight-forward game - in many regards Tigris & Euphrates defies the "common sense" logic of other games, and rewards the players that can unwrap their minds from standard logic and re-wrap it around this game's unique logic. Being able to see how the theme correlates to the game's structure and play is actually helpful (and some players struggle with seeing how the theme is anything more than "pasted on" - which I've learned is completely wrong).

Right off the bat, you don't play any particular color. You don't distinguish your pieces from other pieces by color, but by clan symbol. Everyone shares colors, everyone scores in each color. This is because each color represents a particular aspect of a civilization (black= population growth, red= religion, green= trade, blue= agriculture), and each player represents a competing civilization attempting to develop in each of these four aspects. If you can get this far in understanding, you can probably grasp the rest - if you stumble at this point and still wonder "why can't I just play green?" then you probably should not consider this game just yet.

The concepts of the conflicts (already described above) are confusing to new players - I've read of many players just "not getting" the difference between internal and external conflicts, why they score differently, etc. And these are experienced game geeks! But understanding the difference goes hand-in-hand with the single most confusing concept of the game - the kingdom.

A "kingdom" in this game is defined as any group of connected tiles with at least one leader connected to it. That's it, and it sounds simple in principle. However, the confusing thing is that no one player "owns" a kingdom. You may have one or two leaders in a kingdom, but it is not your kingdom. Another player or two players might have a leader in your kingdom as well. Your king and your priest, along with another player's farmer and a third player's trader, might all be present in the same kingdom - the fact that your king is there, and the fact that you have 2 leaders as opposed to 1, means nothing in terms of ownership. This reflects a common situation in the ancient histories of civilizations - cities and kingdoms were often not dominated by a single culture, but represented a mix of cultures co-existing. A city could be ruled by an Assyrian king but follow the farming practices of the Chaldeans and worship the principle gods of the Sumerians, for example.

Conflicts arise because of a clash of cultures - when a kingdom suddenly has multiple leaders vying for superiority within that kingdom. The internal conflicts simulate a leader of a competing culture rising up within the kingdom, and the player with the superior favor of the gods (as players use the red/temple tiles to bolster their strengths) wins out, and becomes the new leader in that aspect of culture. External conflicts represent kingdoms that have expanded to such a size that the two come in contact with each other, and the superior culture winning in each aspect (the stronger religion takes over, the better market forces dominate, and so on).

Where new players often stumble is in getting stuck on the idea that they "own" any part of the board or a particular kingdom. While it is possible that you will build a single kingdom that contains all of your leaders and only your leaders, there is little chance your kingdom will remain completely under your control throughout the game. Someone, inevitably, will try an internal or external conflict to dislodge you. And if you get mired in trying to retake "your" kingdom, you're likely to get bogged down in achieving that goal but reaping very small rewards in terms of points, while other players go about their business in building their cultures, scoring points, and defeating you despite your "ownership".

Finally, the end-game scoring tends to baffle players accustomed to winning by having the highest score. Yes, you do have to have more points than your opponents - but only the lowest of your four scores counts against everyone else's lowest score. During the game, players score points in each of the four colors of culture, and these scores are separate from each other. At the end, you compare the lowest of these four scores against the lowest score that each other player has - regardless of what color is the lowest for any one player. Your lowest score might be 6 points in green, another player might have 11 in green but only 4 in blue - and your 6 green beats his 4 blue. Why?

The simpler way to understand the scoring is balance - as the architect of a growing civilization, your goal is to develop each aspect of your culture in a balanced fashion. You do not want to overly develop your agriculture at the expense of religious influence, or expand far in population without developing advanced markets and trade. By comparing your lowest score to each other player's lowest score, you are comparing your weakest cultural influence to everyone else's weakest influence - and thus, the player who is the strongest in this one area is the strongest civilization overall.

Got all that? Makes some semblance of sense? Then you can learn to play the game competently and competitively.


Must be Patient

If you need to be immediately impressed and dazzled by a game the first time you play, and understand the game right away - this is probably not your game. But, if you enjoy uncovering layer after layer of complexity and depth, can take time to learn and appreciate a game and get past whatever your first impressions are - this game might work for you.

In this respect Tigris & Euphrates is like chess. I have yet to hear of anyone being immediately sucked into chess on first play, or being able to understand how complex the game can be, how to make use of opening strategies and mid-game tactics, how to develop a pawn formation and develop pieces and control the board. But I do hear of many people that get a taste of chess, try again a few times, study it, read about it, and continue to develop their skills and playing style through many, many plays of the game.

Tigris & Euphrates can be that rewarding. Usually the first play just gets a player warmed up to the basics of the rules; it takes a few plays to get completely immersed in the game itself, a few more to see how best to use various tactics and strategies and conflicts, or when not to use them, and even more repeated plays to continue uncovering new layers of depth of play, especially in the different nature of games from 2 to 3 or 3 to 4 players.

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If you've gotten this far and this profile matches you and others you play with, this is a game purchase you won't regret.

My one piece of advice if you do take the plunge - learn from an experienced player. Ask someone who has played numerous times to play a demo game with you and teach you the rules. This way the experienced player can guide you through all the various situations that can arise in the game, give you tactical advice, and correct any misunderstandings you might have. This is how I learned the game, by playing against GreatWolf (thanks Seth!) on the BGG's Tigris & Euphrates game site, and being shown the game while playing it.


Final Word - This is the one and only 10-rated game in my collection. There are some games that come very very close to a 10, but this is the one game I feel I would never, ever, tire of or turn down an opportunity to play again.