The Bottom Line

Taluva is a tile placement game with original mechanics that nevertheless manages to feel reminiscent of other Euros, and, as such, the game suffers from a bit of Euro-fatigue. If you can get past this, however, you will discover an excellent medium weight game that plays in less than an hour with beautiful components. I highly recommend it.

The Rules

In Taluva players represent either Gods or Chieftains, who are trying to spread their people across the island and to erect temples and towers. Players start the game with a pool of three different types of structures: Towers (2), Temples (3), and Huts (many). The winner of the game is the one who plays the most Temples with ties broken by most Towers, then by most Huts. A player can also win immediately by getting rid of all structures of any two kinds from his pool. A player can also be eliminated if he or she cannot make a legal play, however, it seems like this will be a very rare occurance.

The gameplay is as follows:

1) Place Tile – The player draws a tile from the face down supply and places it on the island. Each tile consists of three hexagons arranged in a triangular pattern.



One of the hexagons will always be a volcano. The other two will be randomly distributed between lakes, forest, mountain, plain, and dessert. A tile may be placed in one of two ways:

1a) A tile may be added onto the periphery of the island. All a tile has to do is touch another tile and it is a legal play. Landscapes do not need to match up.

1b) A tile may be played on top of other tiles so long as the volcano on the tile is played on top of another volcano, and “flows in a different direction” (which just means the tile must be played on top of portions of two tiles, it can’t just overlap one tile.) And so long as it does not cover up a Temple or a Tower, or completely cover up a settlement (see below for definition of a settlement). Huts can be covered up, and when they are they are removed from the game and set aside. They do not go back to the controlling player.

2) Place Structures – One type of structure may be placed from the player's pool according to the following rules.

2a) Huts – A hut can be placed on any none volcano hex on the first level of the island. If a hut is placed in isolation then it begins a new settlement. A settlement is any set of adjacent structures all of the same color. Instead of beginning a new settlement a hut can also be used to expand an existing settlement. When expanding, a particular terrain type is chosen, and huts are placed on all hexes of that terrain which border on the settlement to be expanded. When huts are placed on the second level of the island then two huts can occupy a hex and similarly for the third level.

2b) Temples – One temple may be placed per settlement. A temple may only be placed once the settlement reaches a size equal to three structures or greater. Temples can be placed on any level and cannot be covered by volcanoes.

2c) Towers – One tower may be placed per settlement. A tower may only be placed on the third level of the island. Towers cannot be covered by volcanoes.

The Components

The components to this game are first rate, truly beautiful. Seriously, I haven’t seen better components made out of wood and cardboard in a game. The cardboard tiles are THICK and durable. The artwork on an individual tile is attractive. The wooden structures are intricate, much more so than the usual 2D shapes we see in euro games.



The only possible complaint is that the emergent board tends to look pretty busy. It doesn’t have the large scale beauty of a Tikal board for example. However, this is an aesthetic complaint only. It does NOT detract from gameplay. When playing the game it is always easy to extract the information you need from the board.



Overall the components are top shelf. You could not ask for better. Plus, I personally find the box front to be an attractive and engaging design.

The Theme to Mechanics Integration

This is where the “Euroness” of the game comes through. There is simply not much integration between the theme and the mechanics. Why can’t temples or towers be volcanoed? Or why would a volcano spare the last hut in a village? Why can you expand onto, for example, three forests but only one plain? And why can more huts be built higher up?

None of these things make much sense given the theme, but to me that’s ok. The mechanics of the game are highly developed and balanced. It’s clear that a lot of testing went into the design. The final product is certainly not a simulation, but you can tell every rule exists for a gameplay reason.

If you must have highly integrated themes in your games then this one isn’t for you. But if you value tested and balanced mechanics then you won’t be disappointed. If you insist on both theme and mechanics then this might not be your game but then probably very few games are.

The Random Element

Taluva is very nearly a perfect information game. The only random bit is which two landscapes you will get on your tile in addition to the volcano. And believe it or not, it’s not really that critically important which ones you get. It may be nice to get a certain landscape rather than others but it’s rarely a turn breaker if you don’t. Tiles that aren’t immediately useful to you can often be played offensively to destroy your opponents settlements.

Strategy vs. Tactics

Taluva is one of those games where the ratio of strategy to tactics will vary with the number of players. I expect the strategy is at a maximum with two players and a minimum with four. With four players your turns are more tactical as you look for the move which maximizes your current situation. You can’t worry too much about setting up future moves because of the amount of chaos introduced by three other players taking their turns before your next turn. It simply becomes too unpredictable.

That being said, in general, I would say that Taluva offers a fair balance of strategy vs. tactics. It is possible to look ahead and try to create situations where you can build up to the second or third level, or where you can split your own settlement into two pieces to quickly play more temples.

The decision tree seems to be of a pretty reasonable size. There’s not so many possible moves and you can’t look so far in the future that you should become paralyzed, but there is often more than one move which merits serious consideration.

My Opinion

My opinion is that Taluva is very good game. Not quite great, or timeless, but definitely top tier. While it doesn’t share mechanics with any of these games, to me it occupies the same gameplay niche as China, Samurai, and Hansa to name a few medium weight, under an hour games. That’s a niche in which you want to own several games and Taluva should go straight to the top of your consideration.

Gameplay is cerebral but interactive. You can play a friendly game where you concentrate on maximizing your own position or you can play it more cut throat where you deliberately try to set back your opponents. There are two basic paths to victory but it doesn’t make much sense to pick one before the game starts, you’re better off reacting as the game develops.

The endgame can get a bit calculational so players should commit to playing out the end at the same pace they played out the rest of the game. This is also a game where kingmaking issues can arise when one player cannot win but can decide between two other players for the victory. To me this is less of an issue given how short the game is, but it’s there.

While I’m at a loss to think of another game with similar mechanics (Carcassonne doesn’t really come close because you’re not placing meeples to score them and get them back you’re placing them to get rid of them, and you’re not trying to complete features with the map tiles.) it still manages to feel a bit reminiscent. Of what, I’m not sure. It’s like it’s so Euro that I’ve played it before, even though I’ve never played it before, if that makes any sense.

The bottom line is that Taluva is a beautiful game with solid mechanics, one that I highly recommend.



For more in the "Bottom Line" series of reviews see:
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Last edited on 2007-09-17 22:22:49 CST (Total Number of Edits: 2)