As I was teaching this game at Gencon, one of the players remarked that, "Thebes isn't even on the map!" and he was correct. When I explained that Jenseits von Theben meant Beyond Thebes, the name and map made more sense as all of the excavation sites are south and/or east of Thebes.

My experience with this Queen/Rio Grande game by Peter Prinz is four and a half games, all except the half with four players. I do not have my copy, yet, but was able to play it twice each at Origins (where Jay Tummelson kindly allowed the demo copy to be used by the CABS library) and at Gencon at the Rio Grande Spiel-a-thon and from the Gencon library. Jay taught the basics of the rules for my half game in his booth, then after looking at the rules and playing with a RGG demo-er, Todd, I've learned the rest.

I've now played with at least nine other players and the responses have ranged from ok (too much luck) to helping me plot a way to rent a helicopter to hijack the container ship that (during Origins) was steaming its way across the Atlantic.

The players in this game take the role of early 20th century archaeologists researching in Europe to more effectively search for treasures in the mideast. Many of my fellow mitspielers have commented that the mechanics and feel of the game match the theme. With the exception that none of us used a whip a la Indiana Jones, I concur. (Maybe the whip came in as a necessary tool after 1903 (the last year this game covers). There certainly is a sense of racing to learn about the sites so that one can get to the sites before all of the good treasures are discovered. Also, because each action takes time to do (as measured in weeks on the outer ring of the map, there is a very real feel of too much to do and not enough time.

COMPONENTS
I've not yet seen a box that simply had Thebes on it (as opposed to Jenseits von Theben), but I've seen three copies of the latter, so my description will be based on those. Usually, Queen keeps the components common.

The coolest part of this game has to be the bags. There are five cloth bags that correspond to the five excavation areas. They are sized so that my larger than normal hands easily fit inside to stir and draw the counters. There is a large color band around the top and the picture corresponding to the dig site is featured on the bag. (I saw one review that mentioned his copy had one picture upside down, but haven't seen this version, yet.)

The second coolest component has to be the wheels that are used to look up, based on knowlege and time, how many treasures one can pull from the bags when excavating. You turn the wheel to to point to your knowledge level at the dig site, then crossindex weeks on the spinning part to show through a slot how many treasures you can draw. They are possibly cooler than they are functional, because while they work perfectly well, comments were made that its format makes it a bit difficult to compare different columns to determine if more research would be effective. Also note, the bottom and top of the wheels are both colorcoded and taking them apart to correct a mismatch causes the plastic axles to shoot across the room. Hypothetically, if you do this in the boardroom at Gencon, in mediocre light and patterned carpet, you have to sweep your hand and arm across wide areas of carpet to locate the little black plastic pieces.

The normal Queen solid and colorful board has a map of Europe and the mideast that ranges from London in the northeast to Eqypt in the south and east to Mesopotamia (which always triggers the B-52's song in my head) There are five dig sites all found further from Europe than Thebes and seven European cities. Adjacent cities/dig areas are connected by lines that represent a week to traverse. Also on the board are areas to display the four cards representing items that are available as well as up to three cards that represent potential exhibitions. Around the edge of the board is a, nope, not a scoretrack, but spaces numbered from one to fifty-two that represent weeks. (OK, at the end, it's also handy as a score track.)

The cards are sturdy, but smaller than normal playing cards. Since they aren't often shuffled, the size isn't an issue and they fit better on the board and in front of the players in the small format. There are five reference cards that show the treasure distribution of each dig site. There are ten exhibit cards that are horizontal and show the VP, location and weeks to perform at the top and colored circles showing the colors of treasure needed to fulfill the exhibition. The rest of the cards are vertically oriented and have location and weeks to obtain on top with clear icons below. The icons are clear and large enough that they can be easily read across from across the table. All cards also have nice unobstrusive period illustrations. The most common card is specific knowledge to a single dig location. This is represented by one to three book icons of the appropriate color with a matching picture. There are also cards with one or two colorless books that represent general knowledge. Other cards include research assistants that act as wild specific knowledge, shovels that allow more treasures to be excavated, rumors that act as one use specific knowledge for a given location, cars and zeppelins to facilitate movement, conferences that accumulate combine to score VP and a permit renewer.

The treasures and sand tokens are heavy cardboard disks that have a picture of the treasure and its value printed on both sides (or not, as it will seem the case for a majority of your draws). There are fifteen sand tokens, two knowledge tokens and thirteen treasure tokens for each site. In one game a player wondered whether the sand disks would become worn because they are shaken, stirred and otherwise handled more than the treasure tokens. In my opinion, this shouldn't become a problem. Each player also gets a small rectangular "permit" for each of the potential dig locations. Each player also has a wooden figure to represent his location physically on the map and a wooden disk to represent his temporal location on the time track.

Since I was taught the game rather than learning from the rules, I can't comment on the clarity when learing the game from scratch. I have looked up a few questions and easily found the answers. There seem to be sufficient examples and pictures to clarify the intent of the rules. I didn't confirm whether all of the English rules had a paragraph of Dutch, but the one at Gencon did. There are four or five copies of the rules and reference sheets each in four or five different languages. One side of the reference sheet has a sentence or two about each treasure and its history, while the other side has card distributions and brief explanations of each type of card.

GAMEPLAY
Players figures start in Warsaw and their time marker starts off the track. There are four cards turned up that show the available research or other research items. All cards are have a city and a time on the card. These represent the city that the player must be in and how long must be spent in the city to obtain the card.

Each turn a player may move and must perform an action either claiming a card or digging. Each step on the map takes one week and the cards range from one to six weeks to obtain and a player may dig up to ten weeks. When a player moves and gets a card or digs, the corresponding disk is moved on the time track. The player whose disk is farthest behind on the time chart (used the least amount of time so far) is next to take a turn. This means that there is not a fixed turn order and it's fairly common for players to get two or three consecutive turns.

When a player takes a card, it is placed faceup on the table and a new card is drawn to replace the old one. Most cards remain with the player for the rest of the game. However, rumors, the zeppelin and the permit restoration are discarded after using them once. Also, if a player uses a single research assistant or single shovel, it is discarded after use. With two or three of either the player gets a one or two book bonus or a one or two extra pull bonus on all following digs. The exhibition cards when drawn are placed on another three card display and no more than three will be available at any time. If another is drawn the oldest is discarded. These exhibitions require a player to have from between one and six specificly colored treasures to perform the exhibit.

To dig in an excavation site a player must move to it and have at least one specific knowlege (measured in books) about that area. Each specific knowledge a player has may be matched by one general knowledge if the player has cards with general knowledge icons to determine total knowledge in an area. That number is cross indexed with amount of weeks a player is willing to spend to determine how many chits are pulled from the appropriate bag. If a player has shovel card(s), the number of chits pulled is increased. Any treasure or knowledge chits are retained while the empty ones (sand) are returned to the bag. In this way, the treasure at each site is gradually reduced, lowering the odds of finding any treasure. After a player digs at a site, the appropriate permit is turned over and the player may not dig at that location until next year. Each game the first dig at each site automatically receives a one value treasure.

As players complete a year by using fifty two weeks of travel and actions, any exhausted excavation requests are restored and the game continues. The game has a fixed length, two, two and a half or three years for four, three or two player games. Players are not allowed to perform actions that would take their time marker beyond the last week of the game. When all players have reached the end of the time track, VP are added. Treasures are worth the value shown on the chits. Players also score for completing exhibitions and for collecting convention cards. The latter are scored triangularly (as indicated on the cards); 1 for 1, 3 for 2, 6 for 3, etc. up to 28 VP for 7. Additionally, whichever player has the most specific knowledge about each area received 5 VP (3 if tied). The player with the most VP is the winner.

IMPRESSIONS
As mentioned there is a very real feel of racing the clock (calendar?) and the other players to quickly research "enough," and then get to the dig sites before the good treasures are taken. Remember that when a player digs, the sand is put back in the bag. So early, the bags are about half useful chits, but towards the end, there will still be fifteen sand chits, but maybe only two or three treasures left.

This impression of racing and being efficient is visually enhanced by watching your marker move around the calendar. And the turn order mechanism is probably the most praised feature about this gameplay with good reason, in my opinion.

The different treasure distributions add an interesting feature, but it rarely factors into decisions upon where to dig. Players will usually want to dig where they have the most knowledge and/or where the bags are least depleted.

The exhibitions seem underpowered, but my opinion on that may change with more plays. One advantage that they are sure things. Drawing from the bags may yield more VP, but could provide none.

The bonus for most knowledge at the end and the exhibitions do provide something useful to chase or do with the last few weeks of the year in the case when a player has already used all permits for digging or doesn't have enough knowledge in the remaining area to make it worth digging.


SUGGESTIONS
The only negative comments that I've heard or read about this game are that there is too much luck of the draw when digging. I've seen it pointed out in other fora and agree completely that that's how archaeology works and personally, I've had a great time every game whether luck was running my way or not. If the luck factor was a show stopper, it would be easy enough to remove some of the sand from the bags to make it more likely to get treasures. Another twist would be to only put back half of the sand rounded up. This would keep the distribution of treasure to sand closer to the starting 50/50 ratio. Some also don't like the fact that while treasures average about 3 VP, the range is from one to seven. This means it's very feasible that someone could make only one pull and get more VP than somene with ten pulls. Again, I am fine with that, it's not likely and it keeps everyone hoping for a comeback. You could always play that all treasures are worth 3 VP to take that element out of the game. There is certainly some luck involved when a card is drawn that happens to be where one's pawn is sitting, but no more than any game where cards are drawn randomly. One player suggested that in addition to the four available cards, there could be a faceup "pipeline" of cards. So essentially the top four or so cards on the draw pile would be visible. Other than additional card moving, I don't see anything wrong with this concept.

At one point in the rules, it seems to imply that the treasures can be hidden, but we've always played open treasures. So far, it hasn't been an issue, but it could lead to questions like, "How many yellow treasures are left?" and "Is the big blue treasure still in the bag?" Both valid questions, but carried to extremes, they could slow down the game. My suggestion is to blow up and laminate the reference cards that show the treasure distribution and mark it as the treasures are discovered. In this way, everyone will have a handy reference for each bag.

CONCLUSION
I think this is a good game with solid components that matches theme well with the gameplay. It probably has more luck than some will enjoy, but if you aren't severely luck intolerant, you should give this game a try. At this point, I rate it a 9. I don't think I'd want to play it over and over all day, but it's a very pleasant diversion for an hour or two.

In case you were wondering, I don't think anyone did rent the helicopter to abduct the cargo ship. At least I reluctantly decided to wait for the game to be available here.