Where I'm coming from: I've played the game 6-8 times - usually 4-player, rarely 3, never 2.

I. Rules and Play
Overview
The core of the game is competition over patrons and museum space for those patrons. At the start of each round, you make a small board out of randomly-chosen face-down patron tiles, grouped into parcels of two tiles (12 squares) each.

Close-up of a board. Note the colored icon in the center of each tile; it indicates which patron is on the reverse.


During the round, influence (represented by cubes) is placed across this board. Once finished, player ranking for each parcel is resolved in turn. Players who rank well may gain immediate points, patron tiles, or claim rooms in the museum.

Patron tiles provide a special ability during subsequent rounds, and are worth points at game end. You may use each of your tiles once per later round, so you'll get the most use out of your earliest patrons.

(Example: in round 1, you win two Lady Violet tiles and a Lord Lemon. In round 2, you can use two Lady Violet actions and one Lord Lemon action. In round 3, you can use them all again, along with whatever you won in round 2. In round 4, you can use them all again, plus whatever you won in rounds 2 and 3.)

After four rounds, the game ends. Each patron tile is worth 1 point by default. Having museum space for a particular patron will increase that patron's tiles to be worth 2, 3, or even 5 points each. There is a mild bonus (5 points) for collecting sets of all five patrons.

Details
Round setup
Each player takes 11 cubes (8 with four players) of their color from the general supply. In the first three rounds, four parcels of two tiles each are laid out. In the final round, six parcels are placed.

Placing influence
Taking turns, players execute one action, chosen from:
1. Start a new camp: Place a single cube on an open (non-pyramid) square;
2. Expand an existing camp: Place two cubes on open squares - the first must be adjacent to an existing cube, the second must be adjacent to the first. Note that the parcels are considered adjacent to each other - while they're scored in 2-tile units, for purposes of placement they're all one big map;
3. Use the special ability of a single patron tile (won in a previous round);
4. Pass, after which the player takes no further actions this round. Once all but one player has passed, that player gets just one action, after which they must also pass. This is important.

Players do not need to use all their influence cubes, and often will not want to. Pass order is relevant for two things:
1. Ties on a parcel are broken in favor of whichever player passed earlier.
2. Whomever passed last goes first in the next round.



Resolving parcels
Parcels are resolved one at a time, in a fixed order determined at game start. Rank the players who have influence on the parcel, with pass order resolving ties. The first-place player may either take one of the two patron tiles from that parcel (and perhaps some immediate bonus points, if the tile shows a number), or claim a space in the museum. The second-place player then gets the same choice. If there are any tiles left, then the third-place player may take one - but they never get the museum option; similarly for fourth place.



Museum placement
There are three types of room in the museum:
* "2" rooms are between two patron symbols. If you claim such a room, both those patrons will be worth 2 points to you.
* "3" rooms are for a single patron, which is then worth 3 points at game end.
* "5" rooms are for a single patron, which is then worth 5 points at game end. You must have either a "3" room or a "2" room for a patron before you can claim their "5" room.

You only benefit from the best room you have for a given patron. Cubes added to the museum during parcel resolution come from the general supply - not your personal stash.



Patron powers
The five patron special powers are as follows. All require your action to use:
* Lady Violet gives you a cube from the general supply, after which you to take an ordinary placement of either sort;
* Mrs. Blackmore lets you place a new camp (cubes unconnected to your earlier ones) of two cubes instead of one;
* Col. Tangerine lets you extend a camp (placing from existing cubes) with three cubes instead of two;
* Lord Lemon lets you take an ordinary placement of either sort, in which one of the cubes may be placed atop a pyramid (normally an obstacle / dead square);
* Sir Brown lets you take a cube from your personal supply and place it immediately in the museum, following the normal museum placement rules (ie, no 5 unless you have a 2 or 3 for that patron already). Obviously, this will put you at a disadvantage in claiming parcels that round, but it also lets you secure museum space early and without having to forego claiming a patron tile sometime.

Two-player games
Two-player games involve a "dummy" third player, which can be extended by either of the two human players and which always takes the #2 pass slot. I have no experience with the two-player game, and so won't comment upon it.

Notes on Tiles
The tiles which have grant immediate bonus points have more open layouts (ie, fewer pyramids). This allows greater room for contention over the more-valuable tiles.

Each of the five different patrons shows up seven times, for 35 of the 36 tiles. The remaining tile is worth 5 points immediately upon claiming, but grants no patron (so no points at endgame, and no special power).

II. Judgement
Components
The rulebook gets a minus for putting atmospheric hieroglyphics behind the text, making the rules much more difficult to read (or skim quickly, if you're trying to reference something in your first game or two).

The tiles get a plus for being sturdy and well-designed - the icons representing different characters are easily distinguished and colorblind-friendly, and the portrait sides are also easily distinguishable. (The power-reminder icons aren't necessarily instantly intuitive, but seem to do the trick after a single verbal reminder.)

The game's box is modestly sized, which is nice for hauling it places.

I know some folks dislike the cubes (for being small) and score-track markers (for being large); I don't find either problematic.

Theme
The theme informs the artwork and visual design of the game, but really, it's all about the mechanics.

Well, actually, that's something of a lie - the apparent theme of excavation and archaeology doesn't inform the mechanics or feel of the game at all; but the real theme of cutthroat patronage politics does come through in the museum mechanic, and in the fact that the actual archaeology is pretty much irrelevant (abstracted away to "points") except as it gains you the favor of your patrons.

Still, if you're looking for deep immersion, this ain't it.

How Does It Play?
Each round feels like a set of linked competitions/placement-puzzles - passing earlier is generally an advantage, so there's a reasonable incentive to play by expanding (adding 2 cubes at a time) rather than founding new camps with just 1 cube. I believe this dynamic is really what makes the game shine - without it, it'd just be a set of unlinked area-control competitions, with tempo of placement in different areas the only real interplay between them. But since expanding from an existing position is valuable, blocking other players becomes useful, pyramids/board edges need to be taken into consideration, and placement which permits expansion onto multiple parcels you wish to contest is extremely useful.

(The scoring phase for each round has some interesting decisions, too - the choice between museum placement and tile can often be quite tough, especially when museum placement would grant a tile to someone who wouldn't otherwise get one, and major strokes of inspiration / blunders are certainly possible - but I feel like the meat of the game is during influence placement.)

As has been praised elsewhere, Mykerinos is fast for the depth you get: it takes about an hour or so, and I could well imagine playing a game in 30-40 minutes with veteran players. There is some capacity for AP (one's moves are significant, and involve consideration of other people's likely priorities and plans - both good things, really) but that potential is mitigated by making each turn a small "do one simple thing" decision rather than a lengthy endeavor.

The four-player game feels considerably more crowded than with three players, and seems somewhat less forgiving - especially for new players, it's all too possible to end up with just one patron and no museum space after the first round, which can be a painful start.

Strategy thoughts
Early patrons are very, very useful. While there are certainly game situations in which you'll want to strategically keep cubes for use later on, don't give away too much in the early game.

The set bonus for collecting all five patrons should not be a primary goal - it only really makes each of those five patrons worth 2 points instead of one, which is nowhere near as good as, say, getting 4-5 of a single patron along with the 3- or 5-point museum space for that patron. If you happen to be near getting a set anyhow, then sure, go for it - 5 points is a nice bonus - but don't go into the game expecting that's how you'll win.

As mentioned above, passing early is usually advantageous. Barring Lady Violet, every player gets exactly the same number of cubes over the game, and passing early means that anyone wishing to beat you must spend greater effort for the same result, giving you an advantage elsewhere/later. Of course, you also want to avoid placing useless cubes (which only take 3rd/4th place when 1st/2nd take tiles rather than museum), and passing early can expose you to being overtaken, so thought / judging of others' intentions + moves is certainly required.

There can arise situations which overturn the usual "passing first is good" dynamic: if two players have substantially more cubes available than the other 1-2 players, you can end up in a situation where some players have passed, and the other two are alternating turns to achieve victory / 2nd place against the passed players by exactly-required margins, rather than blowing cubes competing with each other. (This is more possible in the final round, which has 50% more space available.) In this instance, passing earlier may not be desirable; while you'll win ties, you'll lose the ability to react. In this case, the only advantage to faster-play powers becomes the ability to quickly get a parcel to a point where you can't lose it, or to respond to someone else attempting to get a similar lock.

As in any limited-influence area-control game, inefficiency is to be avoided whenever possible. One obvious form of inefficiency is cubes which come in a useless 3rd or 4th place, but another is overkill when winning. Playing far more influence than necessary may intimidate others out of contesting you - but they will simply play those cubes elsewhere, likely to your net detriment, unless what you've secured is extremely valuable for you. On average, a player who takes calculated risks is apt to do better than a player who values certainty-of-victory in particular parcels above overall game position.

Claiming space in the museum is a critical part of the game - not just to make your own patrons score more (though that's most important) but also to deny points to other players.

Third place is more likely to pay out on parcels without bonus points, since bonus points give 1st/2nd place an incentive to take patron tiles rather than museum space.

The different patrons result in different tempo dynamics for the parcel placements - Black and Tangerine speed up their player, by placing more quickly; Lemon is neutral, changing only what spaces are legal; Violet is kinda neutral but benefits from longer play-length (you can't play those additional cubes if everyone else passes); and Brown slows down his player (by spending a turn only using a single cube, and not even on the parcels). Which brings us nicely to...

The Disputably Disreputable Sir Brown
Sir Brown's special ability - to place a cube from your supply into the museum - is certainly valuable. There have been multiple discussions about whether it's too valuable.

My experience is thus: in every game I've played, the winner has always been one of the players to capture one of the earlier Brown tiles which came out. This has been true even when I warned players about this effect, and early Brown tiles were bitterly disputed. Getting Sir Brown does not guarantee a win, but completely lacking Sir Brown seems like a major, major handicap.

Admittedly, most of my games have been 4-player, in which museum space tends to be tighter. Most of my games have also been with people who've played 0-2 times before. Using Sir Brown carries indisputable costs: a cube from your supply, and tempo on the parcels. I concede it entirely possible that among more experienced players, Sir Brown is perfectly balanced; after all, plenty of beginning players have thought that shipping corn was an unbeatable Puerto Rico strategy. And Mykerinos is the sort of game where I expect expertise to grant substantial advantage over beginning play.

All that being said, I've seen multiple novices put off of the game due to the discouragement / frustration of getting utterly hammered in the museum - as often as not by other novices, and as often as not by the end of round two, giving the victims a feeling of helpless pointlessness for the second half of the game.

Conclusions
I've enjoyed Mykerinos more and more with every play; each round is its own unique, competitive little territory microgame with varying motivations, incentives, and powers thrown into the mix. Sir Brown's power is the one sore spot in a system which otherwise feels very tight; while I can accept that it might possibly be balanced as-is, for practical reasons, I'm going to start house-ruling it in games with new or inexperienced players. I can imagine that some would find the game overly bland, and others simply uninspiring, but if you enjoy positional maneuverings and don't mind the abstractness, give it a try.


[Edited (x2) to fix/clarify a few confusing sentences + omissions caused by posting this rather late in the evening.]