Architects of Amytis
- Board's Eye View
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
Notionally this is a game about building a city for the queen of Babylon but don't expect to give a moment's thought to ancient history in this excellent two-player game from La Boîte de Jeu, distributed in the UK by Hachette Boardgames.
The game is played with 45 of the 48 building tiles, shuffled and placed out in stacks of five on a 3 x 3 grid. There are six different building types and all of the buildings come in four different background colours. The buildings each score in different ways; and there's an A and B side so you can switch up the different scoring mechanics. Players each have four 'architect' meeples and in a worker placement action you place an architect on a stack, draft that stack's topmost tile, place it on your own 3 x 3 board and score for it. You also score for matching 'plans' which require a specific pattern of colours in relation to each other (for example, three pink tiles in a row).
If all four of your architects are out on the central board you simply get them all back at the start of your next turn but if your placements create a line of three architects tic-tac-toe-style, you get to take back those three architects and you additionally select a bonus that will add to your end-game score.
With Architects of Amytis, Jérémy Ducret and Romaric Galonnier have designed an easy-to-play game that offers a mix of tactical choices but without bogging down players with undue complexity. Players are trying to score the patterns on their plans but that's an optimisation puzzle because to satisfy the plans you will usually have to place tiles on your board on top of some of those you've previously placed. You will ideally be trying to benefit from a tic-tac-toe line of architect meeples and you may well therefore want to block your opponent from doing likewise in the mini 'noughts & crosses' game going on in the central drafting board. And of course some specific buildings are going to be worth more to you than others, depending on what you already have on your board. You only get more plans when you take a Palace building, so again you might take a Palace deliberately to deny your opponent an additional scoring opportunity.
The game is attractively produced and presented. We were especially pleased to see that the box includes cards for each player that show the effect for each building type. That neatly avoids the problem of so many games where players have to crane their necks to read the small print on a central board or display. Tho' each building type is distinct the different designs don't leap out quite as immediately as the different colours; it can take a moment for players to fully register which building is which. Much as we liked Agnès Ripoche's artwork for the game, we confess we'd probably have found words or letters quicker and easier to immediately distinguish. Nevertheless, this is a great little game that plays in a still brisk 30 minutes.