Tianxia
- David Breaker
- 6 hours ago
- 3 min read
It is time to return to 260 BCE and survive as a leader of a noble family during the Warring States period of Chinese History. The Great Wall of China is not yet complete, and during this time, China is struggling with internal conflicts and external threats, such as the Xiongnu nomadic tribe.
Tianxia is the latest 'T-series' game from publisher Board & Dice and designer Daniele Tascini, who has co-designed with Antonio Petrelli. Daniele Tascini is well known for his work on these types of euro games, and his influence can be seen all over the design.
The game lasts four rounds, in which you install governors in the regions (which provide your engine building and upgrades) and bolster the power of rival ruling houses, thus gaining their favour (represented by four separate tracks). You also sell goods to merchant ships that sail the China shores to gain wealth and other benefits.
However, you must not forget about the nomadic warriors who pose a constant threat to the northern borders of the Seven Kingdoms. Thus, you must train soldiers and build walls and towers to weaken the invaders and protect your interests, earning prestige in the process. This is the area control element of the game, with some similar feels to The Great Wall (Awaken Realms).
Each round, the nomads advance toward the borders of the Seven Kingdoms and gather even larger numbers. When they reach the border, a battle takes place that affects all players. This is where a large chunk of your points can accrue based on how well you defend the provinces. If you don’t, it will lead to repercussions that can damage and remove your installed governors in that region.
Tianxia has so many classic elements of your signature Board & Dice euro games. It has worker placement mixed with progress tracks, but it doesn’t hugely reinvent the wheel here. The game is very tight, with minimal resources to hand and also few actions taking place during the game, but with the idea that you can wring out as much as you can from each action through clever use of combos. On your turn, you will either place one of your three action discs into the provinces or place your workers on one of three resource production spots.
By going to the provinces to activate them, you gain a reward, a conversion of resources, trade resources for benefits, or build soldiers or defences for the wall. You can then spend wood to install governors in builders in that region, which empower your actions or give you income. If you go to a spot with another player's 'worker', then you must pay money per piece there.
As for the worker placement, there is limited space on the three resource 'barges', which gives you an instant gain but also matters for your start-of-turn income. This is where the game tries something new. Due to the limited space, you can bump other players' workers, meaning they will get less income next turn but that worker will be converred to a 'trader' who can be used to activate their asymmetric powers on their player boards. This is where I would say I saw some issues with the design. Firstly, your workers are used for multiple things. They are used as governors, workers, traders and also soldiers. The problem is that you have a very limited supply of them and it can be almost impossible to retrieve them. Every game I played, the players became frustrated by this restriction, so it is worth being aware of this tight element of the game. The other issue with the game is that some of the player asymmetric powers feel unbalanced, with some clearly better than others.
Despite this, Tianxia does have a lot going well for it and is a lot of fun. If you enjoy a more in-depth, tight resource and decision space kind of Euro game, then this really will appeal to you. On the other hand, I can see how many will not enjoy this. There are a lot of moving pieces, and setup and putting away is time-consuming due to the multiple pieces that help provide random setup and elements to the game. This has almost become the norm now with Board & Dice games. I am a big fan of most of the Board & Dice games, so for me this game ticks all the right boxes.
(Review by David Breaker)
