Tianxia

• Designers: Antonio Petrelli, Daniele Tascini
• Publisher: Board&Dice 
• Players: 1-4
• Age: 14+
• Time: 60-120 mins
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

The Warring States period was a pivotal era in Chinese history, marked by constant warfare, significant bureaucratic and military reforms, and the consolidation of power among rival states. The game is set around 260 BCE, a time when the seven warring kingdoms were locked in fierce conflict, both against each other as well as against nomadic groups like the Xiongnu, who posed a threat from the north. Although sections of the Great Wall of China had been constructed as early as the 8th century BCE, the later years of the Warring States period saw a surge in defensive building projects. Before Qin ultimately unified the kingdoms, extensive fortifications, watchtowers, and new sections of the wall were erected to bolster defenses.

In Tianxia, players take the role of leaders of noble families who want to earn prestige, as well as favors from the powerful rulers that govern the seven Warring Kingdoms. The game lasts four rounds in which you install Governors in the regions and bolster the power of rival ruling houses, thus gaining their favor. You also sell goods to merchant ships that sail the Chinese shores to gain wealth and other benefits. Nevertheless, you must not forget about the nomadic warriors who pose a constant threat on 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. 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. At the end of the game, the player who was the best governor, politician, merchant, and protector wins.

To set up, there are lots of things to be done – place the board on the table, the barges and building tiles in the right places, choose palace and regular bonus tiles as well as Ships and Demand tiles.  The Nomad chiefs are placed at the start of each attack path, and the Nomad attack deck is also created.  Each player gets their own Player board and all the bits in their color.  Walls and Towers are placed on the board as well as markers at the start of each Palace track.  Each player gets starting money and 3 Objective cards.  A supply of Starting Building tiles is drawn and they are chosen in reverse starting order.  While this sounds complex, a full page illustration in the rules makes it remarkably simple to do.

The game is played over 4 rounds, each with 5 phases: Setup, Income, Action, Attack and Cleanup.  

In the Setup phase, bonus tiles are placed on the Round track, Nomad Chieftains advance based on the cards drawn, and the Nomad strength also increases based on the number on the card. 

In the Income phase, you get resources for each worker on a Barge as well as benefits from your buildings.  (Then in a 2 or 3 player game, add a neutral meeple to the left of each Barge, possibly pushing people off on the right side).

In the Action phase, players take turns, each time taking one of four main actions (as well as any number of Free Actions)

1] Region – place one of your action markers in one of the 7 regions on the map, paying 1 coin to the supply for each other Action marker in that region. Then, take the benefit in the Action space, advance on the appropriate Palace track, and then take one of each type of action in that region (install a Governor, exchange resources into goods, ship goods)

2] Military – place one of your action markers in one of the 4 regions on the wall, paying 1 coin to the supply for each other Action marker in that region.  Then advance on the appropriate Palace track and then either Fortify (building Walls or Towers) or Train Soldiers.  The defense marker of the region moves up based on what you have chosen to build/train.

3] Barge – Choose one of the barges on the river, and spend 1 coin plus 1 coin for each of your workers present on the same barge.  Place your new Worker in at the left side and possibly push people out the right – there is a limit of 3 workers per Barge.  Displaced workers become Merchants and are put next to a Merchant Free action on their owner’s player board.  (If all spaces next to a Merchant action are filled, you can resolve that action for free and return all those Merchants to the player’s supply).  If you are out of workers, you can place a neutral worker and receive the good immediately.  Otherwise, for all the workers of your color, you will only gain the resources from the Barge in each Income phase.

4] Pass – put your turn order marker on the topmost empty space of the turn order track, and take one of the available Bonus tiles.  Additionally, you may be able to pay to advance on the Palace tracks – though this ability is dependent on how many Jade Figurines you have collected.

In the Attack phase, you now focus on the four Nomad tracks – in every section where the Nomad Chieftain is on the final battle space, unsurprisingly, a battle will happen.   First, VPs are awarded based on the relative contribution of each player to the defense.  Then, you will reduce the Nomad strength based on the Towers and Wall sections in the region, and then if needed, removing soldiers – starting with the leftmost – until the Nomad strength reaches zero.  If you cannot get to zero Nomad strength, the battle is lost and the buildings under that wall section are now looted.  When the battle ends (all buildings looted or the Nomad strength is zero), the best defender in the area gets bonus points for any governors left in the area, if there are any.

Finally, in the cleanup phase, the ships are refreshed with new demand tiles, the turn order for the next round is set (based on the order of passing in the current turn), and each player takes their 3 action markers back.

At the end of the fourth round, the game ends and there is some final scoring

• Jade Figurines:  1/3/6/10/15/21 VP for 1/2/3/4/5/6 figurines
• Palace Tracks: 7/4/2 VP for being 1st/2nd/3rd on a track
• Objective cards: score up to 3 cards based on their criteria
• 1 VP for every 5 goods, resources or coins left over.

Ties broken in favor of the player with the most built Towers.

My thoughts on the game

So, when considering the “T-games” of the past few years (which Board & Dice have become quite famous for)… most of them were at the upper extreme of complexity.  All great games, and all games I was glad to have tried – but some of the more complex ones simply didn’t resonate with me or my usual group.  Teotihuacan (BGG complexity 3.78), Tekhenu (4.07) and Tawantinsuyu (4.17) are examples of games in that cohort.

My favorite one of the past few years has been Tiletum (complexity 3.39), and I was really chuffed to hear that Tianxia would be closer to this in scope than the other T-games mentioned above.  Additionally, the setting in the Warring period of Chinese history was of special interest to me.  So, as soon as the game arrived, I had cracked it open to start reading the rules.

The game LOOKS complex on the table – the board is admittedly a bit convoluted and cluttered to the untrained eye.  Setup is also complex, taking a good ten minutes or more in setting up all of the different ships, bonus tiles, tracks, player boards and everything else that needs to be done.  However, once you get into the actual game – it’s honestly super streamlined and really quite easy to grok.

At its heart, the game is a worker placement game, there are honestly not too many choices to choose from – only 9 different action spaces as well as the barges which do not require an action marker.  Sure, you can do a number of different things with each action piece placement, but those options are fixed, so once you’re comfortable with the game, you don’t have to continually re-learn things.

You only get 3 action markers per round, and only 4 rounds in the game – so you’ll have to maximize these twelve placements.  While that doesn’t sound like that would ever be enough – don’t forget that you have a few possible options with each action placement.  You’ll generally get either a resource to good conversion option OR a chance to ship (which comes with bonus actions/resources); you’ll definitely get a bump up on skill track (which could generate a bonus token), and then also get the chance to install a governor (which might come with a bonus token).  If you choose to place on the barges, you’ll generate goods and you may also end up pushing yourself towards a free merchant action.  

In any event, using these bonus tokens and merchant actions at the right time can really help you chain together some complex turns.  While you only get to place twelve tokens, I’d guesstimate you’re really going to end up with 30-40 small actions (when you consider each part of the turn or bonus token as a small action).

Getting so many actions helps you in your overall plan; and you’ll always be pulled in different directions.   As with many of the T games, in Tianxia, you’re trying to do too many things at once.  You always need to have enough resources and goods to do things, but you also are working on contract fulfillment (to the ships).  There is also a fair amount of area control – both in the four defensive areas at the top of the board as well as the four skill tracks at the bottom.  And speaking of the tracks, you’re racing up those tracks for both control as well as the bonus tokens that you can acquire as you hit certain thresholds

And if the sheer number of options here isn’t enough to worry about, there is always the timing aspect to consider.  Ties in the defensive areas go to the earlier placed soldier, hitting the bonus thresholds on the skill tracks gives the best selection options, only the first Governor at each space gets the bonus token, action markers cost more to place if there are other tokens placed there earlier, etc.

Once you have learned the game and can take a more global look at it, Tianxia is a nice tight game that rewards action efficiency. Will it take a while to play?  Sure, I think 30 min per player is a fair estimate – some turns happen rapidly, but others will take a bit of time to think through the options.

Two player games use an interesting dummy player whose actions are driven by cards.  They take three turns each round (each slightly larger than a player turn) to help block up things and take away opportunities.  Often I find that 2 player versions of complex games pale in comparison to games with all humans, but here, the game actually shines with the lower player count.

The game takes up most of my game table, and it is both complicated and beautiful at the same time.  Gameplay-wise, the Icons are well done, and they help players understand all their options.  The rulebook is solid, and I didn’t have any problems learning the game from the rules nor looking up any questions that arose during play.  The player aids are fairly detailed, though I would have liked a reminder of the free actions options somewhere (on the board, the player board or the player aid).  But, overall, this is such a minor quibble as everything else works really well.

Tianxia is vying for my favorite “T-game” with Tiletum.  They both share traits that I love – being complex but not overly so and having game mechanisms that allow you to chain together a bunch of small actions for really impactful turns.  I have certainly not come close to mastering the strategy in Tianxia yet, and I look forward to many more games in the near future to further explore it.

Thoughts from other Opinionated Gamers

Lorna: I agree with Dale that the game plays well at 2 and the bot is easy to use.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it! Dale Y (2p), Lorna, Ryan P
• I like it. Dale Y (3p)
• Neutral.
• Not for me…