:strip_icc()/pic6866677.jpg)
/pic6699425.png)
You have a limited number of actions in which to build those structures and handle related paperwork, so ideally you're scheduling your time well, and by game's end you've transformed the last of your resources into finished buildings that are worth points — yet billing Founders of Teotihuacan as a resource-management game also feels unsatisfactory.
In the game, you are represented by an architect figure that travels around your building site, and you can build only in the half of the board closest to you. Presumably your voice carries only so far over the worksite, so you need to time certain actions so that you have the resources on hand to build the temple of pyramid section you want in the location you want. Should you turn up a gold short, you might not be able to place part of a pyramid in a certain space, which means you'd need to wait four turns until you've circled the board again in order to do so, and you have at most 12-18 actions depending on the player count, so a lost opportunity might be lost forever. Even so, billing this design as a time-management game again feels wrong.
:strip_icc()/pic6866660.jpg)
Two final boards in a three-player game
All of those elements — tile laying, resource management, and time management — are present, but none of them stand at the forefront, and they don't merge to transform into a single, larger concept. Founders of Teotihuacan is a point-salad game in which the individual salad ingredients have somehow remained distinct instead of creating something grander. The cheese and strawberry never combine into something new.
/pic2270442.jpg)
In the former game, each of the two players is placing tiles on a personal game board — akin to Founders of Teotihuacan — but the goal of that game is to cover as many spaces on your board as possible and you have access to only three tiles at a time. This matters because the 33 tiles in that game are quite varied, and often you desperately need a particular tile or two because it's the right shape or it provides income to buy what you need or it gets you one of the few precious single-square patches, which means you constantly need to manipulate the timing of the actions so that you can get what you need. The design is all about fitting polyomino pieces together, with the income — that is, the resources needed to get tiles — being secondary to this larger goal. Income is essential, but it's nothing more than a tool and doesn't pull focus.
/pic6293412.jpg)
Founders of Teotihuacan doesn't fit either model with its tile laying. In the four games I've played on a review copy from Board&Dice, we haven't felt the pressure of Patchwork or Ark Nova. We typically have a fair amount of space left over, and the difference between the production buildings (2 vs 3 vs 4 stone) doesn't seem to matter much, so if one is taken, you just grab another. The green, blue, and orange temple tiles differ in costs, but their benefits are the same in endgame scoring; a different set of worship tiles is associated with each type of temple — green worship tiles convert resources into points or other things; blue worship tiles reward you for having combinations of buildings; and red worship tiles reward you for nothing...or for having combinations of buildings — but their difference seems to have minimal impact.
An issue related to this lack of pressure involves the action allocation. In a four-player game, you play four rounds, and you start with five action discs. At the end of each round, you remove a disc from the game, so you'll have access to only 14 (5+4+3+2) discs, i.e., 14 actions. The strength of a building action space depends on the number of discs on it, whether yours or opponents, so if you want to take a strength four action on turn one, you need to place three discs on it — which means you're giving up two actions, which seems like a terrible idea in a game with only 14 actions. (In a three-player game, you play only three rounds, so you'll have only 12 (5+4+3) discs/actions. You start with an extra disc in the four-round, two-player game, giving you 18 (6+5+4+3) discs/actions.)
When building temples and pyramid blocks, if you don't have the proper strength, you pay additional resources as a penalty — but that penalty pretty much always seems preferable to throwing away an action. The only possible advantage of jumping to strength four, aside from spending fewer resources, is blocking an action space since they can have at most three discs on them — but each action area has three action spaces on it in a three- or four-player game, so you're not really blocking anyone.
What's more, since your disc reserve shrinks over the course of the game, you have fewer possible actions, and in the final round of a four-player game, you probably can't take a strength four action unless an opponent goes on a space first to give you a leg up. Whereas most games escalate over the course of play, with actions becoming more powerful or plentiful as you improve your deck, add to your family, or gain additional powers, Founders of Teotihuacan taps its brakes each round, slowing to a halt and leaving you feeling like a kid in a convenience store who has only fifty cents to spend — it's better than nothing, but not by much.
For thoughts on the game, including a storage suggestion, check out this video overview:
:strip_icc()/pic4992939.png)
/pic6856687.png)
/pic6863735.jpg)
:strip_icc()/pic6627458.jpg)
:strip_icc()/pic6857377.png)
