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The latest title to see new life is Corinth, which probably doesn't ring a bell, but if you were to learn this design's playtest name — "Yspahan: The Dice Game" — you might start nodding your head in recollection. Sébastien Pauchon's Yspahan debuted in 2006 from French publisher Ystari Games, its third release following Ys from company founder Cyril Demaegd in 2004 and the market-changing Caylus from William Attia in 2005.
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In Yspahan, players tried to deliver goods to market stalls in various areas to score points, with the novelty of the game coming from how players delivered those goods, in addition to acquiring gold and camels. At the start of a turn, the active player rolled nine dice, then placed all the dice with the highest value on the gold space of a chart, then started placing dice from the bottom of the chart up, with each value of dice being on a separate level. The active player would take all the dice on one level, then take some action with them: collecting gold, delivering goods stalls, collecting camels, drawing an action card, or moving the supervisor, with the possible actions differing depending on which dice they took. The active player could spend gold to roll up to three extra yellow dice and thereby increase the odds of getting to take a desired action; if the active player didn't take any of these yellow dice, they were removed from play, preventing others from benefitting at that player's expense.
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Yspahan image by Ivan Kosak
Corinth keeps this dice chart at the core of gameplay, with the active player rolling nine white dice as in the original game and possibly spending gold to roll up to three extra yellow dice. Players take turns selecting all of the dice on a level, but the choices are streamlined compared to the original Yspahan game. The top level gives the player as many gold as the number of dice they took; the bottom level gives camels instead of gold; and the middle levels allow a player to deliver goods to a number of market stalls on their personal player sheet equal to the dice claimed.
Yes, Corinth is a roll-and-write game, with each player marking off stalls on their sheet. You have four colors of stalls as in Yspahan, and once you start marking off, say, rugs in one of the blue areas, you have to finish marking off all the rugs in that area before you can start marking off another blue area. This mimics the gameplay decisions of the earlier design: If you have two dice, do you mark off the easiest stall now to claim a few points or do you mark off some spaces in the largest stall, hoping to take more dice from the same level in the future in order to complete that stall and earn more points per die claimed?
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Instead of marking off gold, goats, or goods, you can use the value of the die or dice claimed (1-6) to move the steward on your personal score sheet. The steward starts in the middle of a 5x5 grid on your sheet, and you must move it as many spaces as the number of pips on the die value claimed, not crossing over any line you've drawn previously. You can pay 1 gold to move the steward one more or one fewer space, and you can pay as much gold as you want to do this. You can receive gold, goats, or goods from where the steward stops, but beyond that, you can earn points. When the steward stops on a corner space of this grid, you count the number of spaces circled to this point, with some spaces counting twice, then you write down that number, scoring that many points at game's end. If you stop in another corner later, you do the same thing again, which compounds the value of all your previous movement.
As in Yspahan, in Corinth you can spend gold or goats to construct buildings that give you bonus powers, such as collecting two additional gold whenever you collect any gold or moving the steward up to two spaces more or less without paying.
After 16 turns (with four players) or 18 turns (with two or three players), the game ends and you tally points for goods delivered, spaces visited by the steward, buildings constructed, and goats and gold still on hand.
Corinth retails for €20/$20, and it will debut from publisher Days of Wonder in March 2019 in Europe and in May 2019 in North America.
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