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As CEO Eric Hautemont told me at a game convention, where I was able to play the prototype once and interview the designer, he doesn't want people who normally buy Days of Wonder titles to be surprised (in a bad way) when they open the box and find something a tad more involved than normal. (One might argue that Relic Runners was already more thinky and abstract than the typical DoW release.) Five Tribes has lots of openness in terms of possible moves, and while those moves aren't obscure, the consequences of those moves — combined with bidding each round for turn order — might leave the casual Ticket to Ride player baffled. Perhaps Hautemont's wariness will make more sense once you get an overview of the game from Cathala himself:
Non-final artwork, components, etc.
To summarize, you have a mancala-based worker displacement system on a randomized board with randomly placed workers with actions coming from the final worker you displace each turn as well as the tile from which it was displaced. All of that information is open, and the myriad choices available each turn should ideally drive each player's bid for turn order, although some players will have more choices or options than others thanks to meeples collected on previous turns or djinns that provide a special power or bonus only to its controller. The only luck factors in the game come from the order in which goods cards are revealed (with nine being visible each turn and some goods being more rare than others) and which djinn cards can be acquired (as each has a unique power).
At the end of the game, players score points from cash on hand, tiles and djinn owned, sets of goods collected, viziers in your service, and more. Money is required for turn order bidding and goods acquisition, although you can also acquire goods (which includes slaves as well as more common goods like gold) via merchants, and the slaves help you power certain djinn actions or gain more money through the use of architects. Everything seems tangled together as every meeple you drop during your turn can affect which actions — both meeple and tile — are available in subsequent turns.
Five Tribes was one of my three favorite games from this convention, with each turn feeling important and a challenge all its own while you're balancing the immediate opportunities of the turn, the push toward endgame scoring and larger goals, and the risk of providing an opening for someone else. The only reason that I played it a single time is that whenever I was subsequently free during the con, the game was already being played or Cathala wasn't in the room.
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