Attika - a brief summary
Attika is an interesting board game - at it’s heart it is a rather simplistic tile placement game. Each player places tiles on a hexagonal board - which is randomly created at the beginning of each game. The first player to place all of their tiles wins. Alternately, players can connect two “temples” (which are connected to opposite sides of the board) with an unbroken chain of their tiles to pull off a quicker win, but this is quite rare - in fact I’ve never seen it done, and serves more as a game mechanic - keeping players on their toes and moving the action along.
At the beginning of the game, each player is dealt a card that represents one of the major cities in ancient Greece. The city is busted up into a bunch of tiles - each representing a small portion of the city as a whole, and these tiles are divided into 7 “sections” each consisting of a number of related tiles. All of these tiles are randomly gathered into 4 piles, and placed face-down next to the cities card. Players are then dealt a couple or resource cards.
Players alternate taking turns. On a player’s turn, they may choose to draw two tiles from their face down piles - placing them on their city card, or buidling them if they have the resources to do so - or, players can choose to place up to three tiles that are currently on their city card onto the map. In either case, players can choose to give up one or more of thier draws or placements to draw a resource card instead.
To place a tile on the map, you’ve got to pay the resource cost - which comes in four flavours - wood, grain, stone, and water. Resources come from your hand of resource cards. In addition, resources are scattered around the board that can be used just like resource cards. Tiles can also be placed for free, so long as they are placed adjacent to another tile in the same section of the city.
Once all of the tiles in a given section of the city are placed on the board, the player earns an “Amphora”. Amphoras can be cashed in during your turn to gain an additional draw or tile placement.
If at any time a player draws the last tile from one of their draw stacks, a new board section is randomly drawn and added to the board, making room for further tile placement.
Basically, that’s all there is to it. As a player, you’ve got to decide when the time is right to draw, when to place, and when to sacrifice these actions in order to draw additional resource cards. Careful care must be taken in the placement of tiles so that you can place the maximum number of tiles for free - and this means preplanning so that you have the room to do so. You’ve also got to make sure your opponent is kept from making a chain of tiles that connects two temples - if they are allowed to do so, they win instantly. Naturally, an important tactic is to hinder your opponent’s tile placement, all the while keeping a tight grip on your own territory. If you ever see the opening to complete a chain between temples, jump all over it, but it’s probably not a good idea to make it you’re main objective.
The game plays in 45 minutes or so - often less, and is overall a pretty light game all things considered. Personally I love the game, though I do know a few fellow gamers that could take it or leave it. This is one of those games that can be as deep and thought provoking as you wish to make it - allowing it to appeal to a wide range of gamer types. I recommend it, but given the variable opinions I’ve heard on the game, you may want to check out some other reviews before pulling the trigger on buying a copy.
DEACON
