If you’re ready to make your mark on history, now is your chance! As you take on the role of a Maya royal family, you will strategize your best moves to expand your kingdom, construct your pyramid, and receive the favor of the gods. There are many ways to earn fame, but only if you earn the most will you be recognized forever by the deities. Let’s get started!

What Is It?

Hand Management – Each turn players will play 2 cards from their hand to determine what region they want to visit, and their strength booster for the round (if multiple players choose the same region, they must resolve conflicts with strength). Players won’t pick up their cards until they have less than 2 in hand, so they’ll need to mind their cards and keep their options open.

Worker Placement – Players use their cards to place their ruler in a region each turn. Then, they’ll also place a worker on a city tile touching that region, which will determine which God they can (optionally) summon that turn. Where they place their worker will also influence their produce or build action, determining what and how much of a resource they can produce, or how many things they are allowed to build during that phase.

Resource Management – Players will gather resources throughout the game which they can use to build pyramid and building tiles on their player boards. They can also do basic trades throughout the game, and use certain Gods’ powers for trading, to help them collect the resources they’ll need for their builds.

Variable Player Powers – Players can earn a role card during the game which gives them an extra card in hand with a unique ability they can use each time they play it.

Who Is It For?

  • 1 to 5 Players – The game scales well, so it’s fine at any count. Personally, I think it’s a little too long at 4 or 5, so I prefer it at 2 or 3. Solo was also good if you like heavier solo games
  • Ages 16 and Up – Definitely a bunch of moving parts in this one, and plenty of opportunities for strategy, all of which might be difficult for younger audiences. However, there is a family variant, which can be good for slightly younger players
  • Fans of worker placement, resource/hand management, “play your cards and pick them up” action retrieval
  • Players who don’t mind a little confrontation (conflicts) and who like having a lot of options/paths turn to turn

Variants

Ahau Family – This strips out a few rules (i.e. buildings, roles…) to streamline things and make it a bit lighter. I thought this was a nice addition to make it more accessible to younger or newer gamers. I prefer the “full” game, as I like all the additional pieces, but it’s a nice option.

Personal Scoring – Usually temples give fame to players present at the temple based on the highest value player, regardless of it they themselves are present at the temple. With this variant, temples score individually, for each player’s own performance. I liked this option as I know a few people I played with didn’t love the “shared” way of scoring, though I actually thought that was cool. But this variant definitely changes how you approach scoring, and which temples/objectives you focus on. So it can be a nice change to vary things play to play.

Shadow Player Mode – Can be used in 2 to 4 player games to add a bit more competition for regions, tiles, et cetera. It’s a nice, simple addition if you feel like you need more competition in that area, but don’t have more players. For me, I thought the game was fine without it, so I don’t need the additional upkeep, even though it is small.

Solo – Play against an AI player which has its own player board. There are 3 difficulties to choose from to give players a variable challenge. I thought it was interesting that the AI player just had to have the right number of resources to build, but didn’t collect certain types, and that the AI started with a role, giving it a leg up. For me, I prefer lighter, quicker games when I play solo. But if you like solo Euros, it’s a super solid game.

PROS

  • Aesthetics – Nice table presence, especially temples, & I like the art
  • Quality – Nice player boards, good quality components across the board
  • Rules – Very clear rules, good images/examples given
  • Replay value – I felt like every play felt a little different, which was great and kept it from feeling stale
  • Good competition for spots, but even when conflicts happen and you are forced to leave the region you chose, I felt like you still had plenty of options open to you
  • Lots of strategies/paths for scoring in different ways
  • I thought it was interesting how your produce or build actions got better when you have more workers in a city, but you can also benefit from spreading out to have multiple majorities, or work on gaining free buildings early on
  • I don’t usually like the “play your cards and pick them up” mechanism, but I don’t mind it here since you don’t have to spend a whole turn just to pick up, it’s just baked into your turn if you need to do it.

CONS

  • Usability – I had a few issues here – small symbols on buildings; the colors of resources didn’t quite match the printed images, plus they are shown as cubes on buildings, images on production tokens, and then shapes pieces for the resources; 2 of the Gods looked very similar, so were hard to tell apart from the start, but then it was also very difficult to see what God’s tiles you were on at times once city tiles had a whole bunch of workers on them
  • While I didn’t hate the conflicts, and felt I could usually recover even when having to go to a new location, I did think it was a little harsh that the losing player could not place workers adjacent to the region they left
  • The scoring tiles for the temples do not fit the slots very well and fall out if you try to move the temples at all
  • I wish the reference cards also noted the order of operations for K’atun celebrations to make that phase a little smoother. Similarly, I wish there was smaller/easier reference for scoring tiles and buildings so you didn’t have to flip through the massive rulebook during the game

Final Thoughts

Overall, I have really enjoyed my plays of this one. I think there is a lot of variety to keep the game fresh play to play, and it’s interesting to try different strategies to see what works best for you. I’m partial to focusing on building tiles first, but I also like focusing on pyramid tiles to make summoning Gods easier and more effective.

I was definitely a little frustrated by some of the usability issues, but tried to overlook them as much as possible. I was also contemplating how I felt about some of the building tiles, as I felt some were incredibly powerful. Particularly the one that makes it so you do not need to move when you lose conflicts, and the one that lets you win all ties. These seemed like some of the best ones to grab, especially if they came out early in the game, and seemed more useful for point scoring than most others.

Overall, if you like Euro games, and don’t mind that your actions become more limited, until you pick your cards up again, then this is a great choice! Check it out!

Additional Information:
My Final Rating – 7/10

Designr – Oláh Tamás
Artists – Lázár Aurél, Szabó Dávid
Publishers – Apeiron Games, Grand Gamers Guild
MSRP – $69.99
Website

*I was provided a copy of this game to do this review*

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