The Long View: Tigris & Euphrates
5 October 2012
16 Comments
The Long View
In this episode of The Long View, I’m joined by Martin Griffiths, or qwertymartin as he’s known on BGG, as we discuss the Reiner Knizia classic, Tigris & Euphrates. Join us as we try to discern what makes this game a timeless classic, and what could possibly be done to make it even better. Along the way, we discuss the optimum number of players, and if this may indeed be the perfect three player conflict game.
Thanks to www.2d6.org for their continued support and hosting of The Long View, thanks to our sponsor www.gamesurplus.com and, as always, thank YOU for listening!
~ Geof Gambill
The Long View: Tigris & Euphrates
The Long View: Tigris & Euphrates,
Very much enjoyed this episode, especially the discussion of the theme… and well just all of it. Love this game. This was a very good treatment of it!
Thanks Joel! It was great fun talking with Martin. He really has a wonderful depth of knowledge about the game. I hope to work with him again in the future. Thanks for listening Joel!
Thanks guys! Really enjoyed doing it and would love to do another one. I see you’ve got Ra in your schedule already so I guess you have someone lined up for that. How about Kingdom Builder?
Kingdom Builder? Kingdom Builder? I’ll borrow Joel’s favorite written expression (which I love by the way, very chic and old fashioned) Bah!
Now Ra we can talk about. The person I had lined up never showed for the recording and didn’t respond to email, so if you want it, you got it! I’d love to do that episode with you if you’re interested.
You should do Kingdom Builder!
I don’t care for it, but if there are those with several plays that want to discuss it… why not?
It’s relatively liked in my group…. I could try to get some more plays in… I’m at 4 right now I think. Been a while. /shrug
Up to you.
Oh Geof, you’re not one of the Kingdom Builder haters are you? I’ve played it about 40 times and love it! Sounds like it could make for an interesting discussion
Totally up for doing Ra too.
(“sigh”…….He says, giving in to peer pressure) Fine, be that way. We can do Kingdom Builder, but be ready for me to be grumpy. Your friend across the pond no like.
Nice job, guys. Very enjoyable. I am proud to say I lose to Martin in T&E fairly regularly. Actually, losing to Martin is about the only thing I seem to be really good at.
Also, as much as I quite like Kingdom Builder, isn’t that a bit new for this podcast?
Hey, they did D-Day Dice the other day!
Kingdom Builder has been out almost a year. I think there are a few people in my group that have played it at least 20 times. I’m not sure on exact counts to be honest, but I bet there are people that have played it at least twice that. /shrug
They did Mage Knight too, which is even newer than Kingdom Builder.
My opinion is that it’s good to mix it up a bit. I have some knowledge of the upcoming episodes, and I believe most of the games are at least five years old… if not 20… with a handful of 1-2 year old games
Oh, that wasn’t a complaint. I’ve listened to exactly three episodes of this (T&E, Brass, and 18xx), and was under the impression that the focus was more on plausible “classics.” If that was a misconception, that’s on me.
Geof can better answer it, but my impression is that it’s more about games that have been out at least a little while or games that have received several plays. Most reviews are done after only one or two plays, and are just that “reviews”. The idea with this show (at least so far) has been for a bit more in-depth/critical analysis.
Great episode for a great game. Martin’s relentless enthusiasm for T&E forced me into auctioning off a pile of games to purchase T&E a few months ago, which I of course haven’t regretted. Great game and good conversation.
One thing that stands out to me about Tigris is how it manages to be a high conflict game that generally doesn’t screw the people over doing the fighting. So many other games create situations where its suicidal to actually attack or get into a prolonged engagement because the other players will either attack you from behind or just take off economically while you piss away your resources on fighting.
I think in large part this works so well in Tigris because almost every action in the game has both an upside and downside to it, which keeps the board state in a constant flux that makes it hard to turtle or avoid conflict.
For example, building monuments earns you a lot of points if you can hold it, but at the cost of 4 support in that color making you more open to a takeover. Anyway, it’s just a brilliant game.
My only (minor) complaint is that there are some fairly small specific exceptions in the game that keep it from being as easy to learn as other games. For example, you don’t earn a point for the tile used to connect two empires (even if no conflict results) is often missed, or that red tiles next to a leader are not lost in an external conflict. There are a handful of minor rule exceptions/addenda like this that complicate it, but after a game or two it is all quite straight forward.
My favorite game. I prefer 4 as 2 guys trading blows can allow the 3rd player to flourish, but its good with 3 as well.
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