/pic5051666.jpg)
The ancient world is changing. The kingdom of Lydia has minted the world’s first gold coin. Bartering and trading will soon be supplanted by coins as the dominant medium of exchange throughout civilization...
Lions of Lydia is a bag-management and engine-building game about the dawn of currency. As an influential leader, you send merchants out to barter for resources and increase your landholdings. When the nobles arrive, they bring their Lydian Lion coins into play—which have unparalleled buying power.
To achieve victory, you must manage the merchants in your bag and complement their abilities with the cards in your tableau. Traditional merchants produce basic resources, which are necessary to build your engine—but if you fail to convert your resources into coins, you will not be able to buy the most valuable cards! Thus, noble Lydian merchants—and their golden Lion coins—are the key to success. When enough properties are developed, the game ends, and a winner is declared!
Will you draft the best merchants to achieve your goals? Will you be the first to gain the most valuable properties? Will you master the new, golden currency: the Lions of Lydia?
—description from publisher
- Engaging engine-building and tableau-building core
- Gateway-level accessibility for new players
- Juicy resource combinations driving the engine
- Clear path to endgame via property upgrades
- engine-building, resource trading, currency-based economy, and card upgrades
- Lydian-themed world (as described in transcript)
- Merchant's Cove
- Fistful of Meatballs
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- bag drafting/draw — Players draw a set of tokens (meeples) from a bag to form their hand.
- card purchasing and upgrading — Spend resources to purchase cards and upgrade them by paying costs again.
- center drafting and wild/purple cards — Blue cards can be drafted from center; purple cards are wild and can be used to meet requirements or score points.
- end-game scoring and influence track — Endgame is triggered; scoring involves points on cards and an influence track.
- engine building — Players upgrade cards to generate more resources and points; engine becomes more powerful over time.
- tableau building — Players maintain a personal tableau with cards that grant effects and bonuses.
- worker placement — Players place a piece at one of four locations to gain resources.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- I really love it
- the resources then it's so juicy
References (from this video)
- Fast-paced engine-building with quick decisions
- Modular variability via modules
- Clear upgrade and buying flow with multiple scoring avenues
- Gold-meeple wilds add flexibility
- Escalating end-game tension
- Random bag draw can be frustrating and undermines planning
- Early-game pacing can feel slow
- Coins can be worth little at end-game (one coin equals one point) reducing some coin strategies
- Some decisions are not very tough and can feel predictable
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- bag building — On each turn you draw a meeple at random from a bag and place it at one of five locations on the board.
- bag drawing and meeple placement — On each turn you draw a meeple at random from a bag and place it at one of five locations on the board.
- card buying and upgrading — You can buy cards with resources and upgrade them; costs are present on the cards.
- coin scoring nuance — Coins have end-game scoring rules (e.g., some coins are worth points, some may be worth nothing depending on the end condition).
- End-game trigger — The game ends when a player upgrades enough buildings; other players get final turns after that.
- gate-based resource generation — Placing a meeple at a gate yields resources based on other meeples and the gate interactions.
- gold meeples and resource conversion — Gold medals on cards allow converting a resource into gold, adding wild flexibility.
- modules for variability — Modules provide additional rules or scoring variations to change the game's feel.
- resource tracking and maxing — Maxing out a resource column increases your track, enabling more cards and points.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- it's kind of a hand management with a deck
- you begin the game with a meeple of each of the four colors
- on each turn you draw a meeple at random and then you place it in one of five locations on the board
- it's engine building, it's very quick
- you can buy as many cards as you want from one of the four sides of the board
- the game has limits on all the resources
- max out a column you get to increase this track so you can get more cards
- one coin worth one point otherwise coins worth nothing
- it's a pretty solid game
- it's the engine building part
- it's very quick
- there's eight modules
- store one meeple permanently
- swap it out