The Great Zimbabwe is a game about building a trade based civilization in ancient Africa. It has been inspired by the old kingdoms surrounding the Great Zimbabwe, a world heritage site in southern Africa. Far into the previous century, colonial governments denied that a civilization that produced such impressive monuments and beautiful artwork could have been African in origin. But of course, this civilization was African, and the country of Zimbabwe itself was proudly named after this impressive cultural heritage. As always in our games, we have used this history for inspiration; however, first and foremost we wanted to create a highly playable and replayable Splotter game, so in many cases we took liberties with historical names, periods and artwork.
In the game, players strive to build the most impressive monuments to one god of their choice. They can choose this god themselves-- each of the twelve gods offers a unique blessing, but each also requires a different amount of work to win the game. Building the monuments is done by developing a logistics network stretching across the region. Through this network, players produce and obtain ritual goods to raise their monuments and bring honour to the god of their choice.
Here's the flavour text from the rules:
The Mutapa king struts into the village, followed by a bunch of young warriors herding cattle. “Oondabezitha ”, he addresses the assembly of kings, “I have brought twelve heads of cattle for the ceremony tonight”. The others seem to shrink in stature as he speaks. The star of the king of Mutapa is clearly ascending. They have not brought nearly as much cattle themselves. “Soon, we will all be praying to Obatala”, murmurs one of the older Kilwa traders. “The Mutapa will be raising their godless monuments sky-high. Perhaps it is time for us to resort to some magic of our own”. Then the sky breaks into a thunder and a torrential rain pours down on the assembly. The men scramble while the plains fill with water. The ceremony will be wet tonight...
The Great Zimbabwe is a logistico-economic game in which players are tribal leaders in Africa trying to please the gods by building monuments.
Buying technology, building craftsmen, gathering resources and worshipping a god are among the many decisions necessary to win in 'The Great Zimbabwe'. But the main way of getting there is building and developing a network of monuments. The higher the monuments, the closer the players will be to victory, but players must balance many subtle aspects of the game. If they develop their economy, if they worship a powerful god or if they use a lot of technology, they will need to score more victory points.
Clever use of turn-order manipulation, economic development in an almost close environment, scarce natural resource use and logistical optimization to deliver goods from craftsmen to monuments: You only get one action per turn, so be smart! 'The Great Zimbabwe' is a race for victory, in which you decide how far you want to go and at what speed. Then other players' decisions change everything...
- Innovative mancala-style bidding that adds tension to turn order choice
- Deep theming with gods, specialists, and ritual goods that influence strategy
- Rich interaction via hubs, resource networks, and monument racing
- High rule complexity and a long learning curve for new players
- Large setup and component count, requiring detailed organization
- Potentially long playtime, especially at higher player counts
- Cultural dominance, empire-building through monumental architecture, ritual economy, and temple/craftsman networks; integration of religious and technological advancement into political strategy.
- An imagined historical African quadrilateral of power centered around the Great Zimbabwe civilization; players act as competing early African kingdoms aiming to build cultural dominance through monuments, crafts, and religious-political influence.
- historical-epic with mythic godly powers and ritual economies shaping player narratives
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- bidding — Mancala-style bidding where players bid money (cattle) to determine turn order for the round; money bid can be partially retained or returned depending on the exact bidding progression, creating a tactical push-pull about early vs late turns.
- craftsman placement — Craftsman tiles must be placed within range of resources, requiring planning of resource networks and hub interactions across the board; both primary and secondary craftsmen have placement rules that interact with specific resources.
- god and specialist cards — A deck of god cards provides permanent effects; players may worship one god for the round and total game, with restrictions and VR impacts when acquiring cards. Specialist cards grant temporary or situational abilities and must be activated in the same turn they are acquired, with activation costs.
- monument construction and progression — Monuments progress by contributing ritual goods; advancing a monument’s level yields victory points and increases the player’s dominance on the map, with higher levels requiring more ritual goods and strategic planning of resources and hubs.
- race monuments action — Raising monuments is a key source of victory points and involves transporting ritual goods to monuments; up to one level per monument per action, with escalating point payouts and the need to manage hubs and costs.
- resource and currency management — Cattle are the primary currency, with silver/cattle and gold as higher-value tokens. Water tiles introduce water areas that expand reach and connectivity; resource tiles and their management drive placement and expansion decisions.
- tech and ritual economy — Technology and ritual goods tie into craftsman placement and monument racing; ritual goods produced by craftsmen can be spent (and priced by players) to raise monument levels, with mechanic notes about pricing and market dynamics.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- it's the great zimbabwe
- a couple of them first of all there is a bidding mechanism so different than the usual it uses the mancala mechanism you bid money but you take some of the money you bid back
- there are also 12 different gods you start the game with no god but during the game you can choose one of them and they all have so strong powers
- the game is for 2 to 5 players plays in about 3 hours
- let us now see each one of the four faces in greater detail starting with a bidding phase
- bidding starts with the owner of the first plaque which in our case is the red player
- the player order has been determined and we move to the second phase
- the second phase all players activate once using the player turn order determined by the previous phase
- the third phase is a quick income phase
- in the fourth phase players check if any player has won the game or they continue with the next round