Experience 30,000 years of civilization in 45 minutes: With Tribes: Dawn of Humanity, there is finally a civilization game in which you do not need to wait long for your turn. The players lead their tribes in short, fast turns through the early history of humanity to the Bronze Age. They settle unknown lands and extract valuable resources through which they in turn discover new tools and inventions. Who will best prepare their tribe against events such as natural disasters? Who will take the lead, and who will follow in the footsteps?
Each turn, a player selects an action from the action display: grow, explore, or move. The first action is always free, while additional ones cost valuable shells. The used action moves to the end and the next player takes another action. It is important to use your scarce shells cleverly.
The players start with a small tribe with the immediately surrounding area explored. They discover new land and send the members of their tribe out to discover valuable resources. These resources are needed for new inventions that bring victory points and improve your actions: become better at exploration, grow more tribe members, and move further. Who will be the most tactical leader and guide their tribe to victory?
This is a completely reworked edition of the game Tribes: Early Civilization released in 2017 with many changes.
- Streamlined yet dense enough for meaningful decisions
- Event integration into the action row provides dynamic interaction
- Gateway-like depth that can scale with expansions or advanced rules
- Shell economy can be punishing if mismanaged
- Some players may find the pace too deliberate or the setup lengthy
- civilization development with achievements and events
- prehistoric tribes; growth and interaction on a modular board
- story-driven progression with personal goals and relationships between tribe members
- Nations
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- achievement-driven tech tree — achievements in the middle/top rows grant bear teeth, increase capabilities, and unlock events
- population management and exploration — move population, explore terrain, and achieve set-collection style achievements
- shell economy and action conveyor — players place shells to select actions; unused actions slide to the left as shells accumulate on front-most options
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- income is super important this is almost more of an engine building game than it is really a worker placement game
- this is a fully cooperative game and everybody is simultaneously trying to figure out all of their words
- this game hums along at a great pace
- the events being integrated into the overall action row was such a cool idea
- it's a gateway level to have a game like Nations