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Yunnan — home of delicious Pu'er tea. For more than 1,000 years, the tea dynasties have provided this sought-after good via their horse caravans to faraway Tibet. The Tea-Horse Road — a network of paths and roads leading through the jungles of Yunnan, across the steppes of Sichuan, and over the peaks of the Himalaya — is the traditional travel route of the tea traders.
In Yunnan, players control the fate of their tea dynasties. Their main goal is to establish a broad and secure trading network to deliver the tea to the farthest provinces, doing it better than their opponents. The main work behind the scenes is done in Pu'er, their home location: New traders need to be trained, better horses need to be acquired, and a good number of border passes need to be requested to be able to reach the farthest provinces.
Mere trading is not enough to beat the competition, however. Great social influence and a prestigious tea house may come in handy to propitiate the province inspector. Bridges provide shortcuts, and trading posts in faraway places secure one's own path along the Tea-Horse Road.
Yunnan is well-suited for players who like tactical development games. Due to the interleaving game mechanisms, the players are involved at all times. The great variety of available actions allows for different strategies. Only the player who calculates well, goes against the proper opponents, and reacts to the actions of others swiftly and adequately will win this game, which includes no elements of chance.
- Artwork and production quality is fantastic
- Gears are visually striking and turn smoothly
- Deep engine-building puzzle with varied planning choices
- Starting resources draft adds strategic choice
- Multiple endgame scoring paths via temples, skulls, and buildings
- Analysis paralysis and heavy decision-making can slow play
- Busy board can be intimidating for new players
- Three victory paths reduce flexibility and can cause blocking
- Monuments can look similar to buildings
- Limited long-term replayability due to path specialization
- engine-building, resource management, temple tracks
- Mayan calendar / temple-building themed world with gears
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Compound Scoring — teal, brown, teal phases include feeding and scoring rounds
- end game bonuses — buildings/monuments grant ongoing or endgame bonuses and points
- endgame: Chachchanita skull placement — placing crystal skulls on skull track provides VP and blocks teeth; skulls stay to affect teeth permanently
- engine/tech tracks upgrades — resources are spent to upgrade technology tracks for buffs
- gear-based central wheel — a rotating calendar-like mechanism that advances and unlocks actions and resources on each tooth
- monuments/buildings as bonuses — buildings/monuments grant ongoing or endgame bonuses and points
- multi-worker placement cost scaling — the cost increases with the number of workers placed this turn
- pulling workers back to execute actions — when you pull a worker off a spot, you execute its action
- resource economy (wood, rock, gold, crystal skulls) — resources are gathered and converted into VP; used to build buildings and monuments
- Resource management — resources are gathered and converted into VP; used to build buildings and monuments
- seasonal feeding and scoring rounds — teal, brown, teal phases include feeding and scoring rounds
- starting resource draft — players draw four tokens and choose two to start with; others returned to box
- temple tracks and gods — gives resource generation and VP; involves brown, yellow, and green temple tracks
- Track advancement — gives resource generation and VP; involves brown, yellow, and green temple tracks
- worker placement — place workers on gear slots, paying corn; must take cheapest available slot
- worker placement on outer gear spots — place workers on gear slots, paying corn; must take cheapest available slot
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- The artwork is fantastic in this game.
- there's pretty much three paths to victory
- Specialization is the way this game is played out.
References (from this video)
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- We added them together. That was the incorrect usage there.
- Blast some imps. Do it.
- Tea fatigue is what I'm calling it.
- We’re going to show you 200 through 101 and talk about them.