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.
- Looks really fun.
- Five Rings universe
- Scythe
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Engine Building — Building up an engine of actions that get stronger.
- Objective Fulfillment — Placing out objectives for maxing out certain columns or winning certain fights.
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Quotes (from this video)
- Hi everyone, Stella here from Mele University and that's Tarant and we are doing our Gen Con anticipated games which are the games that we are anticipating and wanting to play or de buy a demo and we haven't played them yet.
- So um, again, we're going to talk about these 10 games in no particular order. And game number one is called Falling.
- So, that makes for an interesting point of decision tension.
- And it is beige. So, it's going to be a good game, right? A good Euro game.
- And if that doesn't sound like a classic Euro theme we say with nothing else
- So, this is for demo and it's recently on crowdfunding. So, I think just finished.
- Yes. Well- loved game and given a redo. Yeah, must be a a reason I mean people there want to be a demand for this game right like container they redo that and a few other games these days is more of a trend
- So those are our 10 anticipated games genon if you see me please say hello even even though I'm in a meeting that's okay you can just I'm happy for people to interrupt me no problems and hopefully I'll see you there soon.
References (from this video)
- Cool, interconnected gear mechanic
- Strong visual table presence
- Complex to learn; heavy to play
- Temple-building and resource optimization
- Mayan/Aztec-inspired city-building
- thinky, engine-building
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Interconnected wheel-based worker/placement — Gears and wheels drive resource collection and temple-building.
- Worker Placement — Gears and wheels drive resource collection and temple-building.
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Quotes (from this video)
- and this is how we're doing it
- these are just at this current period of time
- it's not the top 100 games that are out there these are just the 100 games that we're enjoying playing right now
- feel free to share your list as we go through we would love to see it
- it's almost guaranteed to fail like your ship gets torn apart
- it's mean but no one gets their feelings here because it's so obviously mean and it's so like fun mean
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- it's just a really exciting experience to pitch these games
- Jessica did all of the graphic design
- I believe in these games
- I don't think I'm ever going to make money off of these maybe I will who knows
- Spiel felt like Disneyland for five days
References (from this video)
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Quotes (from this video)
- it's just a really exciting experience to pitch these games
- Jessica did all of the graphic design
- I believe in these games
- I don't think I'm ever going to make money off of these maybe I will who knows
- Spiel felt like Disneyland for five days
References (from this video)
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- it's Dominoes Ah
- based on reviewing the Wikipedia for dominoes um that doesn't that seem that year seems wrong. That seems way late.
- but anything that is like a Domino's game we would recognize doesn't occur until the very end of the 18th or beginning of the 19th century.
- and tomorrow night at 7:00 p.m., we're finishing up with Antiquity, which is pictured behind Ken's head over there.
- Of our 402 games, only 13 are published before 1990.
- So you got Spirit Island, you got Lizboa, you got Quest for Elorado, and 22 other games that are on one person's list.
- 2019, PAX Premiere, Crystal Palace, and 24 other games.
- 2015, Gallerist, Trickarion, Food Chain Magnate, 16 other games.
- Brass, Birmingham, Obsession, Root.
- John Company, sure. Weather Machine, Carnegi, 19 other games from 2022.
- Age of steam. Age of steam, right? Yeah. Yeah. Obviously, right. Yeah.
- Like trying to narrow it down is a hard thing when you when you have maybe the newer you are, the less hard that is.
- there's going to be another one tomorrow where we go through tutorial number four of Atlantic Chase.
- I might have a latest greatest version of Crossrox. I'm so excited about this game after hearing you guys talk about it.
- Every game that you guys play, you're playing. It's oath.
References (from this video)
- 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)
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- 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.