3 Magi ►►► Worker placement, engine building, crafting and navigation in a fast tight package!
Transcript
Hey everybody. Today on Roto, we're previewing a prototype of three magi. But before we begin, please turn your subtitles on to the Klingon channel so that if I make any rules goods, you know what they are. And if you want to skip right final thoughts, you can do so using chapter notes below. But if you stick around, I will take you to the Middle East where we find ourselves uh in a caravan of camels trying to get from Arabia to Bethlehem. If you haven't guessed from the uh title of the game, this is set in uh the biblical story of the three magi, three wise men as they are often referred to um who are bringing gifts to the birth of Christ. Uh yes, this is set in uh a religious uh story, but it is not particularly preachy in any way. Uh it's just a setting really. If you want to look more into it, uh you can. But for me, this is a lightweight Euro game uh where we find ourselves moving from one uh end of the of the desert to another and picking up resources and spending those resources to create gifts uh to bring to our in uh our receiving uh beneficiary one would call. Um and on the way we are going to uh uh take uh benefits from the various locations that we go to and the merchants that we might encounter along the way while also charting our position using uh astrological charts as well.
It's all very eurogamy stuff when you really dive into it. Um so let's dive in. We've got left brain on blue, right brain is on red. And we are going to start with the first bit of the day phase. We're going to do three day phases and then a night phase. And then the first player will switch to the next person. And on your turn, it's very simple. You're going to take one of your camels uh and move it closer to Bethlehem, but still within range of your other camels. Um you got to keep this caravan going. So, I'm looking at what do I want to do? Well, I've got some cards in my hand. These are some resources that you start with because the Barabia gives you one of each of the three different uh like flavors of resource. Each uh resource card has the potential to be one of two things. So the gray here, this could be silver or gold. And then uh once you flip it over, you'll find out what it is. And they have some other benefits as well. So if I go to this space down here, I would pick up one of the blue cards and I would get to play a card. If I go up here, I'll pick up a blue and an orange. I like the idea of crafting, so I want to get more cards in general. So, I'm going to take one of my camels, going to go up to here, and that means I'm going to draw a a teal and an orange card. These are like uh cloth and spices.
So, I picked up another wild card. And I happen to have a wild card as well, which means I'm now able to craft uh just about anything up there. In fact, I think I might be able to craft anything up there with what I have. Um so, that's I think a pretty good pull. Um, the other thing I'm looking at with these cards is not just the resource, which is the big thing in the center, but the uh type of astrological, what is it called? Celestial body that uh it refers to, which helps you move around our uh little astronomy board here. And the thing on the bottom here, if it's blue, that's sort of end of round scoring thing. So, if I can get a bunch of frankincense, then that is going to get me uh extra points. If I can three frankincense, it'll be worth nine points.
Um whereas linens work a little bit differently. Linens like to have a lot of different things and so for each different type of uh resource that I've played uh I will score a lot more. I think it gets up to 16 something like that. Does it say 16? Yeah, 16 points. Whereas other cards can do different things. So like if I were to play gold, this would allow me to interact with a merchant over here. But I can't play any cards because I need to go to a location that lets me play cards. And I didn't do that. Instead, I just got some cards. And that's my whole action. Which means we go over to right brain. So right brain's looking at their cards. And let's see. Maybe instead of instead of playing card or instead of trying to craft, which you know we we could go for as well, but we might also want to try playing cards as well. So I'm going to send one of uh my camels over to this other side. So, I'm going to grab a teal card first just to see what we get. And it's another uh one of these silks. So, they have the same ability here, which is to move forward any disc on my astrological chart. So, maybe since I got a couple of these and I have this silver here, which is going to give me two points for every star card that I play. I'm going to go for that. I'm going to try and play a bunch of cards this uh this round. So, I'm going to just uh because I get to play a card from this location, I'm going to start by playing this silk, which is going to advance my star uh marker. Each of these uh have three discs on this track. And I
keep in mind this is a prototype. I think these discs are probably going to be a little bit smaller. Currently, they're taking up quite a bit of space, but I'm sure that'll be adjusted. So, this is moving forward. move forward one space doesn't really do me anything. But if I can get all three of these markers to this uh space here, I will be able to flip over this tile, which will then help me move additional spaces. Um but by just by playing it, I got to uh move the star marker forward and then I get to do the special ability. This is happening during the day phase. So, I get to do this day ability. And I'm going to, I think, move the sun uh token because when it passes over this space here, that's letting me draw one of any card. So, I'm looking at what do I have? Well, I have one of each currently. Um, so, what do I want? Well, generally what I want is more star cards, but there's no real way to know for sure what uh you're going to get with that. So, I might also look at what's on the crafting items. And I see a lot of linens. Linens are in the teal deck. So, I'm going to grab a teal card.
Well, grabbed another silk, which again will help me move things forward, but not quite useful for crafting. That's okay. Heading back over to Left Brain. We are now at the next day phase. I bumped that up. And let's see. We've got a lot of items. And yes, I could craft something right away, but there is something else that I want to do. So, I'm going to take my next camel. And again, I can move it as far forward as I want to, as long as it's adjacent to uh at least one other camel. So, I could go like here, or I could go to here, or I could go to here. It has to be moving closer to Bethlehem, and has to keep the whole caravan intact. I'm going to go up here because this is going to let me um grab one of these merchant cards and then play a card. And let's see. I don't know which card I want to play exactly, but I'll play something. So, looking at the merchants, there's a few things, but what I have my eyes on are the silver smith and the goldsmith because one lets you uh pay one less gold when crafting gifts. The other one lets you pay one less silver when crafting gifts. Both of those are going to be useful discounts for me. And uh I think I'm going to grab this goldsmith. Now, you can only have a maximum of two permanent cards. These permanent cards, the like ongoing abilities. So, if I grab these two, that's all I can get, but it's I think still going to be useful to get them early on. It'll help me craft a lot better. So, I'm going to cra uh grab
that card. I will um refill the market. And then, because I get to play a card, I'm going to play a gold. Uh again, whenever you play a card, you'll move forward a celest a matching celestial body. So, I move forward on the star track. But also, the effect of the gold is that I get to grab another merchant. And yeah, I want to grab that silver smith. So, now I've got both of these. So, I'll have a minus one silver and minus one gold, which means I could grab maybe this one just paying um this gift up here worth 10 points. Grabbing a uh a linen and or spending just a linen and frankincense to get it uh seems like a pretty good return on investment. Um, but that is my whole turn. Um, I should say the game ends when someone reaches Bethlehem. That's sort of the uh makes that the last round. So, as soon as you get to the night phase of that day, that's sort of the last of it. And then whoever has the most points at the end wins. You get points for a lot of things, mostly building gifts, but also for certain uh end of round abilities on the cards that you play. And a few of these cards, like this uh smelting card, for example, this one is going to make every gift that has gold in it worth an extra two points. So that might be something that uh I want to pick up in the future because I like gifts that have gold in them. But going back over to rightbrain, if my goal is to play more cards, then I want to make sure I get to a space that allows me to play cards. So, I'm looking at uh this space
here, and uh this will allow me to me to grab a gray card and then just play any one card. So, I am going to do that. I'm going to play the silver. Uh oh, I guess I should grab a gray card first. Um that's another silver. So, grabbing the silver, uh it's going to again move my star tracker forward. But this ability doesn't take place until the night phase. So, we're waiting on that. But that's my turn. Nice and quick. Back over to Left Brain. And we got these wild cards. I think it's time to craft. So, we're going to go to Jericho. Jericho has a crafting location on it, but it's got a few other things first. Well, I can do these in any order. So, I could grab a card. I could uh take a merchant. And then I can craft. I think I want to grab a card first. And a thing that I'm noticing are these two merchants here, which allow you to sell your what is that? Uh, frankincense or your linens for four points each. Again, pretty good return on investment. So, uh, I might want to try and grab one of those. So, I think I since I can grab one card of any type, I'm going to grab one of these cloth cards. And it is, uh, one of these linens. So, then when I grab, uh, a merchant, this is a one-time use thing.
It just happens immediately. That's the wrong one. Um, this is a linen. And so I'm going to just uh use that merchant. I'm going to discard this linen. It doesn't, you know, go into my plate area. It just gets discarded. So I don't get the to move the track or anything, but I do get four points just immediately. So that's not bad. But then the real thing that I want to do here was craft. And I'm looking at the things in front of me. Well, oh, you know what? I should have grabbed the smelting. H. Well, that was a mistake. Hopefully, it won't come back to bite me. Um, so I'm looking at what is going to be best for me. Well, if I can, let's see. If I grab this tile here, this gift, I only have to pay a linen and a frankincense. I have a linen. I have a frankincense. So, I could pay those two.
And that's worth 10 points, which means that each of these cards essentially is worth five points. That's, I think, the best return on investment I can get. So, I'm going to spend these two. Again, they are just being spent. They don't get played in front of me. So, I'm going to take this gift and I'm just going to place it. I'm going to tuck it under my board here. Um, it's not going to get scored right away. You wait until the end of the game to score all of these. Uh, so you kind of got to keep track of what your uh opponents have have crafted. So, I have grabbed a merchant. I've grabbed a card and I have crafted which means that my turn is done. Oh yeah, we were moved up one space and now it is onto right brain for the last day phase. And what do we want to get? Well, we want to play cards, but unfortunately uh the there's no more card playing locations uh that we can reach because this one up here, well, it's not connected to our caravan. The only places I can go are this desert space, Jericho, or this desert space. And this one's not a bad one to go to uh really, but I see this busy card. This is allowing me either of these busy cards will allow me to play a card, which means if I go to Jericho, I can grab that and I'll be able to play a card um even though it didn't uh come up for me.
So, I'm going to go to Jericho and let's grab another card just to see what's out there. I don't have much uh in the term in the way of metals or spices. So, I'm going to grab another Yeah, what's what's important up here? Well, actually, cloth is what's really important for crafting. Um, so I'm going to grab another another cloth card. Hoping to get some linens. Nope. Got another uh got another silk. I've got plenty of silk. I don't need more silk. So, I'm definitely going to uh grab this busy card. And I'm going to play one of these silks. So, let's play the star silk because again, it's uh getting me more points based on my the silver that I played earlier. It also bumps forward my um star tracker and I can bump any uh any token of my choice. So, I'm moving up the moon. And this does two things. First off, uh having reached uh all of my discs to this line or past it allows me to flip over uh this little token here. And what that means is that every night phase, I'm going to get to activate this ability, which is to move forward any of my discs. I'm going a little bit harder on the astronomy track over here. The uh other thing that happened is by advancing my star treker, I passed this space, which is getting me another merchant card. So, let's see what's out
here. Well, I see these directions. That's going to allow me to bump up a Star Trek again, but I don't know if I need to do that right away. I Let's see. Well, I can't make use of the I can't I don't have any frankincense to sell, so I can't get that. Busy would allow me to play another card, which wouldn't be terrible if we're being honest. Um, but if I were to play this myrrh, I could grab two more cards as well. And then smelting again, getting me two points for every gold. I haven't gotten any uh anything with gold in it, and I don't have any gold. The only reason I would grab that is deny to deny uh Leftrain that card since they forgot to take it. But it doesn't help me. So, I don't know if it's really worth it. Maybe it is, maybe it's not. But I think I want to um if I you know what, if I had another star card, I would absolutely be taking busy, but I don't. So maybe, well, you know what? Even though I don't, if I play this card, it's going to get me more cards. So yeah, I'm going to take the busy card. I'm going to play this myrr. This is going to allow me to draw a uh cloth and a metal. And I'm hoping that I get another star card out of it.
and I did. And we're going to see how that comes into play uh very shortly. But for now, we go back to left brain. And now we are in the night phase. During the night phase, each player is going to do three things. First, we are going to play a card. Um you don't have to, but you get to play a single card if you want to. Um because left brain only has these two wild cards. And these wild cards, all they would do is move forward one of the um spaces on the astronomy track and not really get you any other abilities. Um it's not particularly useful for me. I want to hold on to these so I can craft. So, I'm not doing that. The next thing that happens is you would activate any other um tokens around your astronomy track, but again, I haven't unlocked any. Um, and then the third thing is you would score any end of round scoring bonuses, but I haven't played any. So, even though I was able to get this big uh score, this big scoring gift, I haven't really set myself up for success as far as the end of the round goes. Now, Rip Brain on the other hand is set up for success here.
So, we're going to play a gold. Um, playing this gold lets me grab another merchant. Um, but it also advances my star track. Um, because I I was able to find a star card. Um, looking at all these things now, I see this two points for every linen uh uh endgame scoring card and three of the four gifts that are up right now have linens in them and I happen to have at least a linen with me. So, I think that that's probably useful to get. I certainly don't want left brain to get it since they seem to be going for um you know endgame score or for gifts as well and this can help me. So I think that's useful. The other thing I would do is get directions which is ooh not bad but not good enough. So I'm just grabbing the fabrics here. I'm going to place that I'm going place that here.
This is my my endame scoring cards. And uh so I've played a card. I played that gold. I advanced my star track. I grabbed a merchant um because of the gold card. Now I'm doing my astronomy tracks. I'm going to bump up the sun because I have uh the ability to choose any one of these and I want to try and get to the next um space as well. I do actually have a lot of sun cards in my hand. I still think it's it's worth it to do the sun. And then the last thing is I'm going to score my endame score or end of round scoring. And the only card I've played with that is silver. So that's getting me two points for every star. I've got one, two, three, four stars in my tableau. So that's going to score me eight points. I'm ready. Yes, eight points on the board and winning.
Um, so that is the end of the round, which means we go back to the next day and right brain becomes uh the new um the new first player and all of the cards that we've played get discarded. Uh, at least all of the resource cards that we played, the permanent cards and the end of game scoring cards, these are going to stick around. And now I have uh first pick uh or first play. So again, I'm looking at what I have and I've got one of these linen cards. Linens like diversity in card play. So I have three different types of cards currently in my hand. If I play all of them, that would be worth six points with this. And then this is worth just two points for itself because the moons, but do I want to start working towards crafting? It might be useful to do. So I'm looking at what's in front of me. What What can I do next? Well, honestly, I have only a few options. I could go up to this top space, which would get me a merchant and allow me to play a card. I do like merchants. Um, and one of them would uh could get me directions. I could get forward a little bit. That uh might be good. I I I don't hate it. If I go down here, I could grab a card of any type and uh bump forward any of these uh trackers. That's also quite good. Or if I go here, I could get a spice and a metal. I mean, spices and metals aren't really what I'm looking for. Well, no. I
want cloth. I want more linens. So, how am I going to get linen currently? I don't really have a way to do it. Uh, well, no. I could uh if I go here, I could get linen. So, I think I'm going to go to this space, which allows me to grab one of any type. I'm going to grab a cloth. Hopefully, it's a linen. And it is. which means I now have enough to grab this one at least. And maybe in the future I could I could craft a different one as well. Um, but I have grabbed a card of any type and now I'm going to advance a token of my choosing. I don't have a lot of moons in my hand. So, I'm going to bump forward my moon track uh once I get to the second space. This is a wild card, so it'll allow me to get new cards at the end of each uh day. But we're going back to left brain. What's leftbrain got? Yeah, I got two wild cards. So, I just need cards right now. And I see this place, which is going to get me two cards. Uh, a spice and a metal. I don't really need metals anymore. But gold allows me to grab uh these cards up here. So, it's it's not bad if I can get some gold. And the silver can get me some points as well. My other options, I could get well a medal and play a card.
I don't really like that. Or I could go over here, which is what they did, which is card of my choice, and bumping forward a tracker, which would also get me a card of my choice. I think that's what I'm going to do. So, we're going to go to the same spot. Um, I get card of my choice, which I'm going to say I I do see a lot of uh linen out there, cloth in general. So, I think one of these teal cards is a good idea. Okay, got a silk. That can still help me out. And I bump forward a track. I'm going to bump forward the sun track since I bump forward this any card space. I'm going to grab another thing and I'll grab another uh cloth card. So, that's a silk. Um silk silk can work. I can work with this. Uh but that's my turn. So, passing over to right brain. All right. What are we working with here? Got a lot of cloth. So, I wouldn't mind crafting this uh seven point gift up there. there. It's going to be worth an extra two points for me.
So, I I kind of like that I've got the cards that I need for it. So, where can I go to craft? Well, Jerusalem is available. So, I'm going to take let's see, one of these two doesn't really matter which. Um, so I'm going to take that one. And we're going to go to Jerusalem. I get a card of my choice. I get to craft something. And then I can advance um any of these trackers. I'm going to advance the sun tracker probably. A card of my choice. Well, I don't have any spices, so I'm going to grab a spice. Uh, a wild card. I do like that. And of course, I get to craft. So, I'm going to spend these cloths, two linens, and a silk to grab this one right here. Again, putting that face down, tucking that in, uh, and holding that for later. But I think that was a pretty good turn. Going over to left brain. Oh yeah, and we are now in the second part of the day. Yeah, Jerusalem seems to be a good place to go. I need to I need to craft. If my strategy is crafting, that's what I need to be doing. So, both of these I can get a discount. I'm also looking at this one. It's not that much, but it is uh just one card for four points. That seems pretty good. And I have two silk, so I like that ability. But I also want to make sure I get the smelting since I didn't get it before. Um, I'm gonna grab this camel. You're gonna go all the way over there again. What do I not have
that I need? I think I need spices. I would also like linens, but I can probably manage that with my wilds if I need to. I don't have any spices at all. So, grabbing a spice. I get a frankincense. That is useful for one of them. So, we're not too bad. Not we're doing okay. But the other thing, the reason I went here is because I want to grab this smelting card. Um, where am I going to put this? I guess I'll just place it right here as well. And you can have two permanence, but uh the um end of uh game scoring cards uh don't count towards that. So, I'm flipping that up. Two points per navigation bonus. The navigation bonuses are the tiles around the edges. I don't currently uh want that, but I do. um because I have been going for these navigation bonuses and oh and in fact I flip that one as well. So now every night I'm going to be bumping forward one disc and gaining a card of my choice. I really want that card. So how can I get it? Well, this space is open.
I'm just going to go for it. Even though there are other things I could be doing, I'm just going to grab this. So I need to get a card of my choice. I don't have any spices, so I'm going to grab a spice. Ooh, I also want linens, though. I want to make sure I keep grabbing linen. Um, because that's what I need. So, I'm actually going to grab a cloth instead. Another wild. Don't mind that. But the other thing I really want is the charts. So, I know this is going to be uh four points at least. I'm hoping to get it to be all eight. But back to left brain and and then we're going to go to our night phase. I've got a lot of things here. I need to craft because I always got to be crafting. Um, so if I go to Jerusalem, that will let me craft and bump forward uh something. So, I would like to get to to get all my discs to this line because I really want to bump this uh I really want to flip this tile and start getting the free movement at night. Um, so I need to be kind of smart about what I play. Um, because I need to hold on to something that I can play to fill in the last space. So I maybe don't I may want to keep, you know, one of these anyway.
I guess anything that I have can can sort of bump me forward, but I just need to be need to be keeping that in mind. So what am I trying to do? Well, I'm trying to craft and I just want to do something cheap. I'm gonna grab the 4.1 uh because it is an extra two points because of my gold. And all I need to do is play uh one of my silk cards. I guess I'm going to play this silk card. And uh again, we are discarding it. Um because I've got my gold smmith, I'm getting the minus one gold when crafting. So I'm just going to tuck that in right there. And that's going to be good for me. So, I went to Jerusalem. I uh just crafted. Oh, and I grabbed a card. Um, which means I still need to bump something forward. What am I going to be holding on to? I don't think I need the frankincense, but I'm not going to get many points out of it. So, I'm guess I'm probably going to play this linen at the night phase. Um, and it's going to help me out in a couple of ways. I think I'm just going to bump up the moon. Oh, yeah. And then we got stamina is pretty good. So we go over to the night phase. Right brain, what are you going to do? You haven't played a single card this uh round. So if I played the silver, it would just get me a moon. I think I'm going to play Oh, yeah. We need a new card up there. Let's see. Can
I Can I craft any of these? I unfortunately can't. Well, no. I could craft this one here if I were to play these guys, but it doesn't get me anything extra. What I would really like to to craft is any one of these other ones. And if I don't play anything, I could craft this 10 points one. But that means I need to not play anything. So, how are we going to do this? Well, I don't know is the answer. I think I'm going to hope that certain things work out for me. But if I were to play this, I could bump forward on this track and immediately craft anything. But again, I wouldn't be able to craft anything because I don't have enough things to craft.
Um, bummer is what you call that. So, what if I played this? I would bump forward on the moon track. Give me two points and then I would have these things which I could craft with next turn I guess. Oh no, I can do it this turn. This is how I'm going to do it. So I play the silver. It bumps forward my moon track. That's all well and good. Now if I pass this next these next lines, I'm going to get points for these tokens and then flip them over and they're going to help me out as well. But what I'm doing here, playing the moon track, uh moon card, um just because you can. And then I will uh get my bonuses over here. So, I'm going to grab something that I think will help me out. Let's see. I need I have this silk.
Uh but what I'd really like is something else that would help me uh craft one of these big point items. So, if I already had a linen, that would be a big deal. But there's no guarantee that I'm going to get a linen. I might get another silk. I don't really want another silk. If I get if I go for spices though, no matter what I get, there's a thing that I could craft with it. So, I'm going to grab a spice. It is frankincense. Nope, it's myrrh. Um, you know, everyone knows what myrrh looks like. But the last part of this is So, that was me grabbing this bonus here. But now, I'm going to bump forward any of my trackers. going to put more my sun tracker, which passes over the crafting symbol, which means I get to craft. So, I'm going to spend my silk, uh, my frankincense, and two wilds to grab this one right here. 10 points plus two because it's got a linen on it. All right, tucking those in. Got to play these. Uh, discard them where they came from. And then that's the end of my night phase. Um, oh no, I score two points for for the silver.
Boop. And then we go over to left brain. What is left brain going to do? Can I play a card? Uh, can I get anything useful out of playing a card? Yes, I was going to play the silk card, which is going to bump forward my star chart, which does flip this over. And then I'm going to bump stars again cuz that's going to allow me to grab one of these other cards here. Now, if I grab directions, I could bump forward one of my other tokens. That's not terrible. And I'm going to get another bump from this. But I'm also looking at stamina because stamina allows me to move one of my camels and immediately take well one action from it. Um, but I could move to say here, play another card. I don't know whether I want to do that. H, if there was a way to craft from this, I think that would be really good. But I there there isn't, unfortunately. However, I could use it to free up Jerusalem again. I could move I could move this camel over here and then this back camel can go to Jerusalem again. That could be pretty good. Otherwise, I could be kind. I could get two spices. Oh, yeah. What's the next gift up here? Oh, that's all spices.
Um, but I don't really need that just yet. I really wish there were some tiles with silver and gold on them. That would be nice. Uh, but that's not really the case right now. I I do like the idea of getting some uh more spices, but I'm going to go for stamina. Allows me to move one of my uh cards and then take one of the actions. I generally don't need metal, so I'm going to grab another cloth. It's another wild. That's working out great for me. Um, so that was uh the extra bump that I got from this. And I get one more bump uh with from this tile, which I'm going to just use right there. Uh, so that's the end of that moon phase. We would flip back to the sun phase, and we're going to keep going like this. I think we've got one maybe two more rounds until someone gets to Bethlehem. But if players want to slow things down, they absolutely can. So, cuz leftbrain kind of wants to go to uh Jerusalem, wants to craft a bit more, then we go to Herod's craft again. Uh that's definitely the strategy for left brain is crafting.
Whereas right brain, the strategy is more to really focus on the astronomy track, try and flip over these remaining uh tokens so that we get extra benefits every night phase, which means slowing things down might be useful because we can keep going with this and passing each of these uh locations is worth 12 points just on their own. Uh but of course, you can't neglect the crafting of gifts. So that's, you know, in there as well. Once we're getting this passive income of an extra two cards every round, that's going to really help us with this. Also, an extra merchant action each round. All of these can really build up. So, it might be incumbent on left brain to really end the game faster. Um, but I'm thinking this is giving you a pretty good idea of how the game is played. So, next up, we've got the final thoughts time for Three Magi.
But before we begin, please keep in mind that this is a paid preview. So, um, how do we feel about Three Magi? Honestly, I think this is a really solid lightweight, uh, it's a really solid lightweight Euro game. And, uh, while it does have this religious setting, it is absolutely not heavy-handed with, uh, religious themes. It doesn't feel like it's preaching in any way. I personally don't think that most people would have any kind of uh of issue with the setting if they are not themselves Christian. Um but again that's just me. Uh I am not Christian and I don't uh have any problem with this setting. So that's the uh position that I'm coming from. Was raised Christian but that doesn't really matter.
Anyway, this uh this game has some really interesting ideas that I want to talk about. First off, we've got the movement system. It's a nice simple mechanism, but it's it's uh presents you with interesting options because each time you move, you have to keep your caravan uh in position with itself. In fact, at the very last thing that I did, I actually cheated. Um, and I shouldn't have been able to do what I did cuz I moved one of my caravans out of position. But, uh, you have to watch to the end of the run through to have seen that. So, uh, let's talk about what how this works. You've got three camels and there's this hex based uh, map and you've got to keep them within one space of each other where all of the caravan is touching. You can make it a straight line or you can clump them up, but you can't have one separated from the other.
And that does mean that you have to plan out your moves a little bit ahead of time because you might think like, oh, if I go here, it's going to help me out, but it's going to limit my options for the next movement. It's not at all a difficult thing to do, but it does present that little extra layer of strategy involved. So, while I think that is a really interesting uh little mechanic, I don't think it's going to break anyone's mental resources having to work with it. I think it's a a really solid thing that it just just a nice little touch. So, that's a good uh start just ex immediately what you're doing with it. Then you've got all the little Eurogamey stuff which is resource collection. You've got three decks of cards. Each deck has two types of resources in it. So, it's always a 50-50 chance of what you're going to get. And that's uh I think that's kind of interesting. You're going for those things. You don't know for sure, but you've got a good idea of where it can be. You want to spend those resources to uh craft the gifts. The gifts are worth points. We've played Euro games before.
We know how this works. But there's also a bunch of extra merchant cards. Some of which help you help make it easier to craft gifts. Some of them make those gifts a little bit more valuable. Um but you are limited. You can only have two of those permanent cards that like help with the crafting of gifts because, you know, they don't want it to be too uh make it too easy for you. Can't be crafting left and right. And in fact, you can't craft left and right because there are only so many locations on the board that let you craft. That's another thing that I find very interesting. Every single one of the cities, these five uh locations, well, in this case, four of the five locations that are along the center of the map have a crafting spot for them. But beyond that, crafting is not something you can do that often. However, if you work it out with your caravan uh in such a way that you make it onto one of those city locations, then you can leave it with your front-facing caravan um but your rearfacing caravan uh camel moves into that space. That allows you to double up on the crafting. But of course, in order to do so, you got to play these cards.
So, you better be able to get them back. Now, that's one way that you are uh scoring points, but it's not the only way. I mentioned that you're playing these cards for crafting, but these cards are also filled with scoring opportunities, and they can be pretty powerful. I think they might be reworking some of the scoring uh values on these uh cards, but I know that some of them can get you quite a few points if you work them correctly. Uh the uh linens, for example, there's their their point values go up quite high if you can get a full spread of cards. Of course, getting that full spread of cards is difficult. So, it's constant this constant push and pull of like, do I want to play this card in order to get the immediate benefit of what it provides and or a scoring opportunity or do I want to hold on to it to craft those big point getting gifts and that is a great uh decision point even though this is still a very lightweight game.
So, I keep talking about how uh easy this is to play and I want to emphasize that this has like this is such a quick like entry into this game. I you teach this game in like five minutes and then you're playing it's intu most of it is very intuitive the way that you go and uh while there are a few things that I think need to be hammered out a little bit in the rule book um just in terms of the presentation of of uh these games I they have plenty of time to uh you know fine-tune the how some of the specific mechanics work in that way and I have no uh I have full confidence that they're going to uh make sure those things are very like uh very finely detailed um for when this is fully produced as it was. Had a little bit of trouble making sure I knew exactly when things happened or exactly how certain things happened or how the scoring cards worked. Um but that's all prototype woes that you don't really need to worry about because they'll have the development time to uh work on it once the uh crowdfunding campaign is is successful. And in the meantime, even with all that, I still enjoyed myself.
It's not groundbreaking any by any stretch, but it does everything that it does very solidly and it introduces some interesting mechanisms. I also really like the astronomy track. While you can't focus 100% on the astronomy tracks, uh, the celestial bodies, I really enjoyed that element of it while you're playing cards, bumping up the different tracks and trying to advance your knowledge in each of the celestial bodies so that you get this ongoing like drip economy. Um, because the sooner you can uh uncover these uh tokens, the more you're getting at the end of every round and the better you're able to do. And that also drives other players to be like, "Oh, maybe we need to end this game quicker." So, it's a constantly evolving uh state of play. So, if you're looking for a lightweight game with a historical biblical setting that you know you can ignore if you want to or get into if you want to um with uh some interesting decisions even though the game is quite lightweight to learn, then absolutely check out Three Magi. Um that's going to be all for me folks.
Thank you so much for watching and I will see you next time. Bye-bye.