Players: 3-4
Playing Time: 60-90 minutes
Difficulty: 3 (of 10)

The Components

The Bridges of Shangri-La comes with:

• 1 gameboard
• 23 bridges
• 168 master tiles
• 12 stones of the wise men
• 2 starting position cards

Gameboard: The gameboard is four panels, printed on solid, textured cardboard. It looks to have been painted, a real rarity for a game board (and I'd love to see the original without all the game icons on it). Depicted on the board are 13 villages, each with 3-4 paths leading to other villages, and each path featuring a break somewhere in the middle. Each of the cities is unique, and beautiful, but unfortunately much of that is lost because a set of seven icons is printed semi-transparently over each city, marking the 7 spaces in each city for masters. Unfortunately the hue of the board is a bit dark, and this eats up a lot of the beautiful detail on the painting.

Bridges: These are simple, unpainted wooden bridges. They go on the paths, right over the breaks.

Master Tiles: The master tiles appear in the four-player colors (cyan, red, yellow, and lavender). The colors are very distinct and easy to tell apart. There are 42 tiles in each color, and that's broken into 7 master types: healer, dragonbreeder, firekeeper, priest, rainmaker, astrologer, and yeti-whisperer. Each of these types features a simple, slightly cartoony black & white drawing; they're generally fun to look at.

Stones of the Wise Men: These are simple glass stones, colored green. Though 12 are included, you only use 11 in the game. (The inclusion of the extra is appreciated, but makes it easy to play the game wrong, since you play until only 11 stones are used, not 12.)

Starting Position Cards: These cards are printed on solid, textured cardboard. One shows a sample three-player setup on the front, with miniaturized map, and the other shows a four-player setup. The rules summary on the back of each card is identical; it summarizes the setup and the three different possible actions during each player's turn.

Box & Tray: The box is a large, square box which is fairly standardly used on many Kosmos games in Germany. It's sturdy and nicely manufactured as is generally the case with German games. A plastic six slot tray has spaces for all the pieces, with master tiles sorted by color.

Overall I find each of the individual components well designed: the board is beautiful other than contrast issues, the tiles are funny, and the stones and bridges are well-manufactured. The starting position & rule summary cards are entirely stand-out: good looking and useful. However everything doesn't entirely gel into a cohesive whole for me, primarily because the intricate and detailed board background contrasts fairly sharply with the line art tiles. Nonetheless, based on the high quality of each individual component, The Bridges of Shangri-La still earns an excellent "5" out of "5" for Style.

The Gameplay

The ultimate goal of The Bridges of Shangri-La is to emerge with the most masters in the mountainous villages.

The Board: The heart of the game is the board. It's made up of 13 villages, each of which is connected to 3-4 other villages via a path (and a bridge). Each village can support 7 masters, 1 of each of the 7 Shangri-La disciplines. Thus, each village is marked with 7 iconic spaces, one for each of the 7 master types.

Setup: Each player begins by playing, in turn, one of each type of master in a village. No more than 2 masters of the same color can be placed in a single village, nor more than 3 total. It's usually good to be in a village with other people, and so you tend to put your masters in the most populated villages possible. When setup is all done, each player will have 7 masters on the map, and usually all the player-masters will be fairly clumped together. Because the strategy will be pretty opaque to a player the first time through, a sample setup is provided for both the three- and four-player games.

Order of Play: Each turn a player may take one of three actions:

1. Place a Master
2. Recruit Students
3. Begin The Journey of the Students

After he has taken his action, and any results are determined, it's the next player's turn.

Place a Master: A player may place a master only in a village where he already has a master. He may only place a master type which does not already exist in that village. (e.g., Place a master tile in an appropriate open space on a village where you have a master.)

Recruit Students: A player may recruit 1 or 2 students during this action. A student may only be recruited in a village where the player already has a master, and where that master does not have a student, and where the student's discipline matches the master's discipline. (e.g., Place a master tile [which is actually a student] on top of a master tile in your own color which does not already have a student.) The two students recruited may be in different villages.

Begin the Journey of the Students: This is the core of the gameplay. You determine a village from which to begin a journey and then choose a path going out of that village, which must still have its bridge. All of the sudents in the village (not just yours) will travel to the new village.

What happens in the destination village is dependent upon the relative strengths of the two villages. You determine this by adding up all the tiles in each village prior to the Journey. The village with the greater number of tiles is the stronger village; in case of a tie the village with the greater number of disciplines is the stronger village; in case of another tie the destination village is the stronger.

Which village is stronger determines what becomes of the journeying students.

If the Originating Village is Stronger. Look at each student's discipline and then consult the destination village to see ...

• If there is no master of that discipline. The journeying student becomes the new master of that discipline in the destination village.
• If there is a master (with or without student) of that discipline in another color. The old master (and his student if he has one) is removed from the board. The journeying student becomes the new master.
• If there is a master without student of that discipline in the same color. The journeying student becomes the old master's student.
• If there is a master with student of that discipline in the same color. The journeying student is removed from the board.

If the Destination Village is Stronger. Look at each student's discipline and then consult the destination village to see ...

• If there is no master of that discipline. The journeying student becomes the new master of that discipline in the destination village.
• If there is a master (with or without student) of that discipline in any color. The journeying student is removed from the board.

Bridges & Stones. Whatever the results, a Journey of the Students causes the bridge they crossed over to be destroyed. If this causes a village to have no more bridges leading to it, that village enters a permanent period of peace and tranquility. No more actions may be taken in the village (primarily meaning that no more masters can be played there).

Ending the Game: The game ends when all 11 stones have been placed, meaning that all but 2 of the villages are cut-off. At this point each player counts up all his masters (not including students). The player with the most masters on the board wins, or in case of tie the player who has occupied the most villages.

How the Game Works: As a largely abstract game, it might not be immediately obvious how the game plays (perhaps not even during your first couple of turns of actual play).

After setup, the game possibly proceeds with the players adding a couple of masters to a couple of villages, but more likely adding students atop their existing masters. This tends to cause a domino-effect. Once someone starts building up a village, every one wants to get aboard to take advantage of the upcoming journey. Throughout the game, play will continue much like this, with the occasional master play, but more commonly a student play, since you can play twice as many tiles that way.

Sometimes real conflict will occur between two cities, with both being built up, each awaiting a narrow majority to overtake the other side. Sometimes a player will make a desperate move and begin a Journey of Students toward a stronger village, solely to destroy the bridge in-between and thus prevent the loss of master tiles in the originating city. Things start to get really tricky when villages begin to drop down to a single connection left. It's possible to get students stuck in a city that can't be touched if someone journeys in via that last bridge.

Toward the end of the game, players may be facing shortages of certain master types due to poor play earlier in the game. If you've played all of certain tile types to the board, you might not be able to play new master tiles at all, because the villages will be becoming increasingly full.

Finally, the last stone is placed and all that's left is counting up the masters on the board.

Game Variations

Although the game is officially for 3-4 players, some have suggested that a 2-player versions works very well with each player playing two colors, rotating through four turns for the four different colors.

Relationships to Other Games

Leo Colovini's game designs are very easy to recognise. He tends to create abstract strategy games with a thin theme on top of them (that somehow still feels natural). Clans, the other game of his that I've reviewed, shows this same general tendency.

The Game Design

The Bridges of Shangri-la is overall an interesting, thoughtful, and well-designed game. Here's some of the best aspects:

Good Player Interplay: Each players' play has large effects on others, and so you constantly remain engaged with the game, figuring out what other people are doing and how you need to respond.

Multiple Strategic Elements: There are a number of interrelated strategic elements which a player must consider, including: the composition of villages he's in and of nearby villages; the number of pieces he has remaining of each type; and the possibilities of counteroffensive to close a bridge before an offensive can be carried out. It's this constant multitude of possibilities that gives the game real depth. (And, it should be noted, as often these tactics are tactical as strategic. With four players especially there can be a strong chaotic element which can keep you from planning far ahead.)

Player Turns Quick: Because you can just play one or two tiles each turn, turns should be very quick.

Here's one comment that's largely a matter of taste:

Game is Dry: As with most games that are essentially abstract strategy, this one can be somewhat dry. All the theme really is only surface-deep.

Here's some of the flaws in the game:

Potential for Analysis Paralysis: Because you can place 1 or 2 of 42 tiles in 13 cities, or alternatively initiate journeys from 1 of 13 cities to 3 or 4 others each there's a lot of different possibilities, and these can paralyze some players.

Strategy Somewhat Opaque: In at least the first couple of games the strategy can be somewhat opaque becuase it's not always immediately obvious what moves will have long-term benefits and what will get quickly swept away.

Scoring Somewhat Opaque: Because all scoring is done at end game, it's not always obvious who's winning. Theoretically the tiles could be counted at any time, but there's a lot of them and this is a pain in-game.

Overall, I thikn that the three flaws I note will all be alleviated by continued play, and thus the ultimate Substance question is whether this type of abstract strategy game is for you. Overall, it's quite well designed for its niche, and thus earns a "4" out of "5" for Strategy.

Conclusion

Leo Colovini's newest game is what you'd expect: an above average abstract strategy game with a thin coat of theme. Overall, The Bridges of Shangri-La has lots of strategic possibilities and engaging game play, and thus is definitely suggested for players of abstract strategies, particularly if they've liked previous Colovini designs.

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