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Mesopotamia is a new big-box game by Carcassonne creator, Klaus-Jurgen Wrede. It's published by Phalanx & Mayfair Games.
Players: 2-4
Time: 60-90 minutes
Difficulty: 5 (of 10)
The Components
 Mesopotamia contains a large set of gorgeous components:
- 41 hexagonal tiles
- 1 temple
- Cardboard Bits:
- 4 mana scales
- 12 holy place markers
- 16 offering markers
- Wooden Bits:
- 4 pawns
- 4 beams
- 20 huts
- 32 tribes
- 20 wood resources
- 20 stone resources
- 18 playing cards
- 1 rule book
- 1 game overview
Hexagonal Tiles: The board for Mesopotamia is constructed from hexagonal tiles. Each is made of medium-weight, linen-textured cardboard, printed full-color on the front with a relatively monochromatic landscape (green forests, yellow plains, gray quarries, or black volcanos). The edges of the hexes are cut into strange interlocking tabs, which do a good job of keeping the game together (though one player commented that they were easy to bend as you took the game apart).
Temple: A cool, wooden, stepped temple that goes in the middle of the board.
Cardboard Bits: A small set of additional linen-textured cardboard bits, all printed in full-color with evocative artwork.The "mana scales" are cardboard strips labelled 0-8. You use them to keep track of current (and maximum) mana.
There are 3 large, circular holy place markers in each of the 4 player colors (red, green, yellow, and blue). There are likewise 4 small, circular offering markers in each of the 4 player colors. They're of different values (2, 4, 6, 7) and each depict a unique offering.
Wooden Bits: A wide variety of good-quality wooden bits in the four player colors. These include: a cylindrical pawn and beam which each player uses to mark their current mana and max mana; 8 octagonal tribe markers; and 5 large hut-shaped markers. As usual with wood bits in German games, they're all simple but attractive.
Resources: The wood resources are, as you might expect, more wood. They're long, uncolored rectangular pieces.
The stones, meanwhile, are actual stones, which is pretty cool. Good stones have been selected that have a flat bottom which makes it easy to place the resources on your tribesmens' heads, as is suggested in the rules.
Playing Cards: A small deck of medium-weight, linen-textured cards. Each features a title, a small picture, and text explaining the card's use. The different types of cards are, helpfully, different colors. They're easy to use, but the art isn't that interesting because it's so small. A pity, as it seems to be nicely done.
Rulebooks: A 6-page, full-color rulebook does a fair job of explaining the game. It's got lots of illustrations, but few examples and only has references for a couple of the cards.
The game overview is a 4-page cardstock sheet which reminds you of all the major options in the game, and also clearly depicts the setups for various numbers of players. It's entirely invaluable, but I think each player should have gotten a reference sheet instead, as the large number of gameplay options can be a bit overwhelming at first.
I should note that I'm slightly skeptical of the theme. Though it's called Mesopotamia, the game feels more like Mesoamerica to me, with its volcanos and its human sacrifice on tall ziggurats. Even some of the (cardboard) components look Mesoamerican to me. I can't help but wonder if this game experienced a very last minute theme change, to its detriment.
Overall, Mesopotamia is an entirely beautiful game with components that are attractive and easy to use. It thus earns a full "5" out of "5" for Substance.
The Gameplay
The object of Mesopotamia is to sacrifice your four offering markers, but to do so you must build up mana, villages, and tribesmen.
Setup: The board is initially laid out with seven hexes: a special "holy space" hex in the middle, atop which sits the temple; two plains to one side; a woods and a quarry on the opposite side; and in between two volcanos (making the center of the board a chokepoint). Each player puts one hut and three tribes on one of the plains hexes. 2-4 woods are put on the forest and 2-4 stones are put on the quarry (in each case, depending on the number of players).
Each player places the remainder of his huts and tribes as well as his 4 offerings and his 3 holy places in his personal supply.
Each player also takes a mana scale and initially marks it at 0 mana with a max mana of 3 (using the pawn and beam).
Order of Play: On his turn a player takes the following actions, in order:
- Move
- Take Actions
- Gain Mana
Move: A player may move up to five spaces (or slightly less on the first few turns). This may be one tribe moving 5 spaces, five tribes 1 space, or some other combination. Tribes may not move through volcanos, and they may not carry items through the temple (though they may deliver stones and offerings there, as described below).
During movement a number of different things can occur, none of which take any movement points.
Carry Resources. Each tribe may carry up to one resource (stone or wood) or one offering. Stone or wood will show up in quarries and forests, while offerings will appear when a player builds huts. Resources may be picked up or dropped freely.
Offerings may be picked up freely, but may never be dropped.
Steal Resources. If you have more tribes in a hex than an opponent, each of your tribes may steal one resource that an opponent's tribe in that hex is carrying.
Offerings may not be stolen.
Build the Temple. You may deliver a stone to the temple. This increases your mana and your max mana by 1 each. The stone is removed from the game.
This is one of two ways to get mana, the other being through holy places. You'll need mana to sacrifice your offerings.
Make An Offering. You may deliver an offering to the temple. To do so you must pay the value of the offering (2, 4, 6, or 7) in mana. Clearly this means that you'll need to increase your max mana during the game because it starts at "3". Fortunately this is easy to do through helping to build your temple.
When you make your offering you also must sacrifice your tribe. It's returned to your supply.
The offering is placed near the temple and marks your current victory level: if you deliver all four of your offerings you win.
Discover New Lands. If you move a tribe off the current map you discover a new land. You flip a random hex over and place it in the appropriate space.
Plains are just placed.
If you get a forest or a quarry then you place 2-4 new wood or stone resources on the board, at least one in the new hex, the others on other forests or quarries on the board.
If you get a volcano you place it somewhere else (probably blocking another player), then draw again.
You can discover a maximum of three new tiles in a turn (not counting extra draws for volcanos).
 Take Actions: You can then take one type of action during your turn from a set of four. The first three actions can all be done multiple times if you have multiple situations meeting the criteria.
Build Huts. If you have at least two tribes and one wood in a plains hex with no holy place and no more than one hut, you can expend the wood to build a hut.
When a hut comes into play, you also place one of your offering markers face-down under the hut. This is how you get them into play; you'll later pick it up and carry it to the temple.
Erect Holy Places. If you have at least two tribes and one stone in an empty plains hex, you can expend the stone to build a holy place. You'll later use that to get mana.
Grow Population. If you have at least two tribes in a hex with one of your huts, you can add one tribe. More tribes help you play more efficiently, but are also necessary because you'll be expending tribes as you offer sacrifices.
Draw 1 Card. You can draw one card. These give various beneficial effects that can be used on a later turn (e.g., steal mana, gain main, grow population more, etc).
Gain Mana Points: At the end of your turn you gain 1 mana for each space that has one of your holy places and at least 1 of your tribes. You also gain 1 mana for each space that has one of your opponent's holy places and at least 2 of your tribes.
You can never increase your mana to more than your mana limit, and that can only be increased by building the temple with stones.
Winning the Game: A player wins as soon as he makes his fourth and final offering.
Relationships to Other Games
Mesopotamia is an action-point based tactical resource management game.
The resource management aspect of the game follows a somewhat one-dimensional path, with some branches: you make huts to make offerings; then expend stones or make holy places to generate mana; then expend the mana, tribes, and the offerings; and then use huts to make more tribes. Moreso than most resource management games, it's very much a game of efficiency: how quickly and effectively you can manage your resource chain.
The action point segment of the game will be familiar to fans of Wolfgang Kramer's games (particularly Mexica, Tikal, and Java). However it particularly reminds me of a more recent, less popular release, Dos Rios. In both games the action points are quantified as movement, and you can do various interesting things as you move your pieces to different places. Generally you have to move your pieces around a fair amount in order to do something, and so the 5 points isn't enough to cause paralysis, though I more than once was frustrated by the inability to do anything useful with my last action point.
(Overall, Mesopotamia reminds me quite a bit of Dos Rios; as you'll see I think they both end up being pretty average resource management and action point games.)
The Game Design
 Overall, Mesopotamia is a fair game for its genre. I played it twice, and I enjoyed it both times. I felt like I played absolutely terribly the first time, making inefficient moves and wasting actions, which says conversely that there's some meaningful strategy in the game.
However, the game didn't really spark for me either.
I did like the tactics, and was frequently on my toes as to what to do on future turns. There were a multiple paths to victory that were meaningful. Besides raw speed you also have to make decisions about how many tribes to maintain on board (since technically you only need one additional tribe to make your four sacrifices, but more can produce increased inefficiency), and whether to build holy spaces or not. In my second game I tried to leech off of other people's holy spaces rather than building them myself, and came very close to victory. If I hadn't been a victim of a mana theft I would have pulled it off.
On the downside, the player interaction is quite low. There's a bit of chaos in who takes what resources and what building spaces, but that's not any intentional sort of interaction. The resource theft action didn't occur at all in my first game, then was counterproductive in my second, as we kept seeing tradeoffs happen. I suspect there's a way to pull it off usefully, but that singular element of interaction just wasn't enough in our two games. In addition, the endgame was a little anticlimatic. On the last few turns your useful choices become increasingly constrained.
I've played a number of resource management games, starting with The Settlers of Catan, and this was another fair, but not terribly innovative, entry to the genre. In addition, among the action point games I've played, I felt like it had slightly less interesting choices than many of them. Thus, overall, the game ended up being pretty average gameplay-wise: something I'll occasionally, but not constantly, play.
I've thus rated Mesopotamia a slightly high "3" out of "5" for Substance. Big fans of resource management games looking for some variety will be slightly more enthusiastic.
Conclusion
The gorgeously produced Mesopotamia has fairly average gameplay. It's overall a lot like a lot of other resource management and/or action point games, with its biggest problem being relatively low player interaction. If you're a big fan of Settlers and others of the genre, and are looking for some variety, Mesopotamia will probably be a great choice. However for me it's likely to get just one or two plays a year as a change of pace.
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