Players: 2-4
Playing Time: 1 hour
Difficulty: 4 (of 10)
The Components
Gheos comes with:
- 60 tiles
- 12 circular scoring tokens
- 54 victory point chips
- 30 followers
- 6 civilization markers
Tiles: The cardboard tiles in Gheos are, uniquely, triangular. Each one depicts land at the three edges, sometimes broken into two or three parts by oceans. Tiles can also have a variety of symbols on them. The primary ones are wheat, cups, and swords, each of which is depicted by a specific icon and color. There are also temples which match these three icons and pyramids. All of these icons have different powers, as we’ll see, and it’s a bit overwhelming at first, but once you get into the game they become pretty easy to figure out.
Eight of the tiles, rather than showing lands and seas, instead show the phrase “Epoch” and a pyramid. They mark a special scoring round (where, as you might guess from the picture, pyramids are scored).
The tiles are generally attractive, and their only downside is that the backs are plain white with no printing. The fronts are all linen-textured.
The Other Cardboard Bits: There are two other linen-textured cardboard bits. The scoring tokens just depict a trio of cups, and are used to initiate scoring rounds where cups are scored. The victory point chips show "1"s, "5"s, "20"s, and "50"s. There seem to be enough of each, though several players were confused by the lack of “10”s.
Wooden Bits: The 30 followers are small wooden cubes while the 6 civilization markers are circular wooden disks. They’re all painted in the six civilization colors: red, green, yellow, blue, black, and white.
Overall the components of Gheos are all good quality, they’re relatively attractive, and the usability is good. As such I’ve given it a "4" out of "5" for Style: very good.
The Gameplay
The object of Gheos is to attract followers from the best civilizations and then earn scores before their civilizations are brought down by other gods. (You’re a god too, you see, and you’re all scheming to raise up your followers and strike down the civilizations of your enemies.)
Setup: The starting tile is laid in the middle of the board. Each player takes three scoring tokens and an initial hand of two tiles.
The Tiles. As already noted, land runs along all the sides of each triangular tile; thus this isn’t actually an edge-matching game. You can put any tile next to any other. The differences between tiles are a bit more subtle.
First, each tile may have either one, two, or three sections of land, with water dividing them.
Second each section of land can have one or more icons on it. The most common are: wheat, which affects where civilizations are built; swords, which affect war; and cups, which affect normal scoring. Less common are: pyramids, which affect epoch scoring; and temples, which give immediate points when placed in certain civilizations.
Specific terms are used to describe the land bits that appear on tiles: "shores" are where land just covers one edge of a tile, while "landmasses" are larger extents of land which cover two or three edges. Two shores together form an "island" while two or more tiles, at least one of which is a landmass, form a "continent". This will be important in a bit, because for the purposes of civilizations islands are bad and continents are good.
Order of Play: On his turn a player:
- Places a Tile
- Earns Followers
- Plays a Scoring Token (optionally)
Place a Tile: A tile can be placed adjacent to any other tile or on top of (replacing) any tile except for those containing pyramids. Tile placement can cause one of three special events: temple scoring, warfare, or migration.
If you cause warfare or migration with your tile placement you must immediately turn in one follower, and if you can’t, then you can’t place the tile. (We’ll get to how you earned those followers shortly.)
Temple Scoring. If you placed a temple in an existing civilization you get one point for each matching icon in that civilization. For example you might place a sword temple in a civilization, then get one point per sword in that civilization.
Warfare. If you placed a tile in such a way as to join two (or more) civilizations warfare occurs. This most frequently happens when you replace a tile, but it could also result from a normal placement. The swords in each civilization are counted up, and the civilization with more swords conquers the other (with the active player determining ties). The destroyed civilization is removed from the board, and all followers of that color are turned in.
Migration. If you placed a tile (always via replacement) to break up a continent containing a civilization, then you must determine where the civilization goes. To do this you count up the wheat symbols in each part of the former continent. The civilization goes to the portion of the continent containing the most wheat symbols. In cases of a tie the civilization will avoid islands, and otherwise goes where the active player selects.
A migrating civilization is eliminated (with everyone turning in their followers) if it moves to an island or to a continent that already has a civilization on it.
Earn Followers: Next a player may earn followers by either founding a civilization or taking a follower.
Founding a Civilization. A player may found a civilization if there are civilization disks left. He places one on a continent that doesn’t currently have a civilization. (This may be a continent that he just created or that he just cleared through a clever migration or just one that hasn’t previously been used.) The player then gets one follower in that color per wheat symbol in the new civilization.
Taking a Follower. Alternatively the player takes one follower from the bank for a civilization that’s already in play and that still has followers available.
Play a Scoring Tile: Each player has three scoring tiles, and on his turn a player may choose to expend one of them. For each civilization where he has one or more followers, he then gets one point per cup symbol in that civilization per follower. (So if he had two yellow followers and the yellow civilization contained 3 cups, he’d earn 6 points for that civilization.)
Draw a Tile: Finally the active player draws a tile to replenish his hand to two.
If the tile is an "epoch" tile, all players score. Each player earns one point per pyramid per follower for each civilization.
Ending the Game: The game ends either when the eighth epoch tile has been drawn and scored or when all players have used up all three of their scoring tiles. Now there is one final cup scoring round where all players earn cup points for all their followers.
The player with the highest score wins.
Relations to Other Games
Gheos is fundamentally a tile-laying game. However it differs from most of the entrants in the genre because of the fact that it is not edge-matching. Indeed the gameplay of Gheos is instead very analytical and even somewhat logistical because of the various improvements or deficits that can be applied to civilization through play or overplay of tiles.
Based on its chaotic nature and its programmatic resolution of certain events, Gheos reminds me the most of Tongiaki, a similarly programmatic game from a few years ago where peoples migrated from land to land based on overpopulation. I think Tongiaki was a slightly more evocative game, while Gheos is both more staid and more strategic.
The Game Design
Overall Gheos is an interesting game that is, as noted, quite analytical and allows for very clever play. I was afraid at first that players would be overwhelmed by all the possibilities, but that wasn’t a problem in either game I played. Instead players were able to do clever things but didn’t get too bound up in their options.
And the cleverness is notable: you have to stay always alert in Gheos, because civilizations will rise and fall at the drop of a hat, and every turn you have to be ready to take advantage of the newest opportunities presented to you. This made the game largely tactical, though some longer turn strategy is possible if your opponents don’t mess with you too much. Some players will be turned off by the fact the game is chaotic. Your plans can be easily messed up by opponents’ actions, and sometimes you’ll create a civilization and then it will fall within a round. This chaos is a feature of many French games, of which I assume this is one based on the designer’s name, and I’m totally OK with it--but if you don’t like chaos in your games you should beware.
Overall, Gheos is original and tactical, and will be the most enjoyed by players who like slightly more analytical games. I give it a "4" out of "5" for Substance.
Conclusion
Gheos is a highly original tile-laying game where you play gods messing with the very fabric of the world. It’ll be best enjoyed by players who like more analytical games and don’t mind a little bit of chaos.
