Mykerinos<\/a><\/h2>\nreviewed by Aaron Haag<\/p>\n
Buying a game just because of the publisher’s name stands for quality can be risky and the
\ncause of disappointment. When I heard of Ystari’s latest game “Mykerinos” I
\nnevertheless did just that, for the simple reason that this publisher’s games have been quite
\nliked by our gaming group.<\/p>\n
When the game arrives my doubts about my decision to buy “blind” started to grow. The
\ngame box was a lot smaller than I had expected, actually it’s the smallest of the three Ystari
\ngames published so far. Maybe this is intentional, because King Mykerinos’ pyramid is also the
\nsmallest of the three located at Gizeh.<\/p>\n
The box contains a rather small game board, lots of tokens and tiles and a total of 100 wooden
\ncubes in the four player colours – all of which in high quality. The rule book leaves one startled
\nat first look as is virtually impossible to read the text due to the strong background picture of
\nEgyptian hieroglyphs. In my despair I had a look at the Ystari website and found a pdf version of
\nthe rules, ready for printing. If printed in monochrome the background picture becomes faint enough
\nto make the rules easily readable.<\/p>\n
The rulebook leaves nothing to be desired in terms of clarity and structure. The rules are
\nsimple and short enough to be explained quickly, but you have to make sure that the rule regarding
\nstart player selection is well understood by all players – more about that later.<\/p>\n
Players represent archaeologists faced with the task to send men (wooden cubes) to promising
\nexcavation sites to search for artefacts and to rooms in a museum to present them. Valuable
\nexcavation sites yield victory points and sponsor support and occupied rooms in the museum act as
\nmultiplier for these VPs at the end of the game.<\/p>\n
![\"board\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/Ressourcen2\/mykerinos_b1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
The game is played in four rounds. Each round starts with collecting a defined number of men
\n(player coloured cubes) from the general stock and putting them into the players’ personal
\nstock. Next an excavation site is constructed out of “parcel” tiles, using two to make an
\narea. Four (six in the last round) areas are then making up the whole site. Each parcel has six
\nspaces, some blocked with pyramids, on which men can be placed. Placement of men is done in turns
\nwith players being able to place up to three men per turn, depending on their position on the site
\nand the possible support of sponsors. Once all players have passed, the evaluation phase begins
\nwhere the excavation site is checked for majorities in each area. Starting with the player holding
\nthe majority up to three players may now choose to take one of the area’s parcels, yielding
\nvictory points and\/or sponsor support or to place a man into a room in the museum. Once all areas
\nhave been evaluated the next round begins.<\/p>\n
Each parcel won provides the support of a sponsor giving additional abilities during the
\nexcavation phase. These range from taking extra men from the general stock, placing more men on the
\nexcavation site or having greater flexibility in placing them to finally placing a man in a
\nmuseum’s room instead of placing it on the excavation site.<\/p>\n
The game leaves players with a number of subtle choices of tactics and strategy. Since the
\nnumber of men per round is limited, their optimal placement on the excavation site is vital for
\nwinning the game. It is usually not advantageous (or even possible) to try and be present in all
\nareas. From round two onwards it is also important to place men into the museum instead of taking
\nparcels with sponsor support as only the right “mix” of parcels and parcel multipliers
\n(rooms of the museum) will yield the most victory points. Here, the sponsor “Sir Brown”
\nappears to be very powerful as he provides the ability to place men in the museum already during
\nthe excavation phase. Also “Lady Violet”, who provides the ability to take extra men from
\nthe general stock in addition to an excavation turn, is a much sought sponsor.<\/p>\n
![\"board\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/Ressourcen2\/mykerinos_b2.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
After our first game we had a long dispute about the rule determining the start player of the
\nnext round. It says that the player passing LAST in the round will be the new start player. At
\nfirst glance this sounds rather counter-intuitive. Passing last means you could have one more turn
\nduring the excavation phase, or at least you were the one placing the last men, thereby having had
\na chance to shift majorities in your favour. However, we could not agree if being start player is
\nof an advantage or not. Being first in a round one usually has the best choice of excavation spaces
\nbut on the other hand one is almost certain to pass first, too, due to the depletion of men. Saving
\nmen for the next round most often does not make a great deal of sense as the last player is only
\nallowed one more turn after all other players have passed.<\/p>\n
We found the game to be challenging enough to be fun but by far not as challenging as the other
\ntwo Ystari games. It has all the good attributes of a fine game, like always being in the situation
\nof wanting to do more than the game currently allows and the requirement for some clever resource
\nbalancing. The different sponsors provide the material for defining and following a strategy while
\nthe placement of men fulfils the needs of tactic lovers.<\/p>\n
A final word on the number of players. The two-player game appears to be a compromise by
\nintroducing a neutral player, something I personally don’t like and rarely have seen to work
\nsatisfactorily. The four-player game has fewer men per player per round than the three-player game,
\nmaking the optimal placement of men on the excavation site or the museum much more important. At
\nthe same time it is almost impossible to predict the placement of men of three other players, so
\nthe 4-player game is less strategic. I prefer the 3-player version with just the right amount of
\nfreedom and predictability to be sufficiently deterministic and strategic.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Designer Nicolas Ouri Publisher Ystari released 2005 Players 2-4 Playing Time 60 minutes Mykerinos reviewed by Aaron Haag Buying a game just because of the publisher’s name stands for quality can be risky and the cause of disappointment. When I heard of Ystari’s latest game “Mykerinos” I nevertheless did just that, for the simple reason … Mykerinos<\/span> weiterlesen →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spieleabende"],"views":5,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3629\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"cover\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/Ressourcen2\/mykerinos_t.jpg\")
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