Scholars of the South Tigris
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Delivery and Shipping
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Description
Description
| Designer |
S J Macdonald Shem Phillips |
| Publisher | Garphill Games |
| Players | 1-4 |
| Playtime | 60-90 mins |
| Suggested Age | 12 and up |
| Expansion |
Scholars of the South Tigris: Translator Promo Cards |
| Additional Info | BoardGameGeek (Images, Videos, Reviews) |
Scholars of the South Tigris is set during the height of the Abbasid Caliphate, circa 830 AD. The Caliph has called upon the keenest minds to acquire scientific manuscripts from all over the known world. Players will need to increase their influence in the House of Wisdom, and hire skilled linguists to translate the foreign scrolls into Arabic. In this Golden Age of wisdom and knowledge, be mindful not to neglect one in pursuit of the other.
The aim of Scholars of the South Tigris is to be the player with the most victory points (VP) at the game’s end. Points are gained by translating scrolls, increasing knowledge in various areas of science and mathematics, influencing the 3 guilds, and by retiring translators after their years of faithful service. The game end is triggered once all 4 caliph cards have been revealed.
—description from the publisher
Customer Reviews
This game is typical Shem Philips with tightly interwoven mechanics that will melt your brain. It is definitely a step up in complexity compared to his other titles (barring the other two South Tigris’). Really good game!
As the title says
SotST's unique Dice manipulation and engine building translate to a brain melting good time.
Quality you'd expect from graphill games. There's a lot of brain melting moment to moment decision making. The mechanics feel reasonably well explained for veteran gamers. I did do a teach to a slightly newer player and they struggled in beginning but by the half way point was pretty fluent. The icongraphy for me felt intuitive enough by the second game rarely turning to the rule book. Components are quality. The art is great.. In terms of balance it's hard to say as I've only two games under my belt. Both games we ran into a drought of scrolls to the minarets only having the rest action by the middle to end game sending them over as players were electing not to send scrolls over as they'd get stolen and translated immediately by another player.
This could just be beginner mistakes and not enough fore planning. I tried two different strats both games one research centric and one translation and was able to squeak out a win both games. The gold feels very tight and to me (as a complete rookie) the purple research track felt quite underwhelming compared to tracks like gold income, hand size and free upgrade track(green).
Overall enjoyed the game quite a bit. This was my first Graphill games, their reputation for quality games is earned and the impression I'm left with is "I must acquire more graphill games now".
If there was an option I would do 4.5/5. Not quite a perfect masterpiece but a very enjoyable game.
