Daitoshi

Barcelona and Windmill Valley showed Garcia’s control at mid-weight; Daitoshi expands the blueprint until it belongs beside games such as Seti and Nucleum. There are many moving parts here, but it never feels as though a box of mechanisms has simply been tipped onto the table. The joins have been considered, and the whole construction holds together.

Steam production sits at the centre, bringing a welcome degree of novelty without becoming a decorative subsystem. It is properly tied into the rest of the game’s decisions. Play is about following the consequences from one system into the next rather than treating each one as a separate chore; the interesting decision is where the next investment will do the most work.

There is no single prescribed strategic lane. You can make progress by spreading your attention across several areas, or by committing to specialisation. Player interaction is expressed through the pressure of that efficiency race and the endgame scoring, where track-and-achievement multipliers in the familiar What's Your Game? manner are demanding rather than freely available.

The rules are approachable despite the substantial rulebook, although Daitoshi is not the first stop for someone unprepared for this density. For players who already understand why tracks, achievements and multipliers can sustain an entire evening, it is a worthy collection piece and a very well-integrated heavy euro.