Merv: The Heart of the Silk Road

I wanted to end the evening with something “cold”: tight euro-nerdery, let the gears turn a little, then go home. Merv is exactly that, except that in just 12 turns it asks you to max out tracks, chase unlocks, and not miss a single important opportunity. It has some good ideas, but on my first encounter it felt like it was trying a little too hard to fit too much into too little time.

At its core, it is a complex blend of familiar euro mechanisms and linked tracks: you advance in one thing to gain access to another, which in turn unlocks your next option. The game is strictly limited to 12 turns, so there is no room for leisurely development; every move has to serve a plan and, ideally, accomplish more than one thing at once.

Interaction is not merely everyone staring at their own board. The camel mechanism is one of the things I liked, while where and when you cut off someone else’s option can change the entire game. In our first four-player session, however, the Mongol attacks were practically trivialised, and the Mosque track looked theoretically far too strong—strong enough that the winner even bought us drinks.

So my initial verdict was “no.” I did not think it was a bad game, but it felt harder than it needed to be, with certain paths to victory appearing uneven and a central mechanism not carrying the weight it should at four players. I was not especially eager to see it many more times.

Updated session

The second chance came because we wanted something around two hours long that would play well with three and be easy to explain. Four games later, I changed my mind significantly: Merv is very good at three. The initial impression that it is broken softens once players are more alert and have planned one or two meaningful cut-offs during those 12 turns. It did not become perfect, but my regard for both its balance and the game itself clearly increased.