The Great Zimbabwe

The Great Zimbabwe had been sitting on the shelf because I had mistaken it for a heavy, awkward beast. Wrong. It sets up quickly and teaches quickly; the only real hurdle is the rulebook, whose background and typeface seem determined to test your eyesight before they test your brain. Rulebook: poor marks for readability. Then the cattle market begins.

At its heart, the game runs through your economy, the cattle, and the gods you choose to follow. Those choices do not sit quietly in your own little corner: they spread across the game and shape what you can pursue later. Our drunken god led us along beautifully, then left us with our trousers round our ankles. A promising start.

That is the important bit: we played it almost like carebears, with no grudges and no venom, just a few neat little moves around one another. Do not mistake that for a peaceful design. There is plenty of depth here, and plenty of ways to become a nuisance once you decide your friends could use a little economic suffocation. With five, I suspect, it may become more epic still. Who starts the trouble?

It is not heavy in the way that shuts you out; it is deep in the way that makes you want another game, this time with blood in your eye. The Great Zimbabwe does not ask you to fear it; it asks you to come back less polite and more deliberate.