The Sands of Time

After fifteen days away from board games, the plan was ambitious: Feudum, The Sands of Time, two “different and original” games on the table so there would be some variety. Then the rulebooks arrive, and you realise that the two special snowflakes on the menu share the same core mechanism. At Essen this year, it seems action selection will be very fashionable—along with red T-shirts.

In The Sands of Time, action selection is the core around which the entire experience is organised. The actions you choose are what steer the building and development of your civilisation, giving the game the familiar feel of a civ game that wants you to plan your path.

Around that mechanism sit all the staple ingredients I expect from the genre: conflict, civilisation, trade, monuments, and research. In other words, there is plenty to engage with as you develop your own side, while player contact also comes through the fighting promised by the theme.

In any case, it is quite a nice and interesting game. It simply left me with a lingering sense that, while it ticks almost every box I want from this sort of civ game, something is missing. Exactly the opposite of Feudum, which felt excessively abundant to me. It is official: I have XX-withdrawal.