Thebai

Thebai could readily be mistaken for a T-series title, from its name to its general design language. Production is excellent, and the setting has been properly worked into the game: you are restoring the Cadmeia while Parthenopaeus and company close in on the seven gates. This is not a theme pasted on after the machinery was finished; the names and the shape of the tragedy are plainly present in the design.

At its centre sits a fairly dense combination of tableau building, pattern matching, dice placement and set collection. Players operate dice of differing strength, choosing whether to commit them to spaces in their own tableau or to the map for actions. Those actions open new slots in the citadel and on the map, acquire materials, or improve the dice themselves. The interesting decision is the allocation of those dice: build now, or prepare the next sequence of effects.

Trading and upgrades feed the end-game requirements, but defending the city keeps the system under pressure, since the invaders may arrive at a gate no one can identify in advance. There are familiar accordion turns: one player takes a brief action while another unfolds a chain of bonuses and extra actions. It is not the one-sided imbalance often found in Lacerda games, however; everyone receives both small and large turns, merely not in the same rhythm. At three this was unobtrusive. At four it may materially alter the character of several actions and strategies, particularly city defence.

The game flows cleanly, the rules are readily understood, the illustration serves the information, and scoring is sensible and foreseeable. Thebai is a very good euro, provided one keeps a small reservation about the four-player version.