Game Preview: Assyria

By W. Eric Martin
October 20, 2009

Designer: Emanuele Ornella
Publisher: Ystari Games
Other publishers: Rio Grande Games

Players: 2-4
Ages: 12+
Playing time: 45-90 minutes
Release date: Spiel 09 / November 2009 (for RGG)
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The birthplace of civilization – the cradle of land lying between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers – is a constant source of inspiration to game designers, who are trying to give birth to their own ideas. With Assyria, Emanuele Ornella returns players to this land, with each of them leading a tribe in the Mesopotmian Valley. “Tribes are struggling to survive in an environment with little food, while at the same time they’re trying to build a great place to live. At this time, ziggaruts were the pyramids of these populations, looking similar to Aztec pyramids in that they’re built in different levels. Their use is not well know, but it’s believed they were needed for observing stars and storing food.”

The game takes place over three reigns, with a flood occuring in between each reign. The reigns are divided into several rounds, with players first choosing food cards (which possibly rearranges the turn order), then expanding his villages on the board will trying to feed villages both old and new. Says Ornella, “It is not always possible to have all of your villages survive, so you have a difficult choice: Which villages will die?”

The villages that survive provide victory points (VPs), camels or both. “Camels are the currency of the game,” says Ornella, “and they will let players perform final actions like building a new ziggarut or expanding an old one, buying extra food or implementing a plow, expanding your warehouse, building wells for more water, and bribing officers for VPs and special bonuses. There is really a lot of meat in this game, a lot of options, a lot of different possible strategies and hard choices.”

Ornella’s designs, particularly ones like Oltre Mare and Il Principe are tightly interlocking, with each action strongly affecting the possible future actions of both you and your opponents. “This comes to me naturally,” he says. “It’s the way I design and develop a main idea. There is more focus on the right choice at the right moment instead of a big plan for the rest of the game.” Ornella suggests Amun-Re, one of his favorite games, as a good example of this design style from someone else: “On each turn you have to decide where to go, how much to spend, what to buy, where to place your items and how much to offer to the gods.”

The design of Assyria was inspired by Philippe Keyaerts’ Evo, both for its bidding system (later reused in Amun-Re) and the dinosaurs’ struggle for territory that allows them to survive. “I started from that core mechanism: expansion and feeding,” says Ornella. “However, there is no direct fighting in Assyria, and the number of expansions is the same for each player. (This is probably the main problem with Evo, as whoever has more eggs can expand more and has more chances to gain points.)”

When players claim territory in Assyria, they have to decide what’s more important to them as some villages give only VPs while others, those adjacent to rivers where the markets are located, provide only camels. “So a player is always struggling with where to place a new village,” says Ornella. “You need to plan carefully according to the food you own, whether the village’s position might give you the chance to have a well, as well as whether it gives VPs or camels.” These choices resonate through the rest of the game, which has numerous other choices as well: Bribe officers or develop your tribe? Build wells or ziggaruts? Get more food or take the lead this turn? Complete a ziggarut or start multiple ones?

”Assyria is a gamer’s game for sure, and it fits perfectly with the Ystari style,” says Ornella. “I have a great feeling with Cyril [Demaegd, Ystari’s owner], and over the last year we’ve developed the game a lot, fine-tuning all the mechanisms and playtesting more and more. His help with developing gives a great result in my opinion.”

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