TIGRIS & EUPHRATES

Rules Modification by Mark Henshaw

Overview and Explanation

	Reiner Knizia’s Tigris & Euphrates loosely simulates the dawn of civilization in ancient Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Rather than pitting one empire against another, Tigris & Euphrates encourages unilateral development by putting each player at the head of a dynasty or ruling family which attaches its members to different kingdoms throughout the course of history, building up its military, agriculture, trade, and religious power. The object is to develop each of these areas, with victory being decided by a comparison of each dynasty’s weakest area.
	While the initial game had a great deal of potential as a strategy game and even a teaching aid, its original design was lacking on several points. This version of Tigris & Euphrates attempts to address problems identified in the official rules, particularly those relating to 1) complexity, 2) lack of realism, and 3) strategy. The original game took very long to set up, and it was a hassle remembering to collect victory cubes. It also relegated farming and food production to the periphery of gameplay, when farming was the cornerstone of all urban development—without an agricultural base, societies do not develop beyond foraging and wandering. Lastly, because of the ease with which internal conflicts could be won by the attacker, and because temples were needed for all leaders, leaders tended to entrench themselves in temple areas, creating simplistic “honeycomb” patterns of alternating temple tiles and leader tokens; now there is more incentive to pursue more diversified strategies.

Game Setup

	Before playing, remove 21 red tiles from the bag, and add 6 catastrophe tiles (showing a gray head on them) and 6 blank tiles (for roads) to the bag. This should leave 30 green, 30 black, 36 red, 36 blue, 6 catastrophe, and 6 road tiles. Then set aside all the other colored cubes except for ten cubes chosen to taste; these ten are the only cubes used. While you may want to keep the discarded pieces, you should separate them out to speed setup in future games. Put together the monuments if you have not already done so, affixing each base to a body of a different color.
	To begin each game, open the board and place a treasure cube on each of the ten squares marked with a sphinx. Get one screen for each player; all players draw 5 tiles from the bag and place them behind their screen to make their “hand.” Now each player chooses a dynasty (potter, archer, lion, or bull) and then all dynasty tiles are placed facedown and mixed; one is selected at random to signify who will go first, and play proceeds clockwise from there. 

Simplified Version for Children

	It is an easy matter to simplify this game for younger players by eliminating trade. Before playing, take all of the blank (road) tiles and green tiles out of the bag, and ignore the green leaders and treasure. Use only the blue, black, and red tiles and leaders, and the catastrophe tiles.

Kingdoms

	During play, leader tokens, colored tiles, and monuments represent the gradual development of farms (blue), temples (red), military outposts (black), and trade centers (green). Any string of tiles or leaders placed adjacent to one another on the board are said to be connected. The exception to this is the catastrophe tile (gray head) which severs existing connections and may never be played over. A set of tiles with one or more leaders attached to it is referred to as a kingdom.
	Supply Issues: All kingdoms must contain either a blue tile (farm) or a monument with blue as one of its colors (containing a granary, pastureland, or well). Any time a kingdom is left unsupplied by food in this way, all of the leaders in that kingdom are removed from the board.
	Trade Routes: 
To establish a trade route, connect two of the sphinx squares with tiles (including the sphinx spaces themselves). If both the sphinx tiles have treasures on them, whoever owns the trade (green) leader in that kingdom may take one of the treasures into his winnings. If he has the option of taking one of the four corner treasures, he must take one of these treasures.
	Monuments: As soon as there are four like-color tiles in a square inside a kingdom with the appropriately colored leader, a monument must be created there. Whoever owns the leader takes the four tiles into his winning pile, and replaces these with four discarded tiles placed facedown. Finally, he selects a monument which has one of the same colors in it, and places this on top. (This monument counts as two tiles for each of the two colors in it for conflict resolution and at the end of the game.)

On Your Turn

	During your turn, you may take any two of the following actions, or two of the same action; after your turn ends, everyone draws enough tiles from the bag to replenish their hands to exactly 5 tiles.

•	Play a colored (red, green, blue, or black) tile from your hand onto the board. Blue tiles may only be played onto river squares or empty spaces next to other blue tiles, whereas red, green, and black tiles may be placed on any empty non-river square. Note that you may play a tile underneath treasures.
•	Take a leader, either from off the board or from another square in the board, and play it onto any empty, non-river square on the board connected to a farm square or a monument with blue in it.
•	Discard a colored tile and play a catastrophe tile on top of a tile of the kind you discarded. You can’t play catastrophe’s on spaces containing treasure, but if you wish to play a catastrophe tile onto a blank space or road space, you do not need to discard anything. Catastrophe tiles sever connections and prevent any tiles (which might form a connection) from being placed on that square; any leaders left without any connection to a blue tile or blue monument are knocked off of the board.
•	Play a blank road tile onto the board, and place any two extra tiles facedown on opposite sides of the road tile. The three tiles may only be laid on blank spaces (though they may contain treasure) and only one of the three tiles added may cover a river space.
•	Discard any number of tiles, replacing them from the bag, and then placing your discarded tiles back into the bag. You may only do this once a turn.

Conflicts

	Any time two leaders of the same color are connected to one another, a conflict occurs and must be resolved immediately. If the conflict began as a result of one player moving a leader into another kingdom, this is an internal conflict. If the conflict results from two kingdoms being joined, this is an external conflict; place a unification tile (clasped hands) over the connecting tile; this tile is not counted for either side. In an external conflict, whoever played the connecting tile is the attacker and selects which color to resolve first; then, if any further conflicts remain, go around the table with each involved player taking the role of the attacker and selecting which color will be next. Conflicts are resolved with color-appropriate tiles in this way:

1.	Count up like-color tiles. In an internal conflict, count up the like-color tiles directly adjacent to your ruler; like-color monuments count as 2 for the defender only. In an external conflict, count all like-color tiles connected to your leader on your side of the unification tile, with both the attacker and defender being able to count like-color monuments as 2 tiles.
2.	Play tiles. The attacker now plays any number of additional number of like-color tiles from his hand. Then the defender adds like-color tiles from his own hand. Check each side’s total; if the attacker has more, he wins; if the defender achieved a tie, he wins. However, the defender isn’t allowed to play any more tiles than would be needed to tie, and if he did, the extra tiles return to his hand.
3.	Resolution. In an internal conflict, the loser’s leader is removed from the board, and the winner takes one of the like-color tile into his winning pile. In an external conflict, the losing leader is removed from the board, the winner takes all the like-color tiles from the loser’s kingdom into his winnings, and any leaders which are now left unconnected to a blue tile or blue monument are removed. If there are still conflicts, the process is repeated with a new attacker.

Ending the Game

	The game ends when a player tries to replenish his hand but cannot because the bag has run out of tiles, or else when there are only two more treasure cubes on the board. When this happens, all players take tiles from kingdoms presided over by their own like-colored leader, and also award themselves with two like-colored tiles for every like-colored monument attached to their leader. Each player should make four stacks of tiles, one of each color, and check to see what his weakest areas are. He may then exchange each of his treasure cubes for an extra tile of any color. Finally, each player identifies his weakest color and sets that in the middle of the board; whoever has the tallest stack wins.

Ordering Information

	Tigris & Euphrates can be bought in most game shops or ordered online. The copy used to playtest this version was purchased through www.fairplaygames.com and can be reviewed at this Web address: http://tinyurl.com/nmotc

Please send questions and comments to:
harkenbane@juno.com.