''Tigris and Euphrates'' (german: Euphrat und Tigris) is a tabletop eurogame designed by

Reiner Knizia Reiner may refer to: *Reiner (crater), a crater on the Moon, named after Vincentio Reiner *Reiner Braun, a fictional List_of_Attack_on_Titan_characters, character in the anime/manga series ''Attack on Titan'' People with the given name Reiner *Rein ...

and first published in 1997 by

Hans im Glück Hans im Glück is a German board and card game publisher. Though many of their own games are language-independent they themselves publish only printings for the domestic market which include only German-language rules; English-language printings o ...

. Before its publication, it was highly anticipated by German gamers hearing rumors of a "

gamer A gamer is a proactive hobbyist who plays interactive games, especially video games, tabletop role-playing games, and skill-based card games, and who plays for usually long periods of time. Some gamers are competitive, meaning they routinely ...

's game" designed by Knizia. ''Tigris and Euphrates'' won first prize in the 1998

Deutscher Spielepreis __NOTOC__ The Deutscher Spielepreis (, ''German Game Prize'') is an important award for boardgames. It was started in 1990 by the German magazine ''Die Pöppel-Revue'', which collects votes from the industry's stores, magazines, professionals a ...

. A

card game A card game is any game using playing cards as the primary device with which the game is played, be they traditional or game-specific. Countless card games exist, including families of related games (such as poker). A small number of card ...

version was released in 2005. The game is set as a clash between neighboring dynasties at the dawn of civilization and is named after the rivers

Tigris The Tigris () is the easternmost of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of the Armenian Highlands through the Syrian and Arabian Deserts, and empties into the ...

and

Euphrates The Euphrates () is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Tigris–Euphrates river system, Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia ( ''the land between the rivers'') ...

, in the region now called the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...

. The rivers together formed natural borders for an area which harboured several grand ancient civilizations, including

Sumer Sumer () is the earliest known civilization in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. It is one of the cradles of c ...

Babylon ''Bābili(m)'' * sux, 𒆍𒀭𒊏𒆠 * arc, 𐡁𐡁𐡋 ''Bāḇel'' * syc, ܒܒܠ ''Bāḇel'' * grc-gre, Βαβυλών ''Babylṓn'' * he, בָּבֶל ''Bāvel'' * peo, 𐎲𐎠𐎲𐎡𐎽𐎢 ''Bābiru'' * elx, 𒀸𒁀𒉿𒇷 ''Babi ...

ia, and

Assyria Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the A ...

. The Greeks called this area

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...

, which literally means "between the rivers".

Gameplay

The game can be played by two, three, or four people. Play offers both

tactical Tactic(s) or Tactical may refer to: * Tactic (method), a conceptual action implemented as one or more specific tasks ** Military tactics, the disposition and maneuver of units on a particular sea or battlefield ** Chess tactics ** Political tacti ...

and

strategic Strategy (from Greek στρατηγία ''stratēgia'', "art of troop leader; office of general, command, generalship") is a general plan to achieve one or more long-term or overall goals under conditions of uncertainty. In the sense of the "art ...

objectives. As with many games, short-term objectives gain prominence when more players participate, as players have fewer chances to follow up on previous moves. Luck plays a role, as players draw

tiles Tiles are usually thin, square or rectangular coverings manufactured from hard-wearing material such as ceramic, stone, metal, baked clay, or even glass. They are generally fixed in place in an array to cover roofs, floors, walls, edges, or o ...

from a bag, but it is seldom decisive. Players may selectively discard and redraw their tiles at the cost of one "action point", of which each player has two per turn. The game does not use

dice Dice (singular die or dice) are small, throwable objects with marked sides that can rest in multiple positions. They are used for generating random values, commonly as part of tabletop games, including dice games, board games, role-playing g ...

. The board is a map of the two rivers, marked with a square grid. There are four types of tiles with corresponding leaders: temples and priests (red), farms and farmers (blue), markets and merchants (green), and settlements and kings (black). The game starts with ten isolated temple tiles already placed on the board. Players play tiles and leaders onto the board, creating and expanding regions and kingdoms. Monuments may be built on the board when four tiles of the same color are played into a square pattern. Two leaders of the same type cannot coexist in the same kingdom. Internal conflicts are caused by players adding a second leader of a type to a kingdom. External conflicts are caused by players playing tiles to merge two existing kingdoms. During the game, players collect points in each of the four colors as a result of playing tiles, resolving conflicts and controlling monuments. After the final round each player sorts his or her points by color, including any "treasures" which they have acquired, which count as any color the player wishes. In order to limit specialization the player with the most points in their weakest category wins. For example: *Alice has 6 black, 8 red, 12 green, and 12 blue points; thus has a score of 6. *Bob has 9 black, 10 red, 7 green, and 15 blue points; thus has a score of 7. *Charlie has 14 black, 14 red, 5 green, and 20 blue points; thus has a score of 5. Players must balance their scoring and avoid overspecializing. Knizia later used this mechanism as the basis for Ingenious.

Reception

Thomas Lehmann comments: "If you are looking for a tactically rich, intense strategy game with lots of conflict (unusual in a German game), try ''Tigris & Euphrates'' and see why so many players consider this game Reiner Knizia's masterpiece."

Reviews

*''

Pyramid A pyramid (from el, πυραμίς ') is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge to a single step at the top, making the shape roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilat ...

'' *''Backstab'' #9

References

External links

* {{Deutscher Spiele Preis winners Board games introduced in 1997 Deutscher Spiele Preis winners Hans im Glück games Board games about history Mayfair Games games Reiner Knizia games Tile-laying board games