Sailing Toward Osiris: Review
Information:
Mechanics: Pattern Building, Worker Placement
Player Age: 14+ Player Count: 2 - 5 PlayersTime to Play: 60 - 90 Minutes
Game Designer: W. David MacKenzie
Player Age: 14+
Game Designer: W. David MacKenzie
Objective:
Throughout the game players will be hiring and sending out laborers to gain the resources required to build monuments and score points. Players will be able to bribe and make deals with each other to trade resources, unused laborers or city cards.
Game Anatomy:
Game Board:
There is a lot of information on the game board that will slowly be explained throughout this review. Some of the things on the board include:
- The score track that will go around the board and will house the player score markers.
- Terrain locations will be used to gain resources from laborers and will be the main location where monuments are built.
Barge Token:
The barge will move into a new section of the river after every season. During a season, players will only be able to place laborers at the barge’s current or previous terrain location, not ahead of the barge river area.
Resource Tokens:
There are three types of resources; grain, brick and stone. These are used to build monuments and hire laborers throughout the game.
City Cards:
A city card can be used to either gain the resources shown in the top left of the card or activate the ability at the bottom of the card.
Boon Cards:
Each player will begin the game with an identical set of boon cards that each player will have access to. Each boon card will have game benefits at no cost such as taking a laborer from the draw bag or moving one of your buildings. The catch is that each boon can only be used once and is then discarded.
Laborers:
The basic laborer can only be placed, as discussed, in the barge’s river section as long as that terrain space is not occupied. The master laborers can be placed in any terrain section on the board not already occupied, so they can go ahead or behind the barge. If it is the fourth season they will gain a bonus resource. Both types of laborers may only go to terrain locations that match their colour. When the laborer is placed on a terrain location, it will receive all resources depicted at that location. Each terrain location can house two monuments and/or one laborer. If there is a monument built on one of those spots the laborer will go to the open side and only gain resources shown there. If both spots have a monument placed then the laborer cannot be placed there.
Player Screen:
Each player screen will be used to hide the owners resources and laborers. It will also give each player some setup details and scoring conditions.
Monuments:
There are three types of monuments; Obelisk, Sphinx and Pylons.
Each player will start the game with four obelisk, three sphinx and two pylons. These will be the main way a player will score throughout the game. When these monuments are built they will score points based on the type of monument. There will also be end game scoring bonuses for the placement of the monuments.
Setup:
- Based on the amount of players, laborers will be added to the draw bag. A player count of 2 will have three laborers of each basic coloured laborer and a player count of 3+ will have four of each basic coloured laborers. There will be one master of each laborer colour type in every game irregardless of player count.
- Create a pool of each resource based on the player count. Two players will have 15 of each resource and for each subsequent player count, five more of each resource type is added. For example, four players will have 25 of each resource.
- Give each player a player screen and all tokens matching a colour (including camel, obelisks, sphinxes, pylons, withdraw token and boon cards).
- Shuffle the city deck.
- Give each player two of each resource and a city card.
- Place the barge token on the far right river segment.
- Select a player to be the regent (first player).
- Place a score marker for each player on the starting place of the score track.
- Block certain spots with other coloured pieces based on the player count (indicated on the game board).
How to Play:
Each season will have multiple phases; acquire laborers, actions, end of season. Once all seasons are played there will be a final scoring.
Acquiring Laborers:
All laborers will be placed in a draw bag then players will take turns drawing laborers (based on the player count. 2-3 players will have three laborers where 4+ players will draw two laborers. Then all but two laborers will be drawn and added to the labor pool for players to hire throughout the season.
Action Phase:
There are numerous options that a player can do on their turn. On a turn a player can do one of any of the below actions until they withdraw from the season.
Harvest Resources:
If the player wants to collect resources they can play laborers or master laborers as discussed in game anatomy.
Visit a City:
There are four city spaces on the board. As an action you can place any of your laborers on a city space to draw two city cards. One card is kept for yourself and the other is passed to an opponent (this can be swayed by other players by offering worthwhile deals). Only one laborer is allowed to be on a city space at a time.
Start or Join a Caravan:
There are two caravan sites on the board and each caravan site has two locations. A player can place any laborer on one of those two spaces if a player already occupies the other spot on the caravan site. You will have to pay that player one of the newly acquired resources, if there is no one at the caravan you will become the leader of the caravan and place your camel there to signal that (you can only lead one caravan site at a time).
Hire an Extra Laborer:
On the board there is a labor pool section which will house extra laborers every season. To gain one of these laborers simply use your turn and pay resources of any kind to gain one of the laborers.
Trade at the Market:
On the right side of the board you may trade any of the resources listed for the other resource displayed. For example, two grain can be traded for one stone. Once this action has been performed the resources you spent will stay there until the end of the season to block other players from undertaking the same trade.
Plan a Monument:
The required resources to plan a monument will be paid and that monument will then be placed on that spot waiting for it to be built. Only one of each of your monument types can be in the planning phase at a time. If you are unable to build this monuments before the end of the season it will be removed from the game and worth zero points.
Build a Monument:
When looking to build a monument there is a depiction for the amount of victory points gained once the monument has been constructed, as well as where the finished monument may be placed. For example, the Obelisk can only be built in terrain sections that give two resources and will give two victory points for being built. If there is a laborer or another monument in a desired spot than you are not able to build there, so make sure to keep an eye on avaliable building locations throughout the game.
When building you can get bonus points in several ways. The first player to build all their monuments of one type will score one bonus point for the obeslik and two points for the other monument types. When building you can place the monuments on any valid space but a bonus point will be awarded if you build in the current river segment.
Play a City or Boon Card:
As an action you may play a city or boon card. The city cards are played then the bonus resource/ability will be gained.
The boon cards work similarly except that there is only an ability on the card, not resources to gain. There is a catch; opponents cannot play the same boon card in the same season.
Withdraw for the Season:
When you choose to or have no a other valid actions for the season then you may withdraw from the season. By performing this action you will become the regent for the next season and will gain a bonus shown on the lower right of the board. These bonuses are either the resources shown, one glory and one brick, or one city card and one stone.
End of Season:
Once every player has withdrawn from the season a new season will be prepared. If the season just finished was number 4 then the game will end and scoring will commence. If it is not the end of season 4 then several steps will occur:
- The barge will move to the next river segment.
- Return each camel back to their owner.
- Return resources from the labor pool and market back to the resource pool.
- Cover the withdraw bonus that was taken this season with a cover token.
- Remove planned but unbuilt monuments and used boon cards from the game.
- Return all the laborers back to the draw bag (except the ones placed during setup).
End Game:
Bonus points will be awarded at the end of the game to each player. After this is done whomever has the most points will be the winner.
- Two bonus points for every set of three monuments you built adjacent to each other.
- Three bonus points for each set of four buildings built in the same river segment.
Final Thoughts:
- Quick turns as there are many actions but each player only has one action per turn.
- The map will become more and more constricting as the game continues.
- There are many rule changes for a 2 and 3 player game to keep the map restricted.
- Boon Cards are an interesting way to block players.
- Interesting dynamic where players are racing to withdraw first if the benefit is worth it.
- Great insert with room to fit the expansion.
- The haggle leads into some interesting board manipulation such as blocking off all the cities but one.
- Disorientating with multiple coloured monuments on the board.
- Very competitive.
Sailing Towards Osiris in my opinion is an underrated game with a great theme and competitive board state. The turns can be hard to learn at first but will continue moving at a fast pace afterwards. There is a lot of decision space in where to play the monuments as you want to score points with clever placement while also blocking certain resources/city spaces. This is a game that is better than the sum of its parts. I really enjoyed it and it has earned a Go-To Golden Game Seal.
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