Sébastien Dujardin is probably best known for
Troyes,
which was a big hit in 2010. Having a game that stayed fresh after
multiple plays was key to his design. "I'm obsessed with replayability.
Normally, one should always find elements of high replayability in my
games; it's one of my engines".
Deus, the newest
strategy game by Dujardin, came out of the Essen Spiel this year with a
lot of well-deserved buzz. It's a hybrid of a game that combines card
and resource management with board control. The rules are pretty simple,
but there is a lot of strategy to explore. Each player will take the
helm of an ancient race of people looking to expand their empire into
uncharted lands. Through careful hand management, players are able to
explore the board and build up new cities, exploit the resources
available to them, and wage war on their opponents. At the same time you
must remember to keep the gods happy. Timely sacrifices will win their
favor and grant you an advantage during the game.
Deus
plays 2-4 and the modular board scales based on the number of players.
Each of the seven continent tiles are double-sided, ensuring that the
make-up of the board will be fresh with each new play. The random layout
is pretty important. Some resources may be tough to come by, depending
where they end up, and barbarian villages will vary in value depending
on their location. Victory Points are the ultimate goal, but there are
many different paths to get them.

Continent
tiles are made up of seven different regions: there are always two sea
regions and one barbarian village. The rest of the regions are made up
of resource-producing land. Each land type produces a specific resource.
Fields will give you Wheat, Forests produce Wood, Swamps yield Clay,
and Mountains provide Stone. The Continent tiles are assembled in
patterns depending on the number of players. They can be oriented in any
way you like, but no two Barbarian Villages can be adjacent. Each
Barbarian Village gets Victory Points placed on it, equal to the number
of regions that surround it. Depending on the number of players, the
board is constructed of 4-7 continent tiles, and you're going to want to
plan your attack once you've seen the layout. You must spread your
cities across the new world and the path you take can be critical.
Players
begin with a supply of resources, money, and two of each of the
standard building types. They also have a hand of five cards and a
personal player board. The boards are designed to hold the columns of
different building types that will represent your growing civilization
on the board. At a glance you'll be able to see what buildings you have
in play and their effects.

You
can do one of two actions on a turn: Construct a Building or Sacrifice
to the Gods. When you Construct a Standard Building you pay the cost in
resources and/or gold (four gold can replace a resource at any time).
The card gets added to the appropriate building column on your player
board and a wooden building gets added to the board. Immediately, all
the building cards of that type built in your tableau get activated. For
example, if you play out a Science Building it gets added to your
tableau; then all of your Science Buildings’ special abilities can be
used. You start with the first building you constructed and work your
way up, ending on the building card you just played. You can string
together some pretty dynamic combinations when you construct.
A
new building can either be placed in a region that already has your
buildings (just one of each building type in a region) or adjacent to a
region you occupy. If the unchecked expansion of your neighbors has left
you surrounded, not to worry, there is a way out of that jam. You can
start a new city on an unoccupied coastal space in exchange for three
points.
There are five different types of standard buildings.
Maritime buildings are represented with blue cards and are the only
buildings that can be played on sea spaces. When activated they help you
trade resources for gold or buy resources from the bank. This can be
invaluable when you don't have access to a certain land type. Production
buildings require green cards. They will generate resources of the land
type they are placed on. Yellow cards construct Science buildings. They
will allow you to gain either more cards or buildings from the general
supply. Civil buildings use the brown cards and will give you money or
Victory Points depending on the type that you build. Red cards are for
Military buildings. They allow you to attack Barbarian Villages and your
opponents. They are also the only type of building that can be moved
around the board.
Temples work a little differently. The first one
you build costs the standard one resource of each type. Each additional
Temple you build requires you to first build at least one building of
each type. You're going to want to build Temples, too. They're one of
the major ways to gain end game points. Temples are each worth up to 12
points. They will score depending on different conditions at game end.
For example,

two
points for every wheat resource you have to a maximum of 12 or four
points for each region that has five of your own buildings in it... to a
maximum of 12, of course. Temples can direct the way you play your
game. In order to score max points with a Temple you may have to garner
your actions to meet certain end game conditions. It gives players
different end game paths to points.
At the start of the game you
make a general supply of Temples equal to the number of continent tiles
in the game. These work as a bit of a timer for the game. When the
Temples run out it triggers game end. You finish out the current round
and total up your points.
Barbarian Villages will not cause you
any trouble; in fact you'll be able to attack them for precious points.
On the turn a Barbarian Village is completely surrounded by buildings
(with at least one military building present) it will be raided. The
player with the most military buildings in adjacent regions will win the
Victory Points for the village. The points token is removed and the
village is now treated as a dead space on the board. If two players have
the same amount of military, the points are split (rounded down). Game
end can also be triggered on the round the last barbarian village is
attacked.
Making an offering to the gods requires players to
discard cards to appease the different deities. Each god is associated
with a card color. If you want to activate a certain god, you must have
at least one of their color cards in the ones that you ditch. You will
get a benefit from the god you invoke—money, points, extra cards or
resources—but often the more important benefit is acquiring more
buildings. For example, Neptune is activated by the blue Maritime
building cards. He will earn you two gold for each discarded card and
one maritime building. Ceres responds to the green Production building
cards. She produces one resource of your choice for every discarded card
as well as a Production building. You start the game with two of each
of the standard buildings, but you'll definitely need more as the game
progresses.
You sacrifice cards by announcing how many cards you'll
be discarding then ditching those cards. It's important to put the card
type of the god you want activate on the top of the discarded cards, so
it's clear to the other players whose powers are being invoked.
Choosing
when is the right time to build and when to sacrifice is the key
tension in the game. Buildings give you more board control and can allow
you to access resources and point-yielding Barbarian Villages. They
also allow you to activate all of the previous building cards of a
certain type. This can garner big profits. Sacrificing to the gods
usually works best when you want to clear most of your hand to redraw,
but sometimes it's just necessary to get the building type that you
need.
At the end of the game you total up all the points you've
earned so far, Temple points and resource majorities. Each resource
majority and the gold majority will be worth two points. If there's no
clear majority then no one gets the points.

The
design process was relatively quick for Dujardin. "It was less than one
year between the first prototype of Deus and its release. I love
antiquity and that gave the initial idea (for the game). Then I loved
the duality of maps and spatial development." Both the theme and
mechanic appeared for him at the same time.
The components are
exquisite. Each of the continent tiles are colorful and have interesting
little details. The wheat fields have windmills and farmers working
them, boats populate the sea spaces and eagles and gulls soar high above
the landscape. You kind of feel like a god looking down across the
world. Each of the buildings has its own wooden representative for the
board and there are 96 building cards with cool art and easy-to-read
iconography.
So, who is going to like this game? Although the
initial teach feels like a lot of rules being thrown around, the actions
are really intuitive. In a few short rounds you'll already be
developing a strategy for the game.
"
Deus is the
fifth game from Pearl Games, but it is also the most accessible,"
expressed Dujardin. "I am pleased to see players enjoy it while they
found my other games too complex. It's got a bit of the hand management
and card combinations of
7 Wonders and the board control and resource caching of
Catan. That's a pretty stellar combination!
Deus
is well worth a try: for a small time investment to learn the rules,
you'll get hours of variable fun in an undiscovered, ancient world.
Deus will be available
on January 28th!