Boardgame | Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar

anthemius (50)in #game • 7 years ago (edited)

Hello steemians!

I am sure you have played a few board games in your childhood. Some of you might like them, some of you might not.
Today, I am going to share with you the first board game I bought in my collection - Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar.

Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar can be played by 2 to 4 players. Each player, representing a different tribe takes turn to place 1-6 workers on gears on the game board. As the gear rotates, the workers get moved to different action spots.

The first reason why I bought this as my first board game is because I was intrigued by the game mechanics.
Second reason is for the gears components in this game. I love to see the gears turn. 😍
This is how the gears on the board look like after setting up:

unpainted gear setup.jpg
_{The gears.}

After setting it up, I find that the gears appear kind of plain and dull. So I decided to remove them from the board and give them a paint job! 😄

Here it is!

setup after paintjob.jpg
_{The gears after the paint job.}

Gameplay

During each turn, a player can either place one or more workers on the lowest available spot of any gears or remove one or more workers to perform the actions on the wheel.

worker on gear.jpg
_{A yellow tribe worker being placed on the lowest available spot of the green (Palenque) gear. The next player who wants to place his/her worker on the green gear must put it at '1' spot and pay 1 corn as indicated between the gear's teeth.}

Corn (🌽) is a currency in this game. Players must pay corn when placing workers. When a worker is removed from the board, an action(shown on the outer ring) is performed depending on the position of the worker on the gear.

Some of these actions includes:

Getting resource blocks (wood, stone and/or gold)
Getting corns
Getting crystal skulls
Improve favor with the gods
Advancement in technology
Constructing wonders and buildings
Trading for resources

and many more... 😆

When every player has taken a turn to place or remove workers (players cannot skip their turn), the main gear rotates counter-clockwise by 1 gear tooth. This in turn rotates the outer gears clockwise by 1 gear tooth, resulting in the workers being advanced 1 action step higher than they were on. Each player then gets a turn to place or remove workers again.
Actions located at later steps on the gears yield greater effects, so it a good strategy to let the turning of the gears move your workers than to pay corn to place the workers there.
The game ends after one full revolution of the central Tzolk'in gear.

Pictures of some components:

Wood, stone and gold resources

Crystal skulls

Starting bonus selection tiles

Replacement corn tokens

I replaced the original cardboard corn tokens with metal ones. I bought them from here.

Opinion of the game:

Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar is awesome. There are so many dynamics that require thinking and strategizing. A turn of the main gear can mess up all your 'well-laid' plans.
It is hard to remember what each actions icon stands for. Hence, there is a need to refer to the rules book for our games.
Playtime is definitely more than 90 minutes as to the estimated on BoardGameGeek. This is because we are not familiar with the rules yet, so we spent so much time refering to the rulebook.
This is not a game for introducing to new board game players as some of the rules can be quite complex and you might scare them off. However, more serious board game players will definitely love it.
DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT play Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar on the bed!