Maharani

EvEvanstar5,9

This a gorgeous area majorities/tile laying game. On your turn, you take a tile and add it to the board, along with a worker. The tile needs to fit into the spot, which can be tricky thanks to pillars printed on the board. The primary object is to have as many workers as you can in one of the quarters of the map when that quarter is completely full and therefor scores. There are bonus points for adding to contiguous chains of a color, or chains of your own workers. One interesting limitation is in any given quadrant, you only can have one worker per color of tile you've eligibly placed. If you add a second tile of that same color, the worker you had in there already moves to the new position. The game plays quickly, so it doesn't overstay it's welcome. There's some flip luck mitigation but you'll still end up with some turns when you eat a bad tile, only to flip the perfect tile for your opponent. The game also doesn't feel different from session to session, but I find the core experience enjoyable enough to forgive these things. I also feel that the two "queenie" mini expansions add a lot to the experience of this game. ★ Art, Iconography and components functional ★ Clever or interesting mechanisms ★ Reasonably low downtime between turns with mildly AP players ☆ Multiple plays stay interesting ★ Low or mitigatable luck elements ★★★☆☆ Raw enjoyment