Justyna

I have to admit I didn’t know this game before I got it as a present, so I was surprised to read the positive comments about it and see the high rates. In fact it is a great game with random factors reduced, for me similar to the Puerto Rico.

Although the rules are quite complicated at the first glance reading the instruction carefully is worth it’s effort. In fact the game is not as complicated as it seems but winning it is not so easy: you have to take advantage of your faction’s special ability and develop a strategy basing on it. There are many ways to win but you have to chose the best taking your faction and your opponent’s moves. Quite the same as in Puerto Rico or Caylus there are many ways to get winning points and you chose which way is the best for you.

In my opinion it’s best for four players; we’ve tried to play in two but it wasn’t such fan as it was when there were more of us. There is no “direct” interaction in this game, but your opponents may perform the same actions you wanted to perform before you (for example cast a spell) so you have to predict their moves as well.

The only problem with this game is that the factions are not well balanced. Some of them are too powerful while the others abilities, although interesting, require more resources and turns to work.

Conclusion: taking the number of factions and possible strategies every Terra Mystica is different and requires different thinking. I would recommend it to the players who like strategy games.