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Five Tribes fills a similar niche that Lords of Waterdeep does in my opinion. It is a great gateway game and does have euro feel without being as involved and overwhelming as Agricola. This really should not come as a surprise, since Days of Wonder has published two other good gateway games (Ticket to Ride and Smallworld) that give players a feel for more sophisticated mechanics, while being simple to explain.

The game is mostly centered on worker placement, but allows some set building, area control, and auctions. The basic idea is that you build up the modular board and then populate each tile with three meeples drawn at random from a bag. Once the tiles are completely populated, you’re ready to start moving them. During your turn, you pick up the meeples on a tile and then drop them one at a time on tiles in a trail away from the tile they were plucked off. The final worker you place must form at least a double of that color on the final tile you place the meeple on. (It must match the color of another meeple on the tile.) Once the last meeple is placed the meeples matching the color of the last meeple you placed are removed and you resolve a meeple action, which could be buying from the market or assassinating a meeple. You also resolve an action based on the tile. (Buy one of the Jinn cards, place a palm tree to make the tile worth extra points, etc) There are cards for each player that indicate how the turn plays out, so there is very little difficulty figuring out what to do next on your turn.

Auctions come in to play when determining turn order. Players bid on the starting order by spending currency to move up to an earlier turn during the current round. Area control comes in when a player removes all the meeples from a tile by placement or assassination. In either case, the player places a camel to signify that they control the tile. Tiles controlled, items purchased at market through the blue meeples, Jinn, and yellow meeples are worth victory points at the end of the game. The Jinn are nice because they can alter strategy. One might give you extra points for tile control, while another can give you the ability to assassinate an extra target. They alter the goals for the players enough to allow many end game strategies to win.

Overall, the game has enough depth and variety to keep a hardcore gamer intrigued. There are many strategies that can lead to victory and being able to plan around other peoples moves definitely offers a challenge. Five Tribes is also a nice option for novice gamers entering euro style gaming. The components are of good quality and I really liked the camels and palm trees, which fit nicely with the desert theme. The currency and tiles for the board are cardboard punches and the thickness is comparable to Lords of Waterdeep and Smallworld, so I expect that they will hold up quite well. The game also comes with a nice pad of scorecards for tallying points at the end of the game. I fully expect to see this hit the table on game night, until I run out of sheets in the scoring pad.

Snake oil is a terrific game that allows players to hawk their wares as an old time snake oil salesman. Each player is dealt a hand of cards containing words that can be used to create a product. Each turn, one person will serve as the judge for the round. They draw a card to reveal who is the buyer. They could be a caveman, an astronaut, etc. What makes the game interesting is that you never know who you will be selling your product to.

Once you know who you’re selling a product to, it’s time to develop a product. You take two cards from your hand and use them to create a product. For example, you might try using wind and wig to create the windwig, a perfect wind resistant hair piece for the adventurous pilot. Then, it’s your job to pitch your product by describing it to your client and telling them exactly why they can’t live without it.

After everyone describes their product, it’s up to the judge to determine who had the product they couldn’t live without! When my game group plays, we usually let they player who won the round hold on to the card for the buyer to keep track of score. We also allow people to spend a buyer card they won to redraw their hand of items.

Since this is a storytelling game, the experience will vary between groups. With a good group of creative people who can get in the moment while pitching their product, this game is amazing.

Easy to Learn 10/10: This can be picked up by new players within 5 minutes.

Components 8/10: Nice artwork on the cards, which themselves are of decent quality.

Replay Value: 10/10 This game is extremely adaptable, we have actually added in Cards Against Humanity and Superfight cards to add more variety. The base game can be played for hours with all ages. The replay value comes from the players, since this game really gives back what you put in. It is a great platform for creative, funny storytelling.