When it comes to tabletop games, that’s the way Garphill Games makes me feel. Just when I think they’ve hit their zenith and couldn’t possibly get even better, they pull it off. They drop a Wayfarers of the South Tigris bomb on you and walk coolly and confidently away from the explosion in slow motion while sliding on a pair of shades. I have been looking forward to the release of this game since it was first announced. Garphill Games doing dice placement. I was salivating at the prospect. To put this review into context, Paladins of the West Kingdom, also by Shem Phillips and S J Macdonald, is in my top ten games of all time. The rest of the West Kingdom trilogy would also make my top 100. So, does Wayfarers of the South Tigris live up to my exceedingly high expectations? What’s It All About They had thought about Doctors, because there were so many with different trades. And they went into more of combat, but that didn’t feel right because they did so much of that with the Vikings in the West. But the idea of inventors felt so right. There were these three brothers in Baghdad in 850 AD that came up with these 1001 interesting devices and they published them in a book and this was before modern technology and electricity. That felt so spot on to what they were trying to do. Lots to do: Wayfarers is a rich tapestry of interwoven mechanisms. On any given turn, even with just three dice at your command and a limited array of workers, you’re presented with a plethora of different options. Unlike some other games where you’ve got a choice between one or two good options and a lot of subpar ones, almost every option in Wayfarers is a really good one, which makes the act of selecting just one not easy. Every decision becomes just as important as every other decision. Wayfarers is, if anything, a game of efficiency. Finding the best path from A to B is a delicious, mind-bending puzzle without an obvious solution. Even deciding when to Rest becomes nail biting. Do you Rest as soon as you’re able so that you can regather your dice? Or do you do what I usually do (and not always to my advantage) and milk your turn for all its worth until Resting becomes the only viable move that you have left?

This was a very fascinating event through all of history. The caliph really wanted to know about Greek philosophy, Indian mathematics, Chinese culture and all these different things. They sent out all these emissaries and built this “House of Wisdom” which was basically a massive library/university where all these scholars would gather. It was a very communal and global thing. It was very inclusive, people of all skin colors and languages were welcome. Unfortunately, the Mongols eventually burnt it down a few hundred years later. This felt like such an important event and a great thing to build the overall theme around. This is set in Baghdad centered around the Abbasids. They were really interested in sciences and research, and just expanding their knowledge. Their caliph, or leader, the king at the time, he wanted to know the circumference of the Earth. They knew the globe was a sphere and knew there was 360 degrees in a sphere, so they sent out these explorers (wayfarers) traveling one degree in a direction (using the stars, sun, etc) to navigate to measure the globe. With that, they knew they could figure out the circumference of the globe. This expands on that theme that you are going to be seeing things along this journey and navigating the night sky.At the beginning of the game, the only die value that features this icon is a six. Later, through the addition of Upgrade tiles, you can add new icons to these rows and columns, providing you with new options and greater flexibility. Some of these upgrades simply provide you with end-game points or additional tags. There are even upgrades that you can add that will allow you to manipulate your dice by increasing/decreasing their value. Building Your Tableau I’ve also read that some people had some qualms with the plain-ness of the main board, since it feels uninspired. I can see the argument with it, but I didn’t think that it detracted from the game at all. There are going to be workers, player tokens, and benefit tokens covering up the majority of the area in question, so the art would be mainly covered up anyways. My first foray into Garphill Games was definitely a positive one thanks to Wayfarers of the South Tigris! I was surprised at how well the mechanics connected to one another, and how intuitive the iconography was. Was there a learning curve? Of course. But I really enjoyed discovering the strategies and building out my panorama while learning. There are plenty of mechanics that long-time gamers will find familiar, and none of them are overly complicated for gamers who might have less experience.

Simply put, Wayfarers of the South Tigris (Wayfarers) is a dice-driven worker placement and action selection game—where your workers are represented by dice—with a healthy dose of tableau building thrown in to boot. The end goal is to score the most victory points, and these can be earned in a myriad of different ways. All of the workers in the gain are player-agnostic; once placed on a card they are available for anyone to claim by acquiring that card. Only their color dictates where they can be placed. This creates a fun dynamic of people eyeing up cards where workers were placed, since having access to more actions is a huge benefit. In a way, it helps limit the choices on your turn, or at least persuade you to prioritize certain actions over others. Because of that, I know what I’m getting when I dive into a new GOW experience. Santa Monica Studio has shown me that I can always rely on them to strive to break the bounds of their own limitations, to bring to fruition a product that exceeds all expectations, and to provide an unforgettable experience. This has a similar complexity to Viscounts. There are a lot of different paths, but once you know how they work, it runs quite smoothly and turns don’t run very long. Not as heavy as Paladins in terms of AP.

Overview

I like Wayfarers of the South Tigris. It’s not what I was expecting, but it is a verystrong game. Where does it sit with the other games in the series? For me, I’d put Paladins of the West Kingdom at the top, then this and Viscounts of the West Kingdom at joint number two, followed by Architects of the West Kingdom as my least favourite but even so, it's still a good game. This is the first game they designed for the trilogy and the one that sparked the theme. At this time Sam went out and bought a bunch of books to read up on this particular time period.

How do you get points, then? And why are you building an engine and placing dice? It’s all about the cards.Instead of drafting dice onto a board, players will instead build a bag of available dice and spend the game adding and removing different colours to better suit their dominant strategy. Phillips likened the complexity to Paladins of the West Kingdom and hopes Wayfarers will provide new players a solid introduction to their design and make approaching Scholars much more friendly. The pair mentioned working with consultants to create dice for this trilogy that better accommodate colourblind players. For many people, October 31st represents a day of fun, dressing up in costume, and consuming their body’s weight in candy. Last year, as my wife and son were getting excited about Halloween, I was getting excited for an entirely different reason. Garphill Games had something big they were going to be announcing on a livestream later in the day. I’m pretty ambivalent about Halloween, but I’m definitely not ambivalent to Shem Phillips. I was dying to know what the hubbub was all about. This was a livestream I definitely was not going to miss.

For me, the aesthetics of Wayfarers of the South Tigris are a bit of a mixed bag. I’m not the biggest fan of the art style used for the people in the game, but I’ll chalk that up to personal preference. Mihajlo Dimitrievski did the artwork, and they’ve also done the art for many of the other Garphill Games titles, so if you’re already a fan then it’s more for you to enjoy!

October 31, 2021 – Wayfarers, Scholars and Inventors of the South Tigris announced as next Garphill Games trilogy. Meaning it focuses on the Tigris River. Designers Shem Phillips and Sam Macdonald announced the new lineup, timeline and some gameplay details via a live stream today. One of the big things they are trying to push in this trilogy (besides dice) is more player interaction. Shem and Sam like how interaction is done in games like brass, where there is more shared space that players interact on. So one other key ideas for the South trilogy is this idea of “influence”. This is something you can put in places, mainly cards, that kind of reserves it for you but if someone else wants it, they have to pay you for it. So prepare your astrolabes and ready your quills because it’s time to venture to Baghdad circa 820 AD in Wayfarers of the South Tigris! Wayfarers of the South Tigris Gameplay I have a love/hate relationship with engine building. I love it in games like Scythe where you gradually build your engine over the course of the game without any randomness. I hate it in games like Roll for the Galaxy where someone can make a stunning engine in the first turn and you can see that they will win the game instantly, and funnily enough, they do. That is my test of engine building games: can I accurately predict who is going to win after the first few turns? If so, I class it as a duffer.