Babylonia
Designer: Reiner Knizia | Artist: Jonas Hassibi, David Prieto
There aren’t many designers that can be recognised by playing just a couple of rounds of their game, but Babylonia is unmistakably a Reiner Knizia’s game from turn one. Its tile laying, area-control and pattern recognition mechanics have been perfected through games of Samurai, Through the Desert, Tigris and Euphrates and others, coalescing in the elegant, if somewhat familiar, gameplay of Babylonia.
Players are transported into southern Mesopotamia in the period of expanding irrigational systems that brought prosperity in trade and flourishing of urban life. The game is still predominantly abstract in nature, but the Western Asian setting adds its own distinct flair in ziggurat temple tokens and the map of Babylonia, impressive in both size and looks.