I've played dozens of tabletop games in my life, but none of them have brought me back for as many replays as Tzolk'in has! This worker placement strategy game has four quarters that represent the passing of the Mayan calendar year.
It's a fairly complicated game that is different each play through, with lots of variables to keep things fresh. Up to four people can play, however I've found it difficult to get a full squad more than a few times. Today I'll show you a two-player game!
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With two little ones, I don't get to tabletop game as much as I used to, so it was a blast to play this game against my father. Let's get into the basics of this beautifully illustrated board!
The board is made of five cogs that are connected to a larger center cog. Each turn, you rotate the center cog, thus moving all of the smaller ones.
I'll provide a general description of each area I've numbered above. Then I'll explain the relevance of them all more in depth afterwards, as well as go over some general rules.
- Monuments The only purpose of monuments is to score victory points at the end of the game. They are the most expensive things you can build, and there are a set number of them. To give an example from above, there is a monument that gives 4 VP for every tan building you have built.
- Buildings There are two levels of buildings, with level 2 ones being introduced in the second half of the game. In addition to potential victory points, many buildings preform functions such as advancing you in a technology, or raising your temple level with one or more god.
- Technologies Tech offers boosts when completing actions on any of the five wheels. From increased food farming, to gaining additional resources, technology is one of the most important aspects of the game. Each step up on the tech ladder is increasingly expensive.
- Temples Being in good standing with the gods by climbing up the levels of their temples offers multiple benefits. Your position will dish out victory points both in the middle and end of the game. Additionally, during the end of the first and third quarter being smiled on by the gods can offer resource rewards.
- Main Cog/ Corn Bank Not much to see here. At the end of each turn, you rotate this gear one peg forward, moving all of the other wheels and the workers placed on them. Most people dump the corn here, which we will get into shortly.
- Uxmal Wheel This is a jack of all trades wheel, with options from a market (resource exchange) to snagging another worker available on it.
- Tikal Wheel This wheel is primarily concerned with building both standard buildings and monuments, as well as advancing in technology.
- Yaxchilan Wheel This is the resource wheel, where you can gather materials for either building, or advancing in technology or in the temples.
- Palenque Wheel This wheel has a finite amount of the wood resource, as well as corn, the resource used to primarily place workers.
- Chichen Itza Wheel This wheel represents sacrifice to the gods, with the player needing a crystal skull to complete any of the actions here. Based on the peg you remove a worker at, you gain a set amount of victory points, as well as increased standing with the correlating god.
Right! These tokens right here represent the resources in the game. In order from left to right: 5 corn, 1 corn, gold, ore, wood, crystal skull. Throughout the game you will see them represented with symbols. For example, on each cog, you will see a number of corn that increases at each peg, this is the cost to place a worker there.
The first thing you will do is pick four starting tiles from the deck. After weighing their merits, you get to keep two of them. This will determine your starting resources, as well as any bonuses you may get. Let's check out some of the cards.
There is no wrong strategy to picking starting tiles, sans one thing: you have to make sure you get enough corn to place workers.
You will see a card above that is just a person, this allows you to start with an extra worker. What a great card! Except, if you can only get 4 corn at best from the second card, it may be better to pick something over the worker. Most symbols here are probably straight forward.
The one that is probably odd is the grid with an arrow pointing to one of it's lines. These cards allow you to start with an advancement in the indicated technology.
The placement of these is based on the unused starting tile cards, which assign placement at random. Once you've done this, you're ready to play! Each turn, you can either place workers, or take them off. You cannot do both.
We've gotten into the habit of leaving our workers in the gear teeth until we decide on placement, which you can see here.
The cost to place workers is dependent on the cost of the slot, as well as the amount you are placing. Where 3 workers cost 3 corn+ the price of the slots, placing 6 workers (the maximum amount) starts off at 15 corn.
Once the first player either places or takes off, it passes to the next player, until everyone has taken their turn. If it is the end of the quarter, you feed workers (2 corn/worker), the appropriate actions are taken (VP/ resource distrubution), and then the wheel is advanced.
The wheel above is popular early game due to its large amounts of wood, as well as the need for corn. When a wood tile is present, corn is not available unless the player has the appropriate technology. This can make for some early game hurdles when trying to get the resource you need.
The first building symbol allows you to build one building, whereas the second allows you to build either two buildings, or one monument.
The last slot is its own thing, giving you the option to pay one resource of your choosing to advance two steps up in the temples.
Let's next look at what the tech board looks like.
There's a lot to take in here, and I fear I've already made this post too complicated, so I'll try to simplify their benefits.
The first row is for the food wheel, increasing farming haul, as well as giving the ability to receive corn when there is no tile at level 2. The next row just provides +1 resource when you receive wood, ore, or gold when removing workers from the Yaxchilan wheel.
The third row gives various benefits when building, with level 3 making all buildings cost one less resource to build. The fourth row relates to Chichen Itza wheel, buffing the benefits of sacrifice.
It can be very powerful though, especially when you consider the VP you collect at both the middle and end of the game for pleasing the gods. Some people go all in on this stragety.
To illustrate why this can be one heck of a way to go, let's look at the temples, and the benefits they offer.
As for the resources listed on some of the levels, these are collected at the end of the first and third quarter, provided you are at that level or higher.
The negative slots are earned from disgracing the gods, which happens when you don't have food. Being in bad standing can cost some points at the 2nd and 4th quarter!
With so many variables, it can be a relief to turn to the Uxmal wheel. Here you can do everything from honor the gods for a cheap 3 corn, to paying a corn to go to the "anything slot", which allows you to complete any action on any wheel except Chichen Itza.
This wheel of course is also desired early game, as it has the only slot that issues another worker to join your force. This can be very important, as you start with only three workers to place.
Of all the gears, the Yaxchilan wheel is probably the most straightforward. Here there are just resources, with the ability to receive more when you pull off here if you have the appropriate technology.
Now that we have a fair idea of the main game mechanics, let's look over some of the buildings you can purchase in Tzolk'in!
Level One Buildings
These buildings are only available in the first half of the game, and obviously are not quite as good as the level two buildings.
To give examples of what some of the cards above do, we have a good variety here. While the third one on top will give you one step up in the temples of both the brown and yellow god, the second on the bottom will simply feed one of your workers.
Level Two Buildings
These buildings make the level ones look useless, however it is smart to buy some of both. Let's look at what some of these level twos do.
The fourth one on the top feeds three workers! Now that is a big difference from level one! Likewise, the second from the bottom advances you with two gods, as well as giving you a tech boost.
You can probably see that some of these have nice victory points as well. There is some merit to purely stacking buildings vs. building a monument for points due to that.
End Of Game Board
I took this snap after the game was over, and victory points had been scored. You may recognize some cards at the edge of the board that I did not address. These are from the expansion set, and would've doubled this post trying to explain... so I just stuck to the main gameplay.
When the last turn ends, you score points from monuments, the gods, and from any remaining resources you have. This was quite the game for me- I won 105 to 47!
Hopefully my dad never sees this blog, he hates losing, and now it's public! Eeek.
I believe I've touched on all of the major aspects of this game, and hopefully given you an idea of what the play is like. If you're into intense strategy games, I think Tzolkin is the game for you!
Have any questions about the game? Think I'd like another game based on what I said about this one? Hit me up in the comments!
Shit that looks fun. My boring ass played Monopoly and Risk and card games.
ahahahaha Monopoly may be more intense than Tzolk'in, tbh I never know anyone who wants to play it (and neither do any of us irl LEL) !LOLZ !PIMP
That is a really cool-looking board. The game looks like a German-style board with resource management at its core (similar to Settlers of Catan). Great review!
Thank you!! 😄🤗 I like Settlers of Catan too, that's a great game for a chill night I think... Tzolkin, bit more intense but addictive haha 💚
Great write-up.
I found the following negative review on Amazon:
I am curious if you have any thoughts about the criticism leveled by the above reviewer. Does the "Tribes and Prophecies" expansion pack fix the single-winning-strategy problem?
Heya, thank you very much! 😁
That's an awesome question. I have to support some of what the review says, as it can take quite a few plays to get good at Tzolkin for some people. A seasoned player will destroy a newer one every single time, much in the manner the reviewer states.
You need to be at a similar skill level as the other players to have fun with this one.
However, when you get a few good players together, there is no single winning strategy in my experience. I'd guess I've played at least 100 games against great players, and I have to say that the end score is often very close.
Any experienced player can do what that person is describing, and when everyone is doing it... phew, it gets hectic and is way fun/ challenging!
As for the expansion, I think it adds a dose of chaos for people like me who have played until their game boxes are falling apart 🤣. It certainly changes the game! The expansion adds in the option for a 5th player, as well as two new features.
The first are tribes, and now here is something I have to call unbalanced... Some give incredible abilities, and some do things that are so mundane you'll forget you have a tribe.
The second feature are calamities, which throw a curveball at you each quarter. They can do things like nullify technologies, or make food extremely hard to get. There is no great way to plan for them, and victory points are on the line. The expansion can shake even expert players with this randomness!
If you like intense strategy games, and have people who would be into playing, I bet you'd have a well-worn Tzolk'in box yourself soon if you got it 😂! I have to adamantly disagree that it is a broken game for sure. Haha, and now I've written you a small post, oops. I guess I really am passionate about Tzolk'in! lol 😎
Thanks for the thoughtful reply.
You've definitely piqued my interest.
Oh boy, I have to admit I didn't read this post, just scrolling down through all the gameplay makes my eyes go crossed 🥲🙃
A few years back the kids and I tried some of these games from the local game shop. They had some tables in the back and lots of games to play so that was cool we could try them out.
We bought a couple and tried them and it was just too much for me 🤪
I definitely enjoy to k.i.s.s
Keep it simple stupid! 😂🤣
Cool you found one that you go back to though.
Keep it !PIMP sister!
ahahahahahaha! Dig the honesty my dude 🤣 tbh I did go a wee bit cross-eyed proofreading this- I have to read all my posts 2-3x before I post them or I have some sort of meltdown !LOLZ I shouldn't be that way, cause I'll always miss typos anyhow 😂
It's cool that you tried some tabletop games out before! I think your experience is the majority, as I've rarely succeeded at getting anyone I know to become a tabletop gamer 😭 hahaha
Thanks for the giggles homie 🤗 !PIZZA !PIMP !LUV
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Ha, yep, I reread a bunch before posting then always proof it as soon as it's posted and seem to always find something I missed 🤪
I do like some table top games for sure like Scrabble, jenga, bogggle, and one called blockus 😂 oh and tenzie is one of my favorite, maybe because it only lasts a few minutes before everyone is tired of it 🤷
I guess I just like the classics :D
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I've heard good things about this one. If you're interested in tabletop games you should check out the tabletop games community here: https://peakd.com/c/hive-189497/created
It really is a total blast! Thanks for the suggestion, and taking the time to check out my post! I subscribed over there as well 😁
Gosh... I was just smiling so hard as I read. There is a lot of information to go to, and now I wish I had the game out here to play with someone. It'll be nice.
I am glad you had time to play the game with your Dad. Happy New Day😊.
It's awesome that you like board games too! 😍 Thanks so much for the awesome comment, and for boosting my post! 💚
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Hehe, it sure is. You are welcome 😊
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Keep Up the good work on Hive ♦️
Thank you for the support! 😁
@grindan you're most welcome
Yay! 🤗
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