Sinking slowly but surely
Looking at our last 2 posts you might have noticed that we played some big games at LeiriaCon. To continue that trend, we also found 🔱 Atlantis Exodus in the library, another big euro release from last year that we wanted to try. 😉 In it players are Kings of Atlantis, trying to gather people and send them off to safety before the inevitable sinking of the island. 🌊
When we started playing this game, we were somewhat disappointed in the first half. 🤔 It didn't play like I anticipated and it wasn't until the end that it finally clicked - with that our final opinion turned to positive. 👍
The game has that typical euro look due to the illustration work of Dennis Lohausen. 🎨 It feels a tiny bit more modern than usual, and the overall table presence is great. That is also thanks to the main board with the rotating wheels.
Each round players move their King 👑 meeples, starting in the inner circle and moving outwards. Options of where to go are restricted by walls, and the rotating wheels will keep changing things up each year. This clever meeple-movement is not really the main action selection however ☝️ - you only collect bonuses here, like resources, cards or tiles. To perform actions you just do 2 from a list of actions.
It's quite a point salad-y game, but the most important action you do is sending off meeples you collect. This is also important for interim scorings. Certain actions or effects require specialized meeples though, so you also train them in different disciplines, which also means better bonuses when you send them off. 👉 This meeple management is the core of the game, which gave us this weird feeling for the first half of our play. 😶
There are more things going on, like advancing on a track with your high priest for bonuses, or getting buildings and ships for your player board. Comboing your actions together well with the bonuses you get with your King is the recipe to victory. There is also some engine building going on with workshops and pillars you can get.
💬 In summary, Atlantis Exodus was a game we are happy we could try out, but ultimately don't need to own. It is pretty unique though and will probably be liked by many.
