Thebes (Ding-n-Dent)

(GAME SUMMARY)

Drake says: "In Thebes, players travel back to the end of the 19th century to take on the roles of famous archaeologists who discovered so much in so short a time. They seek to discover antique treasures and places which have been buried in the sands for thousands of years. Players score points for discoveries and can acquire articles to assist them in excavation and travel, and will visit exhibitions to present their finds."

Retail: $59.95

Price: $29.97

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Publisher: Rio Grande Games

BGGID: 30869

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This is a Ding-n-Dent product. The game is still wrapped in plastic, but the box is imperfect, and shows some slight wear, crease, or tear. The components are intact. There are no returns for this product.

Designer:

Peter Prinz

Description:

Thebes is a game of competitive archeology. Players are archaeologists who must travel around Europe to acquire knowledge about five ancient civilizations -- the Greeks, the Cretans, the Egyptians, the Palestinians, and the Macedonians -- and then must use this knowledge to excavate historical sites in the areas of these civilizations. Through the course of the game, expositions are revealed, and an archaeologist who has treasures from the requisite civilizations may claim the prize (this is a change from the first-editions handling of exhibitions). The archaeologist who learns the most about the civilizations, claims the greatest-valued artifacts, and collects the most exhibitions will win out over his or her colleagues.

The key element to the game is that it is played out over a period of two (or three) years, and each action a player performs takes a certain amount of time -- traveling is a week between cities, gathering knowledge takes time for the level of the knowledge, and actually digging at a cultural site takes time to yield a certain number of artifact tiles. The game uses a novel mechanism to keep track of this -- there is a track of 52 spaces around the outside of the board, each time a player moves and takes an action, he or she moves their player token forward in time. Players take turns based on being the one who is furthest back in "time". So, a player can go to an excavation site and spend 10 weeks digging for artifacts, but that will also mean that the other players will likely be taking several actions in the interim while that player waits for the "time" to catch up.

In addition, the artifact tiles for each civilization are drawn from a bag that also contains dirt. When a player excavates at a site, that player pulls tiles from the bag, but some may only be worthless dirt instead of valuable treasure.

Contents:

1 Game Board
4 Archaeologists
4 Time Markers
1 Year Marker
85 Researcher Cards
10 Exhibit Cards
5 Summary Cards
4 Time Wheels
4 Sets Of Excavation Permissions
155 Excavation Tokens
5 Cloth Bags With Colored Tops
1 Rule Booklet & 1 Summary Sheet (English, German, French, Dutch, Italian, Spanish)