How long has it been…
Only a few faithful acolytes remain, but they will suffice and who could defy the will of a God?
In Theurgy you play as an ages old, half-forgotten deity with only a handful of dwindling followers and devout acolytes to remember your name in a faithless world.
To merely survive is no longer enough; other gods will arise to cast their influence across the land, stealing your followers and driving your once sacred name into oblivion.
To thrive you must spread your religion far and wide, performing miracles and unleashing your wrath so that whole cities pledge themselves to your cause in a battle to be the one true god!
Courtesy of The Ministry of Meeples we’ve been chosen worthy to experience their latest creation and from the outset this is a divine experience of stunning artwork, lavish components and epic objectives even in its prototype form.
Essentially an Area Control game, Thuergy will have you competing against other Gods in a battle across the map to achieve one of three win conditions:
- Becoming the Official Faith by having a Temple within the Capital…
- Fulfilling your Calling by completing Temples and a Secret Objective…
- Spreading the World by dominating the map with the most Temples.
The win conditions certainly scale well (as they change on player count,) but it’s their variety that means you have several routes to take and this just adds strategy to the game and keeps you on your toes as players pivot their intentions having found new opportunities.
With that in mind player interaction at higher numbers is a really interesting tool that can be used to great advantage…
If you find opponents pulling ahead then in co-operation with other players you can effectively pool together and reign them in. This adds some Social/Take That flavour to the game but is vital in preventing things snowballing out of control and allows players to introduce their own catch-up mechanic.
As such the fun to be had with Thuergy is at higher numbers as you create temporary pacts with your fellow gods in order to level the field – albeit for a momentary armistice.
That said, the play style is turn based so playing at higher numbers will naturally add to game length and while actions can be quite rapid, there’s always the lurking shadow of Analysis Paralysis that can draw the game out when there’s a full compliment of 6 players.
With a few games under your belt however the Actions of Theurgy are certainly rapid and each turn a player chooses from one of four: Pilgrimage, Spread the Word, Divine Intervention and Testing the Faith.
Each is thematically on point and assists in building the narrative of the game as you expand control over the board by recruiting non-believers via pilgrimage, performing miracles or summoning monsters through divine intervention or Testing the Faith which is how you ultimately build the essential temples for your win conditions.
And theme is the driving force behind Theurgy – for a lighter area control game it simply oozes narrative from every element; from the stunning artwork of each unique monster to the mindset of player actions, everything is in tune and immerses you in a world of rich lore that we’d certainly love to explore in further adventures.
Overall Theurgy is a game that has immediate table presence, quality and scale but actually offers straight forward mechanics and a short learning curve with a fantastic tutorial that offers advice on how to learn the game.
Coming to Kickstarter in March 2020 it’s a game with considerable merit and one that we’d love to bring to our table.
Theurgy available on PLEDGE HERE
