Faiyum

(1 customer review)

£42.50 inc. VAT

In stock

SKU: SPD-98-980 Category: Designer(s): Publisher:

Description

The Faiyum board game (designed by Friedemann Friese) is a strategic game for enthusiasts of planning games.

The oasis-like basin Faiyum was artificially built 3,900 years ago by enlarging the Bahr Yussef channel that connected to the Nile to create a regulated flood plain. During the Middle Kingdom of Egypt, this swampland was slowly changed into farmland under the aegis of pharaohs such as Amenemhet III and Sesostris II. They ordered their advisors to build a system of canals and dikes to reclaim the land surrounded by desert and inhabited by crocodiles to turn it into a granary for Egypt.

Now, during the reign of Amenemhet III, you are the pharaoh’s advisors, commanded to harvest goods, build roads, found settlements, and do much more for the good of Faiyum! You are being supplied with the necessary manpower, resources, and money, which means that if another advisor needs to use “your” roads, farms, and other buildings, they may do so since everything you build is owned by the pharaoh. The only thing you will own is the only thing that matters: the respect of the pharaoh.

The basic rules of the Faiyum board game are simple: Play your cards one by one on your personal discard stack. After playing some or all of your cards, you take them back into your hand in “reverse” playing order, so playing cards in the best order is important. Newly purchased cards go directly into your hand, so the timing of getting and playing them is important, too. Each of the individual cards has easy-to-understand actions, but only by creating the best combined “engine” will you be a master advisor of Faiyum.

This game features a card mechanism reminiscent of deck builders and the market mechanism successfully used in Power Grid. Gain more and more valuable cards, and use the structures built on the game board to your advantage — in other words, for your reputation. In the end, the most cunning advisor who creates the best card combinations will win Faiyum.

Game Details
NameFaiyum (2020)
ComplexityMedium [3.06]
BGG Rank1100 [7.50]
Player Count1-5

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1 review for Faiyum

  1. Kevin Mc Gowan (verified owner)

    Faiyum by Friedemann Friese is a large step up in gears Feierabend his other game recently released and is a resource management deck-builder about cultivation of the artificial basin of Faiyum 3900 years ago. The twist in this game is the importance of the order you play your cards into your discard pile because when you come to pick them up you only get the top 3 (the last ones you played) for free – if you want more cards back from your discard pile you have to pay for them so you tend to save your best cards to last whilst you thin out your useless ones first in order to leave them behind in the discard pile in the pick-up phase, unfortunately you generally find yourself playing your good ones first so you that can make key plays ahead of your opponents forcing you to pick up and buy your useless cards just to get to your good ones again. There is a lot to think about here and you will need to continually reassess your play style as circumstances change, you need to build up resources (to build on the board and get victory points) and cash (necessary to buy key cards) there is also an element of timing when to switch from gathering to spending for points. This is an excellent game and for depth I would put it at about the same level as Terraforming Mars or Roads and Boats, I have rated it 8.5 on BGG.

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