Review: Yellow & Yangtze

 Review: Yellow & Yangtze

The Basics

In this tile placement game, each player is attempting to build a civilization centered on the Yellow & Yangtze Rivers in China during the period of the Warring States. Each player has five different leaders and uses those leaders to score points based on the tiles placed. Of course, these leaders also make conflict possible, as no two leaders of the same type from different factions may co-exist in the same state. In a twist seen in few games, each player's score at the end of the game is determined by the points scored in their weakest category rather than their strongest or a sum of their categories.

The Specs

Player count: 2-4 (The game is decent with two players, but really shines with 3-4)

Playing time: 90 minutes (This should really be the longest the game runs, in my opinion)

Age: 14+

The Expansions

There aren't any; I'm choosing to write this review now mainly because of the announcement that Yellow & Yangtze is receiving a reprint in the form of a game called HUANG. Despite only having been produced in 2018, the game is out of production and can be difficult to find. It sounds as though HUANG will be basically identical to Yellow & Yangtze, though the produced pieces will be different. Yellow & Yangtze itself is a sister game to Tigris and Euphrates, extremely similar except in setting and the fact that Tigris and Euphrates is much less forgiving when it comes to conflict and scoring.

Gameplay

It's pretty straightforward on the surface, but there are some abilities players might only use once or twice a game and are therefore easy to forget during the first play or two. During their turn, a player may resolve up to two actions in any order and there are five possible actions. Any action can be repeated in a turn.

1. Position (place, move, or withdraw) a leader
2. Place a tile
3. Discard two blue farmer tiles to cause a peasants' riot
4. Discard two green trader tiles to establish a pagoda
5. Replace up to 6 tiles from behind their screen

Leader tiles must be placed adjacent to at least 1 black Governor tile and cannot be placed in such a way as to unite states leading to a conflict. Leaders also cannot be placed in river spaces. Victory points are primarily scored in the following way: if a tile is placed in a state and the state contains a leader of the same color, then the VP is gained by the player controlling that leader. If there is no leader of the respective color but there is a black governor leader within the state, then the VP is gained by the player controlling the black governor leader. The other way victory points are scored are from pagodas - pagodas are placed when the third tile in a triangle of 3 like-colored tiles is placed. Each pagoda regularly provides victory points at the end of the controlling player's turn.

As mentioned above, two blue tiles can be discarded to cause a peasant's riot, which allows the player to remove any one tile from the board and discard it to the box. And two green tiles can be discarded to establish a pagoda on a triangle of like-colored tiles wherein a pagoda is not already built.

Conflict happens in two different ways: when a leader is positioned in a state that already contains a leader of the same color, that's a revolt; when two or more states are united through a new tile (thus creating a larger state), all warring states draw their strength from red soldier tiles in their state. The game ends when a player who is attempting to draw a tile is unable to do so because the bag is empty.

My Thoughts on Gameplay

I'll start by saying that I'm glad I played Tigris & Euphrates before playing Yellow & Yangtze. I mentioned earlier that Yellow & Yangtze is more forgiving than Tigris & Euphrates; that is mostly because Y&Y features a sort of wild card tile with the yellow artisan tiles. At the end of the game, any yellow VPs are distributed amongst the other four VP categories, basically evening them all out as best as possible. So even if I'm light on green VPs at the end of the game, scoring enough yellow VPs offsets that weakness. My buddy Chad is the one who taught me both of these games and I know his preference is for T&E specifically because it is less forgiving. I can appreciate that preference, but in the case of Y&Y, enough time is invested and some things are far enough beyond our control that I like having that sort of safety valve. It makes the game less cutthroat and this is not one of those games that I play when I want to be cutthroat.

I like the simplicity of the actions but am grateful for the depth of the consequences. It's easy to think our best bet is to build pagodas as quickly as possible and our instincts sometimes lead us to group our leaders together so we can enjoy safety in numbers. But Y&Y is designed for opportunists and I appreciate that. If I spend too much time telegraphing where my leaders will go and where I intend to build pagodas, it's very easy for other players to disrupt my plans with a well-placed tile or leader. Dispersing one's leaders around the board provides for more opportunities and makes play that much more interesting.

It never feels as though I've got enough actions to do all the things I want to do before other people get to take their actions, and that's just the way it should be. Honestly, it sort of never ceases to amaze me how close the scores generally are by the time the game is over. It's easy to feel like a player has the game locked up only to discover that they won or lost by only 1 or 2 VPs. I've definitely lost big before in this game because I wasn't used to the scoring and had trouble diversifying, but after just several plays, most games with three players were seeing final scores in the range of 11-16. Action economy and efficiency is vital to success in this game and I think there's an elegance to the way this game functions.

Solo Play

The only way to solo play this game is to buy the app. It's a fairly solid app overall and worth the investment if you like the game and are happy to play it against computers instead of other people!

Components

The components are solid, but also different depending on what version of the game you play.

There's always a preference when different versions of the same game feature different components.

The version of the game that my buddy Roger found for me has the wooden pagoda pieces, which I like far more than the plastic pagodas. I appreciate that there's a uniformity when everything but the tiles are made of the same material. That said, Roger also tracked down some custom tiles that have a bit more heft to them as they're bamboo. Frankly, they're such quality as to improve the experience of playing the game. That said, they also require a bigger bag for play. But anyway! All of this is to say that looking at the upcoming release of HUANG featuring pieces I simply don't enjoy as much as the pieces in Y&Y definitely impacts how highly I'd recommend HUANG once it is released.

Final Thoughts

I highly recommend this game. I can appreciate it if one would rather play Tigris & Euphrates, but I think either T&E or Y&Y is a terrific addition to any game collection. The strategy runs deep, but the length remains inside of 90 minutes. Setup takes no time at all. There are a couple of rules that will require double and triple checking the rulebook, but I find that's way less than a lot of other games. I know this title has been tough to find at a reasonable price, but it also looks as though some of those prices might be coming down with the release of HUANG. That said, if you don't have a preference between the components featured in Y&Y and HUANG, then you're probably just better off buying the new game at a far more reasonable price. I'm a big fan of Yellow & Yangtze and while it's not for everyone, I do think that the majority of gamers should play it at least once or twice so they know what they're missing!