The South Tigris Trilogy is the first trilogy from Garphill Games that I followed since the inception, buying each game as it was released.  While each of the games are great on their own, I think the journey of following the announcements, designer diaries, and the games being delivered to my doorstep over the stretch of two years, left me even more enamored with the trilogy.  So, when the bundle of expansions hit Kickstarter, I knew I’d be pledging money on day one.  Now that the games have finally arrived, I want to highlight what each brings to the table.  In this first installment, I’ll be taking a look at Tides of Trade, the expansion for Wayfarers of the South Tigris. Grab your telescope and let’s take a look at all that Tides of Trade has to offer (or visit here to watch our YouTube video on the subject.)

With Tides of Trade, a new minaret has opened up for players to influence: the Red Minaret.  This minaret is printed on a new Main Board Expansion that is double-sided, just like the original Main Board pieces, and is placed to the left of the Main Board when setting the game up.  Red Influence is placed in, or spent from, the minaret identically to the original minarets, but with different rewards for the player.  First off, the player who has a majority of influence in the Red Minaret scores five Victory Points at the conclusion of the game, unlike the three points that players gain from the other minarets.  Secondly, players can spend Red Influence to either employ Traders or gain Worker Upgrade Tiles (more on both of these to come).  Lastly, once per turn, a player can spend one of their Red Influence in place of any other color influence.  One of my favorite pieces of the base game was the push and pull feeling of the minarets; always gambling when the best time to spend influence was versus keeping it to play the area majority aspect of the game.  So, another chance for this mechanism to be used more within Wayfarers is a win to me.

Along with the Main Board Expansion, each player of Tides of Trade will also receive a Player Board Expansion (called The Market), snuggling up to the immediate left of the original Player Board.  This new board is the main location where players will keep those aforementioned Traders and Worker Upgrade Tiles.  Both of these actions can be taken by placing a die, of any value, on the single slot on this new Player Board Expansion.  After doing so, a player can choose to either employ a Trader from the market or select a pairing of Worker Upgrade Tiles.  Let’s quickly look at each of these in turn.

The Traders are represented by four new tiles placed on the Main Board Expansion, each picturing a different Trader.  If a player takes the Trader action, they can choose from one of the available Traders, immediately paying any cost (typically one or two Red Influence) and gaining that Trader’s bonus.  The Trader tile is then moved to the Player Board and will remain there until a player’s Rest Phase, where they must return it to the board.

Above the area designated for a player’s Trader tile, there are three columns, each one falling underneath an icon for one of the three different colored workers in the game.  If a player decides to pick up Worker Upgrade Tiles instead of a Trader tile when they use the new board’s action, they can pay two Red Influence, or three Silver, to grab one of the four Worker Upgrade Tiles on the board.  These upgrade tiles differ from ones in the original game in a few ways.  First, each set of tiles is made up of separate top and bottom pieces, so these tiles will offer different combinations every game.  Second, these tiles are only ever going to be placed on the new board, never into the players’ Caravan from the base game.  Lastly, and most importantly, once the player has filled one of the slots with these tiles, it will allow the player to gain the bonus printed on the tile every time the specific colored worker is placed on the board. 

While Tides of Trade adds a few extra of each type of card from Wayfarers, the Townsfolk Cards receive a brand-new type of card: the Overseer Card.  These cards offer two differences from the standard Townsfolk Cards.  The first is the ability to Dismiss the card.  This mechanism has been used in other Garphill Games (such as Viscounts of the West Kingdom and even in Scholars of the South Tigris) but is new for Wayfarers.  A player still must pay the associated cost of the Overseer but instead of taking control of the card, they can discard it to gain the bonus listed in the top-right of the card. 

If a player decides not to Dismiss an Overseer, and instead wants to keep the card, they have to tuck it under The Market board, meaning they can only ever have one Overseer Card at a time.  This card will trigger a bonus during the player’s Rest phase, but only ifthey have employed a Trader.  The Overseers can provide some powerful bonuses but with the Traders leaving The Market at every Rest, players will need to gauge how important it is to spend a turn, and the associated resources, hiring Traders throughout the game.

One of my chief complaints about the base game was the ease that one can find themselves trapped on the Journal Track.  Yes, players have the knowledge of all upcoming requirements but depending on how the game plays out, some routes are going to be easier than others.  Even so, you might still end up needing a specific amount of tags that just isn’t going to happen for you.  This is where the new Hourglass Tile helps players out.  This tile starts the game on the Empty Side for all players.  If a player finds that they can’t, or don’t want to, move forward during Journaling, they are then allowed to flip their Hourglass Tile to the Full Side.  With a full Hourglass equipped, the player can discount any future Journaling cost by one, helping them to move further down the track where they might have gotten stuck in the base game.  Every time the Hourglass Tile is used in this way, it must be flipped back to the Empty Side, though if a player ends the game with the Hourglass full, they are awarded two extra Victory Points.

A new icon gives players the ability to Capture a Worker.  This can be resolved in the same way as Retrieving a Worker works in the base game, or it can be used to capture a Worker from an opponent.  A player who chooses to resolve the action this way does have to pay the opponent either a Silver or a Provision to take their Worker, so it does decrease the “Take That” feeling slightly. 

Lastly, the designers have added a small change to how Card Influence actions work.  This piece of the base game always felt a little undercooked but maybe I just didn’t know how to implement it correctly.  With Tides of Trade, whenever a player has an action to put an Influence on a card, they may instead choose to place it in the Inkwell on the board.  As Influence stacks up in the Inkwell, players can spend it, just as they would from a Minaret, to gain resource discounts, modify dice, or Capture Workers.  I love this addition as it no longer feels like placing Influence on cards is a waste of an action.

If you liked Wayfarers of the South Tigris, I can’t see why you wouldn’t enjoy Tides of Trade.  I can’t see myself ever playing without it.  On top of that, the additions feel so intertwined with the rest of the game, I’d probably just include it when teaching new players the full game. 

Ratings are based on 5 main criteria: rulebook, setup, components, art & graphic design, and gameplay.  The first 4 criteria are rated 1 to 5 and the gameplay is rated 1 to 10.  These scores culminate in an “overall satisfaction” score that is rated from 1 to 10.  If the reviewed game has both a solo and multiplayer mode, I have assigned scores separately to give context to which mode we enjoy more.