Cost: $35.00 From:Avalon Hill, 4517 Harford Rd., Baltimore MD, 21214 Players: 2-4 Playing Time: 60-120 minutes Type of game: Strategy Complexity: 6 Skill level: 7 Reviewed by: Peter Sarrett, Issue 2.3, Spring 1994
It would be easy to assume that Tyranno Ex, Avalon Hill's game of prehistoric evolution, was designed to capitalize on the hype surrounding Jurassic Park. In fact, Tyranno Ex predates the box office blockbuster and was a German game long before the film made dinosaurs a hot item. Avalon Hill spruced up its graphics for the transatlantic journey, giving us a visually appealing game where survival of the fittest is the maxim to live by.
Why Avalon Hill chose not to publish this game in the company's bookshelf format is a mystery to me. Instead, they opted for a behemoth of an oversized box twice the size. While this might attract attention on retail shelves, it makes Tyranno Ex awkward to transport. Inside rests a game board twice again as large as the box, a sheet of die-cut markers, four cardboard screens behind which players hide their markers, six dice and a deck of animal cards. Four colored rows (one per player) of four spaces each occupy most of the board. It is along these rows that animals try to advance in their struggle for survival.
The markers are evenly split amongst seven color-coded types, each color representing a different aspect of the natural environment (sun, water, vegetation, etc.). Players begin the game with twelve markers drawn at random and kept hidden from other players. These markers will change the prehistoric environment and affect the animals' strength and chances for survival. Four spaces at one edge of the board are reserved for these markers. These spaces are divided in half. One randomly drawn marker is placed in the "active" zone of each space. The "pending" zone remains empty, for now.
The animal cards are divided into four face-up piles. Players take turns drafting an animal from the top of one of the piles and placing it in their row of the board until everyone has two animals. This recruiting process occurs at the start of each turn, but henceforth with only one animal per player. Now the game begins in earnest.
Players take turns trying to influence the environment in their favor by playing markers. Each player may lay up to two markers face down in the "pending" zone of the environment spaces at the edge of the board. If two markers are played, they may be placed in the same or different spaces. As soon as a space's pending markers outnumber its active markers, environmental change occurs. That space's active markers are discarded back to the marker pool. Pending markers are flipped face-up. If one marker color has a plurality, all markers of that color move to the active zone. If not, the active zone remains empty. Either way, leftover pending markers flip back over and remain in the pending zone.
So what's the point? Each animal card sports three marker colors (two of which might be identical). After a player causes environmental change, if all the colors on any of a player's animals are present in the new environment that animal gets stronger. Each animal starts with a strength of one and tops out at six. Strength is a measure of how easily your animal can knock the tar out of other animals in combat.
Before combat can occur, players must complete three to five rounds of marker placement. For the first three rounds, players may choose to exchange up to three of their markers for randomly drawn replacements instead of placing any on the board. When your markers don't match your animals, this is a very appealing option. Animals can only increase their strength in the first three rounds-- changing the environment in the remaining rounds only affects animals' breeding rate.
When all rounds of marker placement are done, players determine how much their animals can breed in that turn. Every active marker which matches a color on an animal card boosts that animal's frequency by one. If a color appears twice on a card, each matching marker increases the animal's frequency by two. If no markers match your animal, the animal has become extinct and must be discarded. This is bad.
Now we move into combat. Each player can pick one of her animals to attack one rival animal. An animal's frequency represents the number of dice that animal rolls in combat. Each die which shows a value less than or equal to the animal's strength represents one "hit" against the target animal. Whichever animal scores the most hits against the other wins a point. The first animal to get two points is the victor. If his strength is less than or equal to the loser's strength, the winner gains a point of strength for his victory. If the loser was shut out, it is killed and discarded. If it managed to win a point, it is only "suppressed" and loses a point of strength. Suppressed animals may not attack or be attacked for the remainder of the turn.
When all combat is complete, surviving animals advance one space along their rows and score points. The farther along an animal is, the more points it is worth. Suppressed animals, however, score nothing. Columns with fewer animals in them award extra points to their residents.
And that, as they say, is that. Suppressed animals return to normal at the end of the turn and all frequencies are erased. As soon as one pile of animal cards is depleted, the game moves into double-time. Animals advance two spaces after combat instead of just one, and players recruit two animals at the start of each turn instead of only one. Whenever one player is out of animals and there are no more to recruit, the game ends and the player with the most points is the winner.
I've omitted one or two finer points (difficult though that may be to believe), but that's the heart of the game. What really makes this games worthwhile for me is the environmental influence phase. First, the mechanics of it are great. It's easy to see when environmental change might occur, yet you're never certain what the environment will change into. Because markers are placed face-down, it's difficult to tell which of your own markers will have the greatest effect. I like the fact that markers get turned up and then back over again, forcing players to try to recall what they saw and where. Some players who dislike memory-based games leave revealed tokens face-up to make life a little easier on the brain, though.
The real beauty of the environmental change system is the balance that players need to strike between boosting their animals' strength and increasing their breeding rate at the end of the turn. After all, it's all well and good for your triceratops to get a strength of five. But if that triceratops only gets to roll one die in combat, I'll pit my five die, stength two dimetrodon against it any day. Many players overlook the importance of an animal's frequency and play their best markers in the early rounds of environmental influence, leaving them helpless to steer the environment in their favor in rounds four and five. I favor a long-term approach, biding my time, planting key markers early without triggering environmental change. Then in the final round I trigger a change in two of the four areas, swinging the environment in my favor and hopefully knocking out elements which other players were banking on.
It's important to choose your animals carefully. Should you pick creatures which match the current environment, animals which jive with the markers you currently have in your arsenal, or ones which share colors with the animals you already own? Colors shared by multiple players' animals are more likely to remain in the environment, thereby guaranteeing survival but not giving you any edge over your opponents. Plenty of room for different strategies here.
If a rival animal starts to get too strong, it may be worth your while to concentrate on manipulating the environment to make sure that none of that animal's elements remain active at the end of the influence phase. This would cause the rival critter to kick the bucket and your opponent to grind his teeth in frustration. In fact, it is often vital for players to set aside their individual goals and team up to accomplish this end when one player starts to get too far ahead. Which segues nicely into my first gripe.
Tyranno Ex seems to be one of those games where if you get hosed at the beginning, you're going to have a devil of a time getting back on the horse again. In two of the games I've played, one player lost both his animals in the first turn thanks to a combination of a lousy environment and a serious trouncing in combat. With his opponents having strengthened animals worth six to twelve points, the lowly three point strength one animal he recruited next time was at a tremendous disadvantage. He was in no position to tackle the leaders, who could opt to wipe him out at will. Falling so far behind so early in the game can make it difficult to carry on and have fun.
My other gripe with Tyranno Ex is that it takes rather a long time to play for what it is. I'd estimate it takes about 1.5 to 2 hours to play a complete game, something we've only accomplished once. Someone usually gets too frustrated from being far behind and we decide to call it quits. After a while the whole affair starts to get a little tiresome. Knocking the playing time down to an hour would raise my opinion of the game dramatically.
Tyranno Ex has excellent graphics, quality components, and the usual Avalon Hill rule booklet written by a third year law associate. I've enjoyed it, but it clearly has some flaws which keep it from being a truly superior game.