Yellow & Yangtze: A Complete Guide

Have you ever played Yellow & Yangtze? If not, you must try it out. Here is a review of this exciting game for you.

In Yellow & Yangtze, players construct civilizations by arranging tiles. Five different leaders are given to the players: the soldier, farmer, governor, trader, and artisan. In these same categories, win points are tallied using the leaders. However, the number of points in your weakest area makes up your final score in the game.

When civilizations cross over the board, conflicts occur. Players’ civilizations must prevail in these confrontations, quell peasant uprisings, and develop security to erect illustrious pagodas. Keep reading to get more insights into the game.

About The Game – Yellow & Yangtze

Yellow and Yangtze is a tile arrangement, area management, and set collection game developed by Reiner Knizia and Grail Games and published by Dire Wolf Digital. Players strive to impose authority over the area in the game, the mechanical and spiritual successor to Tigris and Euphrates, by deploying many commanders and tiles. When the tile pile is depleted, the game is over. Four distinct sorts of points are then added up, and the player with the lowest of those scores that is also the highest among all players wins. It usually lasts for 20 minutes.

Tigris and Euphrates served as the inspiration for Yellow and Yangtze’s fundamental ideas and mechanical construction. If you’re interested, we recommend looking up some of the excellent reviews that go into great detail about the precise changes between the two games. Instead, we’ll discuss the regulations separately here.

Yellow & Yangtze Gameplay

Players start with a few tiles and five leaders of five different colors or types each. A huge map with mostly vacant hex squares makes up the board. The game begins with governor tiles thrown everywhere, and each turn, players select one of a few straightforward acts. The following options are available to players: play/move/remove a leader; play a tile; exchange tiles; or play blue or green special powers. Players can repeat any of these actions as much as they choose. A “state” is any group of interconnected tiles on the map.

You receive points for using leaders, which must be played next to a governor tile at all times. Whenever a standard tile of a leader’s color is placed into a state, the leader of that state receives a point. If a governor leader is present in the state and there are no leaders of that color or type, that player receives a point. The pagoda that results from three identical tiles forming a triangle awards one point to the controlling leader of that type after each of their rounds. Collecting points is the game’s primary objective.

Conflicts are the game’s second major component, in addition to the positioning of tiles strategically for point scoring. There are two types of these in the game: revolts and wars. When a player inserts a leader into a state that already has a leader of that color, revolts happen. The loser must take their leader off the board, whereas the winner gets a point and gets to keep their lead. When two distinct states are combined and have leaders of the same race, wars result. Wars are significantly messier, and numerous military personnel from the defeated states might be expelled. Each leader who is eliminated awards the winner one point.

Players can contribute cards from their hands to the battle in either of these conflicts. You can start fights with other players, which is one of the game’s best features. Observe someone who is vulnerable but receiving an unfair advantage. Start a war with them that they can’t win, and you can even give their adversary soldiers! The game is far more competitive than you might anticipate because this is one of the few opportunities you have to directly interfere with other players. In a game featuring direct fighting, you should anticipate some of that, but what might surprise you are the more cunning strategies for thwarting your adversaries.

The main game mechanics are putting tiles to score points and engaging in combat to take opponents’ states and points. I’m leaving out a lot, like the fact that green tiles give you the option to pick up any face-up tile after playing them and that blue tiles can only be placed on river areas, but you can play as many as you like for a single action. 

Conclusion

A challenging game like Yellow & Yangtze always gets you to think critically. You must be careful to earn points, but you cannot skip any categories. You’ll also need to keep an eye out to see if any of your opponents are weak points for attacks so you can exploit them. The difference between a win and a defeat can be determined by stopping their development while grabbing a few priceless points.