Is Archeos Society the Ethnos reskin of our dreams?

In ending my review of Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest, I asked when we’ll see a second edition of Paolo Mori’s other excellent board game, Ethnos. Well, as it turns out, sooner than expected. As Archeos Society is about to hit the shelves of your favourite local game store.

If you haven’t played Ethnos, it’s an area control game, where you draft a number of high-fantasy creatures to form war bands. For instance, you could have a band of seven dwarves – ala Snow White. Or draft a band of varying creatures from skeletons to giants. The important thing is that these bands are all of the same type or same colour.

When playing a band, you pick a leader – giving you a special ability. Afterwards, the rest of the cards in your hand (not in the band) are returned to the market. Awaiting to be snapped up by your opponents, like hawks watching the beach for baby sea turtles.

Additionally, the colour of the leader is equally important. As this determines which region you’re attacking. To successfully attack and place a marker, you must play a band larger than the number of your markers already there. At the end of each round, every region scores points for whoever has the most markers in that region.

It’s a wonderful game that plays lightning-quick. But the real delight is the variability of the different creatures. There are 12 different types in the game box, though you only play with 6 types in each game. Meaning most games, you’re playing with a unique combination.

However, there’s one problem with Ethnos, and that’s the droll theming and artwork. Or at least that’s what I thought before reading Paolo Mori’s design diary.

Space Cowboys are at it again

Interestingly, Archeos Society isn’t being published by CMON who published the original game. Space Cowboys have that honour, and they might sound familiar because they’re behind the superb gem-collecting game, Splendor.

Before we dig into the differences between the two games, here’s the initial announcement from Space Cowboys:

Guide your team in Archeos Society as you explore legendary sites! You must decide whether to form small expeditions for quick progression, or larger expeditions that are more efficient but slower to assemble.

On each of your turns, you either recruit a new explorer or launch an expedition by playing your cards using a group of matching colors or roles. Choose your expedition leader wisely as they determine which region you explore and provide a special ability for that expedition. Note that whenever you launch an expedition, unplayed cards in your hand are made available for your opponents to recruit!

To achieve victory, you must carefully manage your efforts in recruiting and accumulating discoveries, all while monitoring the progress of your competitors.

How does Archeos Society change the original?

Starting with the obvious, there’s a new theme. Gone is the generic high-fantasy setting, replaced in Archeos Society with you being in charge of leading archeological expeditions – much like in Lost Ruins of Arnak. No longer are you attacking and controlling regions, you’re now establishing expeditions on different parts of a continent.

With this new theme, comes all new artwork.

From the cards to the tokens, nothing remains of the old game. It’s clear that this was a sore point in the original, as a lot of effort has gone into making Archeos Society look good. To their credit, I think they’ve pulled it off. It looks like a modern board game and uses a lot of white to make everything pop.

It’s a far cry from the grungy 1980s graphic design of Ethnos.

The big change

While we were all expecting a new theme for an updated version. What we weren’t expecting was the removal of the area control mechanics of Ethnos. It played a big part in the original game. A lot of your thinking was around how to outmuscle and outwit the other players at the table.

You’re no longer battling in Archeos Society, you’re climbing a series of tracks instead. These tracks represent different dig sites around the world. But this is a solo venture, as it doesn’t matter where your opponents are on these tracks. All that matters is where you are.

This removes a lot from the original. So to keep things interesting, the different sites now all have different effects and score differently. Now you must combine the powers from the cards you’re playing, with the different tracks around the board.

As we saw in the original, there are going to be more tracks than what you can play with. So there’s going to be a lot of added variability with this change. Between these tracks and the different types of cards, games are going to vary wildly. Which will be very exciting.

Introducing happy hour

Another smaller rule change is the introduction of the unofficially named “Happy Hour”. In Ethnos, you quickly reach a point where everything from the market is snatched up. Then the rest of the round is spent top-decking cards from the market deck.

Archeos Society changes this up by ruling that when the market row is empty, you draw two cards from the top of the deck.

It doesn’t sound like much, but as someone who’s a fan of the original, I’m quite excited by this change.

To begin with, it accelerates the end of the round. Therefore, you’ll be under even more pressure to play your cards before it’s too late. With this pressure, comes excitement and wonder, as you try to push your play to the limit.

Additionally, it gives players more cards to put back on the market after. Meaning it won’t be long before the market is once again filled with options.

Will Archeos Society be the reskin I’ve dreamed of?

With Archeos Society currently arriving on Australian shores I will find out sooner than later. However, I am left wondering if this is an improvement on the original game.

Surely from a theme and looks perspective, Archeos Society is a big step up. However, the removal of area control is causing alarm bells to ring. Leaving me to wonder if Archeos Society will be the same game that I’ve enjoyed over the years.

Let me know what you think in the comments below. Will these new abilities and added variability make up for the loss of area control? Or will this be a second edition gone wrong? One thing I know for certain is that I’m looking forward to not having to clean up mountains of tokens every time I transport the game.