How to play Tiwanaku

In Tiwanaku, you ‘Lead your people to uncharted territories in search of new lands to farm. You seek to explore these regions, to trace their contours, and to develop agriculture there according to the customs and legends of Pachamama. If you honor her by respecting her core principles of diversity and separation, Nature will reward you. If not, you will suffer her ire.’ (From the rulebook.) 

As an example, in the picture above, the rock region (blue-grey tiles) must have one more tile: the one crop that’s revealed is quinoa (size 5), and the rules are that it can only appear in a region of 5 terrain tiles. The additional tile to complete the region must go either directly above the ones labelled A, B and C or to the left of A. As for crops, none of the revealed rock tiles nor the one to be added can contain quinoa since you’re only allowed one of each type per region.

The first thing to do is choose the size of the game: the main board is double-sided, one having 9×5 spaces and one 5×5, for a quicker game. Place the board in the middle of the table, along with the diversity board if you’re using the 45-space side of the main board—the diversity tracks and other spaces are included in the spare area on the 25-space side, so there’s no need for the other board. (Oddly, the diversity tracks on the 5×5 side have only 2 columns, as if the smaller game is intended for just 2 players, but the rulebook doesn’t specify that; even so, I would expect the game to be rather unsatisfactory for more players at 5×5, but there’s nothing preventing you from using the tracks on the other board in that case.) 

Next, choose one of the scenario discs or use the web app, making sure to match the scenario to the size of the map you’ve chosen, and create stacks of the numbers of terrain tiles specified on the back of the disc, putting the remainder back in the box. Create similar stacks of the crop tokens (no need to limit the number of them). Place terrain from those piles and crops as indicated on the disc onto the main board. The limited tile stacks are significant as the number of tiles yet to be placed can be a clue to the possibilities when visiting an empty space—e.g., in the extreme, no tiles left for a particular terrain definitely means that terrain type can’t be placed on the board anymore. 

The diagram on the disc also shows meeple placement, but this is used only for solo and cooperative games, as are the arrows on one face of the terrain tiles, so just ignore all those for the moment. 

After this, assuming you’re using the Pachamama wheel, make sure the 2 windows are shut and slide the disc into the wheel such that the brown side, showing the setup state, faces the back; do your best not to look at the front of the disc at all. The wheel has a lot of layers, and showing inviting gaps for the disc between all of them; the correct— ever so slightly wider—slot is the one closest to the back, which makes sense, as all the clever moving bits have to be in front of the disc, in order to align gaps to reveal parts of it. 

Every person takes a number of Quechua meeples of the same colour depending on player count: 5 each for a 2-player game, 4 for 3 players, and 3 for 4 players. Place like-coloured markers at 10 VP (victory points) on the score track and at the bottom of the 4 diversity tracks. Add 1 offering token of each crop type per person to the general supply and return the remainder to the box. 

The image above shows the setup state for a 2-player game using the disc in the earlier picture. 

Choose a starting player, and off you go. 

Turn Structure 

Your turn consists of either exploring (movement followed by discovery) or divining. After discovery or successful divination, you can make an offering, i.e., trade in your offering tokens for VPs: a single token scores nothing; 2, a single VP; 3 gives you 3; 4 earns 6; and 5, the maximum, gets you 10 VPs. It therefore pays to hang on to them as long as you can, unless you’re pretty sure your next moves will potentially earn the same tokens as you already have, since you can store at most 1 of each type. 

The game end is triggered when the final terrain tile (not crop) has been placed, so don’t leave divination too late. 

Movement 

If none of your meeples are on the board, as will be the case at the start of the game, movement begins by putting a meeple on any board edge space with no other players’ meeple in it. Once the meeple’s on the board, the rules for movement are: 

• you can only move in straight lines along rows and columns (no diagonals); 

• you can’t enter a space containing someone else’s meeple; 

• if you enter a space with another of your meeples on it, you may choose to change direction, but must continue moving (there can only ever be at most a single meeple on any one space); 

• if you enter a space with no crop (and none of your meeples), you must stop there; 

• you can’t end your movement in the same space you started from. 

Instead of moving a meeple across the map, you can retrieve one from the board into your supply, and that ends your movement phase (i.e., you don’t get to put it back on the board until your next turn). 

Assuming it’s still on the board, if the meeple you moved ended up on an empty space, you perform the discovery action. 

As mentioned earlier, the end of the game is triggered after an exploration phase places the final terrain tile. 

The player who added the tile finishes their turn and then, starting with that player, everyone can perform a divination with any one of their meeples. This divination cycle repeats until everyone passes (i.e., can’t or doesn’t want to perform further divinations)—once you pass, you can’t change your mind and divine again. If you make an incorrect divination, you’re forced to pass. 

After everyone has passed, each player can make a final offering for a few more points. 

The player with the highest score wins. Ties are broken by looking at whoever’s got the highest total value on their diversity tracks. If there’s still a tie, players share the victory. 

Otoma’s 5 meeples are one of each colour except the one you chose, including the separate purple and yellow ones; during setup place the meeples where the scenario disc indicates. Otoma never makes offerings, so set out just one of each offering token for you to claim. As noted earlier, terrain tiles have arrows on one side, used to trigger Otoma’s movement; you should stack all the terrain tiles with the arrow side down. (I suspect this only matters if you’re able to predict where Otoma will move based on which tile from several that you can guarantee to discover, which is definitely more than my brain can cope with.) 

The final step before starting the game is to score Otoma based on the terrain and crops its meeples have been placed on, as if it had performed the discovery and divination actions for those spaces; move its diversity markers based on the terrain type (in order from left to right then top to bottom across the board), with corresponding VP increments, then award it VPs according to the crop types. 

On your turns, you can’t retrieve your meeples from the board as a movement option, but otherwise you play as normal, discovering terrain and divining crops. One difference is that you must divine with all your applicable meeples and can’t choose to pass; nor do you stop when you make an incorrect divination: solo mode punishes insufficient knowledge and forces you to guess. Incidentally, when guessing, if you estimate even chances between different sized crops, it pays to pick the largest. 

For example, consider the choice between sweet potato (1) and quinoa (5); if you pick sweet potato and are correct, you win 1 VP and if you’re wrong you lose 5—ouch; on the other hand, if you pick quinoa and are correct, you win 5 VPs, and a wrong guess costs you just 1. Either way, you do end up with the correct crop on the space, so your choice depends solely on whether you prefer to win big or lose big! 

When you discover a terrain type, reveal the arrow on the tile, rotating it such that north on the small direction indicator on the tile faces in the same direction as the arrow in the corner of the main board, and place it on the map in that orientation. 

If the colour of the arrow matches your player colour, then you either: continue as you normally would (described as easy mode in the rulebook); or end your turn immediately and move any one Otoma meeple in the direction of the arrow (hard mode). If the colour doesn’t match, move the Otoma meeple of the colour shown. 

When moving, an Otoma meeple travels in the indicated direction across the board, passing through other meeples as if they weren’t there, until it reaches an empty space; if movement would take it off the edge of the map, follow the dotted line ‘trail marker’ at just beyond the tiles into the next column or row (which will cause the meeple to change direction) and continue to move. 

Movement stops only when the meeple enters an empty space, at which point Otoma automatically discovers and divines the correct terrain and crop types (using the Pachamama wheel or app), gaining the appropriate diversity points and VPs. Note that the arrows are ignored on any terrain tiles revealed during Otoma’s discovery. After that, it’s your turn again. 

The game ends when the final terrain tile is laid, but you don’t get to perform any final divinations as you would in a normal competitive game. If you have more VPs than the Otoma, you win; if it’s a tie, Otoma is deemed the victor. 

Otoma turns up in cooperative play too, but using a different mechanism. 

For 2 or 3 players, each gets 4 or 3 meeples, respectively, of a distinct colour (or 3/2 if you want to play the hard mode). In a 4-player cooperative game, players act in pairs in a 2-team game, sitting so that colours alternate around the table; i.e., successive turns will be for separate colours. 

Each stack of terrain tiles is split into equal (or close to that) piles among the players and placed arrow side up (making sure the direction indicator in the corner is oriented correctly) behind a screen keeping that information private to each player, though players are allowed, and encouraged, to communicate throughout the game. (So why bother hiding the stacks?) All players share one VP marker and one set of diversity markers. 

Otoma this time gets 4 meeples of just one unused colour, or 5 if you want a harder game, along with the corresponding VP and diversity markers. Place Otoma’s meeples as explained in the solo game setup section, and score diversity and VP as described there. 

On a player’s turn, they first reveal a single terrain tile, placing it on the diversity board space for that tile type; if the player has no tiles, they must skip their turn. (I can’t work out how this can be a possibility, as the game is over if a player has no tiles at the end of a turn, i.e., were we in a position for this to happen, the game would have ended on the previous turn.) After selecting the tile, the player then chooses to explore or divine. 

The movement phase starts with a single move in the direction indicated on that tile, then continues as normal with the same meeple—this has implications for where you can introduce new meeples onto the board: e.g., if the first move has to be a step to the left, you can’t enter the map on the left side, as there’s nowhere to step to. As with the solo mode, you can’t take meeples off the board once they’ve been placed on it. Additionally, even though it’s a cooperative game, your meeples can’t pass through those of any other colour. 

During discovery, if the discovered terrain is one that has been revealed previously, play from it from the diversity board, otherwise players negotiate to determine who will provide the necessary tile (e.g., making sure that no one runs out of tiles prematurely). Diversity is processed as normal. 

After that, if there are any Otoma meeples in the same row or column as the just-moved player meeple, they move in the direction away from it, starting with the one that’s closest. They follow the same movement rules as in solo play, discovering and divining in the same way. If the terrain type Otoma needs hasn’t already been revealed, players decide among the group who will supply the tile from their collection. Unlike solo play, Otoma does gain offering tokens. Divining works just as it does in the standard game. 

Before ending their turn, players can make an offering, collectively using all offering tokens gained by any (human) player; when this occurs, Otoma also makes an offering with whatever tokens it has accumulated. 

If, at the end of a player’s turn, any player has no terrain tiles left, the game ends (see what I mean: no way for a player to then start their turn with no tiles, as the game will have ended here) after one final offering, otherwise play moves to the next person. 

There is no final divination cycle before scoring. As with solo, higher VP gets the glory, and Otoma wins when tied. I will note that if you ever get fed up with playing the standard solo game, there’s nothing to prevent you from playing a 2-handed cooperative game, just for a change.