Atiwa Review - The Bats are Back in Town

Tom, Chris, & Wendy take a look at Atiwa!
Intro 0:00
Overview 1:38
Review 7:21
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[@ormhaxan]

Nusfjord's actually my favorite Uwe, besides Caverna. There's a big box for it coming out this year!

[@bn5055]

Nusfjord is widely regarded as a great game and one of his best, don't know what Tom was going on about there...

[@EricPerreault]

Yeah, it's top 3 for me alongside Agricola and Le Havre. The only newer game of his that's as good as the old ones.

[@KissellMissile]

I certainly would not say it's widely regarded as one of his best. It's widely thought to be good, and there's a contingent who love it, but it's by no means a consensus favorite. It's his 9th highest ranked game on BGG and is far behind all the others in stats for rankings and plays.

[@chrissiestern9359]

I really like this game. I thought replayability would be a problem, but I have liked it more and more each time I play it. It is a fun puzzle. 8 from me.

[@kristijanpetrovski2576]

Gates of Loyang has one of the best solo modes among all his games. 10/10

[@HITFORDCYCLE1]

One advantage to moving the 3 bats is it frees up space to bring more bats in. Also, you have to plan for the bats coming back so you will need more terrain. I think it adds a Little bit to the strategy. If the families aren’t trained, they mine for gold which creates damage to the earth or pollution. Thanks for the review. I liked it.

[@squared82]

I just got this played on Friday. It felt like a really solid game. I enjoyed it, but I’m probably also falling in a 7ish range for it. The theme/setting was really cool and its a great weight for me.

[@bushibayushi]

Just wanted to say - Chris & Wendy are fantastic, really enjoy your opinions guys, very well presented

[@RickKoeppen]

Atiwa was top 10 of 2022 for me, though with prior Uwe experiences being more challenging to do well in early plays, and Atiwa already feeling comfortable after the first or second play, I do agree with the surprise of how easy everything was to get out in the first play or two. I don't want to knock the game for that, though, because that was somewhat refreshing. I love the variety of actions, the turn order action shifting mechanism, the bonus Bat action steps, the theme integration, the components, etc. I will say that each of my plays so far have been TIGHT, like single digit point differences tight. And after plays where we each seemed to be able to do everything we wanted to do, there wasn't a whole lot of post-game reflection on what we could have done differently/better, it just seemed to hinge on like a mere handful of points gathered here or there. Still really enjoy it, but I have to really be in the mood for a game that comes down to the wire like that without knowing exactly what else I could do differently to pull away from my opponent.

[@StevenStJohn-kj9eb]

Can we talk about how that red dice on the bookshelf has the 3 and the 4 not on opposite faces? What is up with that?!

[@joelbergvonlinde1389]

Maybe it’s a countdown dice

[@draheim90]

Been looking forward to this review for a while! I like the game a good bit though it is a slight step down from Caverna, Agricola, Feast, Arle, etc. Thematically, pollution is caused by chemicals used in gold mining (as per the rulebook). Also another reason to train your families besides pollution is that you are guaranteed 1 gold per round from them (instead of basically a 50/50 chance at 0 or 1) plus they can house bats. Sending the bats out at night is really nice for being able to relocate and shift around bats as well, since otherwise you can’t move things from your location tiles once you place them.

[@peetu734]

Definitely agree with replayability problems here. Things are easy to get out and actually gold is usually better than even getting those families on board as gold is just free points and people eat away your points as livestock, so balance is shifting more towards gaining gold than actually getting everything out.

[@TeChNoWC7]

What if you just shift the gold to people on the last round?

[@KSweeney36]

After the initial flurry of games, how often do we play games that replayability is a problem? I played Le Havre last night solo. It was the first time in 3 years! I would also say that I love Uwe Rosenberg solo modes. None of these over complicated bots that take more time and effort than my own. For example Kanban EV’s bot I find is far to much

[@ryansanderson3197]

I've really enjoyed my plays but each feels a very similar. Just slight changes to be a little more efficient. I think the solo challenges give some nice variety with the different goals to shake up your strategy. There's something here in the design and theme, but overall lacks in variety. Wish the action spaces you slide were double sided with different actions. Would be nice to get more unique terrain cards. Maybe we will get an expansion or a deck of new cards at least.

[@NinjaWaluigi]

It’s casual Friday for Mr. Vassal!

[@mikaelhansson9613]

This was my #3 of 2022, and it was in my top 100 of all time as well (below Nusfjord but above Glass Road). Theme is great, but I agree, the replayability might not be great after half a dozen games.

[@DuGStp]

Nusfjord is S tier Uwe.

[@garylangford6755]

Didn't you have issues with no one wanting to put fish into the village?

[@tommyakesson8858]

Played it once . My tl;dr review Pros: nice theme which also helps with rules. It was easy to understand why alot of resource X gave a bonus in resource Y Cons. Nothing major. It was solid. But not spectacular. Same with the components The last round or two could also lead to math related analysis paralysis. When you just want to maximise points. 3 out of 5. Didnt mind playing it but im not rushing out to buy a copy of my own

[@jamescartwright1150]

First time in a while I would disagree. I think Atiwa is excellent and definitely a strong 8 for me, even replaces Nusfjord. I like the night card action of placing the 3 bats as you are getting a tree for free which helps and it's thematic. Like others have said, you should have read the booklet as it's mining that causes the pollution. Need a Mike solo video for this.

[@maximilianmaximilian3667]

I really like farming in board games..

[@Kotro]

So, just play Antiquity. Got it!

[@jamesjacobthomson6198]

I only got to test a few rounds at Essen, but I wasn't convinced. Straightforward worker placement, but a slightly more challenging spatial puzzle/resource management system. I.e. it's not quite light enough to be gateway, but not heavy enough to entertain my gaming friends. That said, the theme is fantastic and the game has a nice snappy pace. Maybe it also has depths that weren't apparent from the run through.

[@ko9]

I looked up how to pronounce this and apparently it's "80 wah". Who knew?

[@modemacabre]

Shame on you for not reading the informational booklet (by the way, the pollution is from mining which is very toxic to the environment and the people living there)(they explain how to pronounce it in the booklet, again read the booklet) . The background for this game made so much of it come to life for me. Also, I know this is a Rosenberg game, but you said sheep instead of goat in the explanation : ). I agree with all of you that the game can feel a bit 'samey,' but the environment engine he has implemented into this is one of the most elegant and thematic that I have ever seen in a game. That is what brings me back to this game more than anything.

[@michaelrichard1320]

I don't even read all of the rules how do you expect me to read a whole separate booklet

[@CraftBasti]

@@michaelrichard1320 I had to stop the video to parse this and I still failed, so here is the follow up question: what do you mean you don't read all the rules? How can you play a game without knowing all the rules?

[@modemacabre]

@@michaelrichard1320 so you just played part of the game, the part you read the rules for? 🤣

[@przyjacielswistakow6301]

Today I was thinking about this game and i coundn't found it on your chanell xdd

[@69robtaylor]

It’s good….. if you play it once a year lol

[@TheBrokenMeeple]

A solid hit from last year. Though you make it sound so easy to get all your villages out, that comes with a huge feeding requirement though so it's not like you can do it every game. I'm not sure when I last even did it myself.

[@bushibayushi]

This game has almost no replay value, the scoring system will always be the same. The theme integration is great, but it's a game for two plays at most.

[@goldengaruda8935]

Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat

[@ScytheNoire]

I feel like the eating bats part was glossed over very quickly.

[@terry3733H]

So many games are rated 7. The play through sounds tired and unenthusiastic, as if they already decided to shoot the game down? So is it a good game or not, or just down to individual preferences? Wonder how other reviewers would rate this? Feels a bit awkward as if all 3 just pressured into merging their tones into one conclusion. Zee and Mike might have said something different. Individual reviews sound more earnest. Group live play through then group feedback would feel more natural...

[@Judge021979]

If only they'd made a video explaining their thoughts that would add more context to a single 'out of 10' number? Why is no one providing this content?!?

[@palkojohn]

As I watched this review, I thought it sounded like none of them actually played the game but only read the rules together right before they shot the review.

[@CharlesCom-bd2qb]

Is it me or Tom did not explain well the way bat comes and go in the cavern ... oh as I am writing this Tom talked about it at 10:40 in the review lol. Still would have been better if he explained it better in the overview, normally Tom explains game better then this