Ezra and Nehemiah has come the closest to breaking my brain as any Garphill game has for a long time, probably since Paladins of the West Kingdom. Not that any of the mechanisms are not tried and true Garphill mechanisms. Multiuse character cards that provide prerequisites for performing actions and also allow resource trades - check. Worker placement - check. Ability to gain more workers during the game - check. Tucking cards for long term benefit - check. Multiple ways of gaining victory points - check.
It is not that the rules are complex either. Well, not complex in that they are hard to understand. It’s just that there are so many of them. For a feeling of the number of rules, Ezra’s rulebook is 40 pages long. Scholars of the South Tigris has 28, and Wayfarers of the South Tigris has 24. Both of these are recent Garphill games with a higher weight on Board Game Geek (BGG). Paladins of the West Kingdom, a slightly older Garphill game that has a slightly lower weight on BGG has 36. I have played all of these. My memory of the two South Tigris games may have an unwarranted rosy hue, but I would dispute their BGG weights. There is no way Scholars has a weight above 4!
Another indication of relative complexity is the game board. The Scholars and Wayfarers boards are pretty clean and simple. There are a couple of progress tracks and a couple of areas for placing workers, etc. The Ezra board is one of the busiest I have ever seen, reminiscent of Teotihuacan or Tekhenu. Progress tracks, worker placement areas, and rule reminders are Tetrised together with nary a square centimeter of spare space. All of this is surrounded by the partially rebuilt city walls. The victory point track is outside of even this.
A final indication of the complexity, before getting to an actual description of the gameplay. Three of the forty pages in the rulebook just identify the components. Another four are multiplayer setup. This game has a lot of stuff in it.
The premise of the game is based on the Book of Nehemiah in the Hebrew Bible. That book focuses on the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem. That is also one of the three main foci of the game. One of the main actions a player can take is to clear rubble from a section of the wall or from a gate. Once the rubble is cleared, a player can rebuild that section. Clearing rubble is the main way of getting resources (cinder, wood, stone, or gold). If the player has the resources needed after clearing the rubble, they can rebuild the section. If not, that player or another one can do so on a later turn. Of course, both of these actions require that the player has character cards in their tableau providing the banners needed to perform the action. (There are three types of banners - red for military, blue for scholarship, grey for labor.)
The second of the three types of actions is reading the Torah and spreading its word outside the city. This action, like the other types, actually consists of two subtypes. A player can perform one or both if they have enough blue banners. Placing a worker on one of the scrolls on the main board gives that player a bonus for the rest of the game. Moving the players tent around a path outside the city gives the player a reward for each space moved.
The third action is the Temple and Altar. Burning wood or cinders at the altar moves the player up the altar progress track. Doing so provides immediate benefits. It also determines whether the player will be rewarded or penalized at the end of the round. Of course, the farther along the track, the better the reward. Donating wood, stone, or gold to the Temple gives victory points and immediate benefits. Both of these actions are enabled by levites, workers the player has designated to the temple.
A player can perform one of these main actions on each of their turns. They may also place workers on their player board to get resources or banners. This mechanism helps remove the problem of a player being one resource or banner short of doing the really cool thing they want to do.
The game is divided into three rounds, representing weeks. Players take six turns per round. At the end of the round is the Sabbath, which triggers end-of-round scoring. During the Sabbath, players have to feed their workers or take a victory point penalty. They also tuck one or more cards that provide end-of-round victory points.
Six actions. Not to bad, huh? But each of these actions has several requirements that must be met and usually several steps to perform them. Taken separately, none of them are particularly problematic. Put them together, and it gets to be a brain teaser.
Take building a wall section, for example. Say the player does not have all the resources needed to build it. They have to find a section whose rubble will give them the missing resources. But they also have a scroll that means they pay one less stone, so they do not have to worry about that resource. They would still be one resource short of building the section they want to build. They make one of their workers into a trader to get that resource. Now, both clearing rubble and building the section require grey banners. The player is one banner short for doing both. Make another worker into an elder to get two more grey banners. The player both clears the rubble (getting a reward for doing so) and builds the wall (getting another reward). Is the wall next to a gate? Then the player who built the wall and the one who owns the gate both get another reward. Simple, right?
When I play other Garphill games, particularly their more recent ones, I usually have a pretty good idea of what I need to do next. Sometimes it takes two or three turns to get everything I need. Sometimes it is not the best move. But I can figure out what to do, at least in the midterm. In Ezra, it is much less clear cut. Sometimes I knew something I needed to do, particularly near the end of the game when the options for gaining victory points narrows. The path from where I was to where I needed to be was rarely clear. Several times, it was just waiting until I drew the card with the banners I needed. Mostly, I just tried to figure out the best thing I could do this turn or the next turn. There was just too much to consider to look out further.
The solo mode is well done. The AI is reasonably simple to run. It has two steps per AI turn. The first step usually involves a trade. If the AI cannot make the trade, it moves its outside-the-walls tent and takes the reward for that. Several times, I devoted so much attention to the first step that I totally forgot to do the second step. The second step usually involved clearing rubble and rebuilding a wall or a gate. Sometimes, it involved reading a scroll. The card revealed in the first step is used to determine what to rebuild or which scroll to read. There are certainly simpler AIs to run, but it is not as bad as, for example, Scythe’s AI. I appreciate that the AI actually performs game actions. Many very simple AIs just try to get in the player’s way. (Note: Even though I really did not feel in control for most of the game, I finish only a little behind the AI, 63 victory points to its 67.)
The components are standard Garphill components. That is, good quality card and good quality cardboard. The meeples and most resources are wood. The box is the standard, small Garphill box. No plastic, no unnecessary organizer. Even though it was long, the rulebook was exemplary. I did not come across a single rule that I did not understand or a game situation that was not covered. I will say that Ezra seemed to have much more iconography than I am used to from Garphill. Garphill does a good job creating icons that effectively explain themselves. As with the rules, Ezra just has so many!
I have spent most of this review complaining about the game. How do I really rate it? That is tough. Unlike many Garphill games, I certainly will not play this one solo. Just too much to keep track of. As a multiplayer game, I would hate to try to teach it. With the right group of lovers of mid-weight to heavy euros, I think it would be a lot of fun. Because it will be hard to get to the table, I cannot rate it too high. It has to be lower than most of the other Garphill games I’ve played, which are almost all 8s. Since the game works and does not have any serious flaws, I cannot rate it too low. I just cannot bring myself to give it a 7. 7.5, it is!
Den of the Red Wolf 