Terra Mystica: Is this game AWESOME or what?

We liked it so much we played TWICE in 1 session!

If you can't tell by now, I really love this game. The first time I played it I was going "wow.. this is such a meaty game and I can feel my brain going overtime working out the various combinations and things I can do to be in the best position to score points and I can feel it melting out of my ears but WOW... I love this game!"


Terra Mystica is definitely heavy weight Euro-style game but with an interesting fantasy theme to the game. Even though there seems to be 2 distinct tracks to score points, the buildings and the temple tracks, during your turns, there seems to be so many possibilities of what you want to do but are limited by what you can do. Especially with other players also vying for the same resources and actions, it creates a lot of tension in the game. Add the different races which will provide different starting bonuses and in game bonuses, there is quite a fair bit of replayability in the game. Coming soon is also an expansion which adds 2 new player boards and 4 new races to choose from and I will certainly look forward to those.
In our first game, I decided to play the Giants as I have heard this is one of the harder races to play and boy was it tough. On the first turn I managed to upgrade my spades to only 1 cube each spade but was kinda stuck in rounds 2 and 3. This first game saw many people passing rather early and the player who had the Swarmlings having several turns after. I did not win but I wasn't last so that's a bonus for me I guess? I think my biggest mistake could have been at the start when I rushed to get the cost of terraforming down. I could have build my stronghold instead and gotten the 2 spade bonus which would have given me a free terraforming instead.
We liked the game so much that after a few other games, we decided to play a 3 player afterwards and took about 2 hours to finish. I took the Engineers this time and my aim was to quickly start scoring points for the bridges. Way I see it, If i could pull it off, I will be scoring 3-6-6-9-9-9 for a total of 42 points. In reality though, I only managed 0-0-3-3-6-6-6 for a total of 24 so slightly decent only. I was majorly screwed in the final round when player playing the Fakir took up a spot which prevented me from being able to build 2 more dwellings AND a bridge thus giving me another 3 points in the end. We were VERY close near the end with me being last by only 1 point. The player with the Swarmlings did pretty well and it seems to be a very powerful race.
All in all, a very great 2 sessions that I have had and I really want to bring this out more times. Perhaps after my brain has reconstituted itself :p Recommended!