Taluva Game Review

Taluva

Taluva is a tile laying game. The tiles are made of a thick cardstock, (like La Citta) and all of them are three hexes in size, with each tile showing a volcano and then different terrain types on the the other two hexes. The buildings are nicely shaped wooden pieces.

Each turn players lay a tile and place a building. When all the tiles are played or a player uses up 2 of the three building types the game ends and the player with most temples wins.

Initially, this leaves you with a feeling of 'Is that it?', but this deceptively simple game has more to it.
When you lay a tile one of thick volcano tiles, it has to lay adjacent to already placed tiles. If you want to build upwards, the volcano space must lie on top of an already placed volcano space and its lava flow, must be in a different direction. This prevents one tile being laid directly on top of another tile. Also, the tile must have tiles spaces under it. Furthermore, you may cover huts that have been placed, but you cannot completely cover a settlement. Oh, and you cannot place a tile on a temple or tower at all. This means as the game progresses you really have to think about where you place these tiles.
Then there are the buildings. Generally, buildings can be placed on any unoccupied space, except for volcano spaces. As you must always place 1 or more buildings after placing a tile, you can either place a hut, temple, or tower or expand a settlement. Again, this isn't as simple as it sounds.
A hut is placed on a level 1 space - this starts a settlement.
A tower can only be placed on a level 3 or higher space adjacent to a settlement, provided that settlement doesnt have a tower already.
A temple can be placed adjacent to a settlement, provided that settlement is at least 3 spaces in size and does not already have a temple.
An existing settlement can be expanded by choosing a landscape type and then placing huts in all of that type adjacent to the settlement, 1 hut on level 1, 2 on level 2, 3 on level 3, etc.

So again, you have some choices to make in placing buildings too, bearing in mind the object is to have the most temples, of which you have three, so you will need three settlements.
You also have to watch that you do not run out a buildings as well, as if you cannot play a building then you are out of the game!

SUMMARY

Taluva is a deceptively simple tile laying game, but it has some subtle game play depths that are not at first so obvious. The game takes less than an hour to play and is a good light game for 2 to 4 players.

Review by Brian