Tikal is the most important and largest of the Mayan sites. It is located in the midst of impenetrable jungle in northern Guatemala. The Mayans lived in Tikal from 600BC to 900AD, but little is known of this civilization that thrived there for 1500 years.

This is the setting for this treasure hunt game. You search the jungle looking for hidden temples and treasures for which you score during four scoring rounds. The expedition with most points wins.

The board depicts a jungle covered area of a forest. The 36 terrain hexagons are shuffled after being divided into 7 piles. These tiles are beautifully pictured. As each is played it reveals pathways and clearings in the jungle. You really do get a sense of the jungle slowly being hacked down to reveal its tresures. Hidden within the terrain hexagons are 3 volcano tiles. Each time one of these are revealed a scoring round occurs.

Each player takes a set of pieces in their chosen colour. This consists of 1 expedition leader, 18 workers and 2 camps. Each player also takes a turn summary card. This is double-sided as the game has a basic version and a more strategic auction version.

Play consists of drawing the topmost terrain tile, placing it on the board and the using 10 action points to explore Tikal. This procedure continues in turn until the volcano appears.
Terrain hexagons have one or more stones in one or more of their hex sides. Expeditions can only move through Tikal by crossing these stones. No stones - no movement. Hexagons are placed so they are adjacent to already placed hexagons. This of course can be used offensively to block another player or make it expensive for another player to move. Those 10 Action Points(AP) don't go far. They can also be used defensively as well to block other players from reaching your rich pickings that you have uncovered.

There are four types of terrain tile.
Jungle clearing where camps can be placed,
Temples,which are overgrown but can be uncovered to make them more valuable,
Treasure, where the treasure wafers are placed. Collecting sets of treasures earns you more points
Volcano, this triggers a scoring round. Also, expeditions cannot move through a volcano terrain, even if stones lead to one.

Each player has 10 AP to spend over 7 actions. Those AP are never enough to do everything you want. You can guarantee a volcano will turn up just when you are setting things up to earn points too!

Placing an expedition member in a camp or moving it from camp to camp costs 1 AP. But then it also costs 1AP per stone you cross to move from hex to hex. As there can be as many as three stones on a path, put this with another hex with three stones and it costs a massive 6AP to move just one expedition member from hex to hex along that path!

A player can uncover up to 2 levels of a temple if he has workers in that temple hex, 1 level per worker, but this costs 2AP per level.

A worker can recover a treasure if in the same hex. This costs 3AP

See what I mean? Those 10AP are soon used up, making each turn a challenge as to just how you should spend those AP.

If another player has a lone treasure, not part of a set, you can spend 3AP and exchange that treasure for one of your treasures.

Now for the expensive stuff! To establish a new camp in a jungle clearing costs 5AP - half your allowed AP for a turn! This cost is countered though because it could cost you much more than that to move through the jungle. You can place a worker in camp for just 1AP. It's assumed he knows secret paths through the jungle to reach it. But you only get two of these, so timing when and where to put them is all important. Especially in a four player game.

The other costly item is placing a guard on a temple, which also costs 5AP. The advantage here is that with a guard in place, that temple is yours for scoring for the rest of the game, but it cannot be uncovered anymore and made more valuable. Only one temple can reach level 10 and one can reach level 9. The temple tiles actually get smaller as they are piled up, thus forming a mini-temple. Very pleasing to look at.

When a Volcano appears, a scoring round occurs. But first, you get to have 10AP. Temples are scored by the level they have reached for the player with the biggest force in its hex. Treasures are also scored - 1 is worth 1 point, 2 are worth 3 and three are worth 6. Then scoring passes to the next player who also gets 10AP to spend before scoring. As you can see, its therefore quite possible for a temple to be scored more than once as each player moves workers into a temple hex.

Once all hexagons are placed, there is another scoring round and then the game ends. The winner is whoever has most points. SUMMARY:
We have played this three times so far. Each time the result was different. It plays just as well with 2, 3 or 4 players, although with 2 players you tend to just carve up the jungle between you and hope the tiles are in your favour. The auction game is probably better in this respect. Tiles are turned face up each round for the number of players in the game. You actually use your Victory points as 'currency' to bid for the tiles on view, with each player starting on 20 points. Highest bidder gets to select one of the face up tiles to play. I've not tried playing it this way, as each game played so far was a learning game as I introduced new players to the game. Must try it sometime. If you enjoy this type of game, then you won't be dissappointed by adding this to your collection.

Review by Brian