Ankh: Gods of Egypt
Exploring the action selection tracks in Ankh: Gods of Egypt
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Last week we looked at dungeon geomorphs and before that we looked at trick-taking games.
This week I want to dive into one specific part of Eric Lang’s Ankh: Gods of Egypt. I think the action selection mechanism is really interesting!
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Ankh: Gods of Egypt
In Ankh: Gods of Egypt (Lang, 2021) you are one of the ancient Egyptian gods, competing for survival:
Play as a god of ancient Egypt, competing to survive as society begins to forget the old ways, so that only you and your followers remain. Build caravans, summon monsters, and convert followers in your quest to reign supreme in Ankh: Gods of Egypt.
At its core, Ankh is an area majority / influence game on a hex grid map. You move your god and warriors around the map, building/controlling monuments (e.g. pyramids), and resolving battle conflicts.
The game is zero-luck, meaning there are no dice or randomized decks of cards. Even combat is deterministic, using a card-based action retrieval system similar to Kemet (Bariot & Montiage, 2012).
Selecting actions
Turns are surprisingly simple in Ankh. On their turn, players select one or two actions from a list shown on the shared board:
Move Figures
Summon Figure
Gain Followers
Unlock Ankh Power
That part is pretty standard for area control games. The interesting part is the actions are shown as shared tracks on the same, main game board. Each time an action is selected, the marker on the track is advanced one space to the right. The final space of each action track triggers an event, and resets the track back to the beginning.
There are two key rules that apply to selecting actions:
If you trigger an event with your first action, you may not take a second action.
If you take a second action, it has to be lower on the list of actions than the first action (e.g. Summon Figure is below Move Figures).
For example, you can’t Summon Figures and then Move Figures, because Move Figures is higher on the list. Similarly if you choose to Gain Followers, the only second action you could take would be Unlock Ankh Powers.
Triggering events
Events are triggered when one of the action markers on a track reaches the rightmost space. The player who triggered the event gets the benefit.
There are four types of events:
Control Monument (10 events): The player who triggered the event takes control of one of the mouments (i.e. pyramid, obelisk, temple). This is one of the few ways to gain control of structures in the game.
Camel Caravan (3 events): The player who triggered the event split the map into new regions using camel tokens, and potentially change the order in which conflicts are resolved.
Conflict (5 events): Take the tie-breaker token and trigger a conflict (i.e. battle) which is resolved in each area. Winning battles and dominating regions is the most important way to gain points.
The events in the game are strictly limited, as shown by the numbers above. Even then, the game will probably end before all conflicts are resolved.
Missing out on controlling monuments or getting the tie-breaker token early in the game can be devastating.
Hard choices
Ankh’s action selection system creates a tough decision space for players in a way I’m not sure I’ve seen before.
While you have actions you’d like to perform (e.g. summon a new figure), you need to be careful about setting up other players to take the events. As the action track tokens move to the right, someone is going to grab that event. It might be worth passing on an action you want, just to deny the other player the event.
On the other hand, taking an action that triggers an event also ends your turn. You might be able to trigger the event, but you are also losing one of your two actions in a game that is already tight.
Do you take the actions you want, knowing it will set up the other player?
Do you trigger the event yourself, knowing you’ll miss the other half of your turn?
Do you take a suboptimal action, just to set up yourself for events in the future?
It’s such a simple, elegant system but creates strategic depth in a really interesting way. It even has adjustments to the track length for different player counts, ensuring the tension is always there.
Conclusion
Some things to think about:
Rethink area majority combat: While I didn’t talk about it much, it’s fascinating that Ankh is an area majority combat game with warriors on a hex map, and yet it is zero-luck. No dice rolling is required for resolving battles, but they are still tense and exciting. For another example, check out the zero-luck combat in Rising Sun.
New twists on action selection: Every time I think I’ve seen most action selection and worker placement mechanisms, a designer comes up with something new and interesting that I’d never thought of before. The potential for innovation seems endless.
Provide many good options: Ankh does a great job adding player agency by providing many appealing options each turn. It can be a great feeling for players when there are three or four things they can do (all of which would be great) but they can only choose one or two. I’ve found this to be better than choosing the “least bad” action from a list.
I was really happy to get to play Ankh again over the weekend, and I think it will stay on my Top 10 list. I do think, however, it might be time to update the list. Is that something you’d like to see? If so, leave a comment below!
— E.P. 💀
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At first, I thought each player got their own tracker, and I was like, "You pick your actions until you get an event, nbd." But then I realized that there is only ONE tracker, and everyone is picking from it, and things got INTERESTING. It reminds me of other games where you will pass on a good move to avoid setting up a better move for another player, like in Quirkle (Is that a weird pull? Does anyone else play this game?). Very cool mechanic, thanks for the rundown!