Pax Pamir 2nd Edition Review

Pax Pamir is a big game in a relatively small box. Players are competing for supremacy of 19th century Afghanistan. Each player is the leader of a tribe and they'll be shifting allegiances to foreign powers as the game goes, utilizing their armies and roads for power. Each turn, players have 2 actions. They can buy cards from the market, play cards, or do actions on the cards in their tableaus. When you buy cards, simply put a coin on any in front and add it to your hand. If you play a card, you'll put it in your tableau and do whatever it says for the region of the card. Be careful because if you play a card that is for a coalition you aren't aligned with you'll be forced to align with them and discard anything in your tableau that isn't for them. Not necessarily a bad thing though at times. If you play a cards actions, these range from building to assassinating other cards. After your turn, you'll shift the market and the next player goes. To score points, one country needs to be dominant. There are 4 dominance check cards that are in the deck. In order to be dominant, a coalition needs to have 4 more of their pieces out than the others. Players will score points depending on their tribes and prizes for their coalitions. In the final dominance check, the points double. The game ends after the last check or if a player is ever 4 points ahead of the others.

Players can also include the Wakhan if they choose to do so. This acts as an ai player and can be played both solo or with additional human players, especially at lower counts. Wakhan is loyal to each coalition so no matter who is technically winning, they'll always be in the running. They function somewhat similarly to a regular player with their obvious restrictions to whatever is on the card.

The Good: The general flow of Pax Pamir is really simplistic. It's the overall strategy at the granular level where things get a lot more intense. Deciding the right time to switch allegiances, what cards you should play, when to do specific actions are where the tough choices come in. I love a game full of difficult choices. It's interesting how the different suits actually help you in increasing hand size and tableau size. The most stars you have in your court, the more you can have. It works really well. It also needs to be mentioned how gorgeous this game is. The woven mat and resin pieces are amazing. I need to get the metal coins just because cardboard doesn't do it justice.

The Okay: I explained the game at a high level in my intro. Seems easy enough to teach, right? This is one of the more difficult games I've needed to teach and learn. The actions on cards and the concept of allegiances aren't the easiest to concepts to grasp. Especially as a new player on your first game. I didn't mention spies, taxation, or prizes for reason above. They make sense when you understand the nuances but they're really hard to grasp at first.

The Not So Good: At two players, there's not as much tension as you'd like to see. It plays much better with more people and a fuller map. It makes it a lot easier to plan ahead when you know there's only one person in front of you every single turn. Think you can easily win a dominance check? Just buy it now so your opponent has no chance to even recover. For this reason, a two player game can be a lot faster than you'd anticipate. For added intrigue, you can add in the Wakhan to help move the game along and add in an additional level of allegiance when the coalition checks come up.

Final Thoughts: Cole Wehrle continues to be one of my favorite designers. I love that this takes a historical approach opposed to the fantastical approach that Root or Oath has (no complaints either way). Pax Pamir was exactly the type of game I was looking for. It looks like a war game but it feels like a traditional area control/tableau builder. There's a learning curve, sure but when you understand the game, you'll want to setup all over again and play some more.

Thanks to Wehrlegig Games for sending along a review copy.