Ethnos 2nd Edition is prettier than the original, but are the improvements only skin deep?

Things move slowly in the world of board games, and the rumour mill is often turning long before anything actually materializes. This is often true when it comes to remaking older games — and in the case of 2017’s Ethnos, there seem to have been rumours about a new design with better components and brighter artwork since the day it came out. Whatever people had hoped or expected, a remake for Ethnos is finally here — and whilst Ethnos 2nd Edition may not tick all the same boxes, it’s still a jolly good game.

Following the original design by Paolo Mori, Ethnos 2nd Edition is a card-based game in which the players must collect and play sets of either the same colour or the same suited cards in order to advance their dominance in one particular region. The cards feature anamorphic creatures that represent the different clans, but no single player controls a specific clan as such, and this gives Ethnos a slightly challenging theme to explain. 

The cards that players will use to form their sets play a big part in the interest and variability of Ethnos 2nd Edition. There are 12 different sets of cards to choose from, and each game you’ll choose six of them. These include dog and cat sets, the red pandas, the ravens and many more, and each set has a specific ability that changes the rules of play slightly. The ravens allow players to draw extra cards, for example, whilst the fox clan cards allow the player to take tie-breaker tokens that will help you as the game progresses into its later rounds. 

With six sets of cards shuffled together, play begins and is quite straightforward. On their turn a player either takes a card (from the deck or the face-up display) or plays a set. If they play a set, it must be made up of either cards from any set (but all the same colour) or cards from the same set (but of any colour).

Either way, whichever card is placed on top is the leader, and any set-specific bonuses from their set will apply. The player places this set in front of them (face up and splayed out to show its size) and then must discard all their remaining cards to the face up display for other players to pick on later turns. This latter point is crucial to note, as it is the only way that the face up display will be replenished in Ethnos 2nd Edition. 

If the size of the set played is greater than the number of pagodas that the player currently has in a region, they may then place a pagoda down. This means that for your first set, you can play a single card — and then place a pagoda. After this, to place another pagoda in the same region, you’ll need a set of two, then three, etc. Sometimes you’ll still play a set even if you can’t place a pagoda because every set scores points, but the most optimal way to play is to play sets that score lots of points on their own, but also which place a pagoda for you to score later as well.

In theory, just writing about Ethnos 2nd Edition makes it sound a bit fiddly, but it’s actually super straightforward. A number of the clans come with their own boards that feature specific minigames, but even with the extra rules that these bring, there’s nothing here that should cause too much confusion. The game takes place over multiple rounds, with each round ending when all three dragon cards (seeded into the lower half of the deck) have been drawn.

Whilst Ethnos 2nd Edition creates intense head-to-head competition, it’s still a very simple, very fun game that offers lots of flexibility for players and tons of variability due to the 12 sets of clan cards. Players are somewhat led by the cards in their hand, but most hands will offer some flexibility, and Ethnos 2nd Edition creates wonderful tension between “fighting” opponents for control of a single area (with increasingly costly hands) or breaking out of that cycle and changing your focus to a different area.

The artwork in Ethnos 2nd Edition is neither “better” nor “worse” than that of the original Ethnos in my opinion — it’s just completely different. Where the original artwork was a bit dark and dour, it was also created by a legendary artist who has created some of the best fantasy artwork we’ve ever seen. Ethnos 2nd Edition is probably prettier and certainly brighter, but anamorphic animals have been done to death, and I don’t care much for them to be honest.

Overall, Ethnos 2nd Edition is a great game when considered as a standalone product, and given the original game is no longer available, that’s how most people will need to look at it. There is another game that uses a very similar design but with a focus on racing rather than area control (Archaeos Society), and whilst this is also a good game, it doesn’t have the same visual or thematic appeal in my opinion. This is a classic game, redeveloped for a modern audience in a sympathetic and logical way.

Ethnos 2nd Edition is available now from Amazon, among other places.

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