Review: Theocratia

Introducción

Sometimes, eternity can feel endless. So, to cope with the boredom, you and your friends make a little bet: you give yourselves a couple of thousand years to interfere in the lives of the inhabitants of a distant planet. Once time runs out, the alien who has earned the most affection and admiration wins the bet.

This is how Theocratia is presented to us, a design by Daniele Tascini (Transgalactica) and Daniel Marinangeli (his first game). First published in 2026 by Mojito Studios in an English version following a crowdfunding campaign. The illustrations are handled by Andrew Bosley (Everdell, Tapestry).

It is published in Spain by Maldito Games (the game has some language dependence on the power cards, in addition to the rulebook). It allows for games of 1 to 4 players, with a suggested minimum age of 10 and an approximate duration of 60 minutes. The retail price is €40. For this review, a review copy of the Spanish version from Maldito Games was used, which the publisher itself kindly provided.

Importante: si ya conoces el juego y/o sólo te interesa mi opinión sobre el mismo, puedes pasar directamente al apartado de Opinión. Los apartados Contenido y Mecánica están destinados especialmente a aquellos que no conocen el juego y prefieren hacerse una idea general de cómo funciona.

Ir a la Opinión Personal

Contenido

Inside a two-piece cardboard box (lid and bottom), measuring 29.7×29.7×7.2 cm (standard square box like Ticket to Ride), we find the following elements:

• Central Board (cardboard)
• Temple Board (cardboard)
• 16 Priests (4 of each color) (wooden)
• 4 Fortresses (1 of each color) (wooden)
• 8 Pyramids (2 of each color) (wooden)
• 12 Factories (3 of each color) (wooden)
• 12 Barracks (3 of each color) (wooden)
• 20 Houses (5 of each color) (wooden)
• 40 Warriors (10 of each color) (wooden)
• 4 Chronicles (1 of each color) (cardboard with plastic washers)
• 12 Dice (3 of each color) (wooden)
• Dice Bag (cloth)
• 16 Conversion Tiles (4 of each color) (cardboard)
• 4 Cosmo Markers (1 of each color) (wooden)
• 4 Penalty Markers (1 of each color) (wooden)
• 62 Cards (45×68 mm):
  • 24 Power Cards
  • 5 Round Bonus Cards
  • 4 Civilization Development Cards
  • End of Round Card
  • 28 Solo Mode Cards
• 96 Crystal Cubes (15 in player colors, 20 neutral, and 16 pollution cubes) (plastic)
• 13 Pyramid Tokens (cardboard)
• 2 First Player Tokens (cardboard)
• 7 Plains Monsters (wooden)
• 3 Desert Monsters (wooden)
• Solo Mode Board
• Rulebook

Mecánica

Theocratia is a game in which players assume the role of advanced aliens competing to become the most revered deity, influencing the destiny of four civilizations developing on a hexagonal board. The game is played over five rounds in which dice are drawn and rolled from a bag to determine the actions available in the supply based on their numerical value. During their turns, players alternate selecting these dice to assign them to a civilization’s row, receiving valuable Cosmo or Worship bonuses if the color of the die matches the chosen faction. With these forces, it is possible to command civilizations to expand with new houses on hexagons of the player’s color, upgrade those structures into barracks to recruit warriors or into factories to generate crystals, unleash war to destroy or convert enemy settlements, or erect majestic pyramids by sacrificing groups of connected buildings. Likewise, players can forgo the die action to declare festivities that grant the massive favor of the people or resort to flexible divination in exchange for receiving penalties. At the end of each round, the factions perform an additional automated development dictated by their progress cards. Finally, the final scoring is executed where pyramids grant advancements on the tracks and remaining Cosmo adds direct points; after the mandatory step of discarding the priest who has advanced the furthest in the temple, the level reached in the chronicles of each remaining civilization is multiplied by the value of its respective worship track, subtracting the points from the penalty track. The player with the highest total score is proclaimed the winner.

Conceptos Básicos

Let’s start with the Central Board. It shows an island-shaped map divided into hexagonal spaces of different colors representing different types of terrain associated with the players, plus an inactive volcano in the center. On the left side, we find the action table organized by value, and on the right, the civilization selection area, which contains four specific rows where the activation dice are organized and placed. In the upper corners, we find reference tables.

For its part, the Temple Board is placed next to the main board and centralizes the management of player status and game progress. It shows a series of independent vertical tracks dedicated to each of the civilizations (each associated with a terrain type), a horizontal track to record penalties, and a set of numbered spaces intended to mark the rounds (where cards will be placed). Each track shows a series of multipliers every few rows that will be taken into account in the final scoring.

Moving on, the Cosmo Markers are small discs for each player located on the vertical tracks of the Temple Board. They serve to indicate the cosmic energy reserve or divinity points available to each participant. This resource acts as the player’s currency, which increases through die-matching bonuses and is consumed directly to alter die results, claim unlocked terrain tiles, or fund the activation costs of festivities on the map.

On the other hand, we have the Penalty Markers, which are discs positioned on the penalty track of the temple board. They serve to cumulatively record the negative points that players receive due to their mystical interferences, such as when performing divination actions or consuming harmful crystals during celebrations. The marker advances along the track, subtracting direct points, and if it exceeds the printed limit, it is flipped to indicate a higher fixed penalty before restarting its path from the starting space.

Conversion Tiles allow players to alter the sovereignty and nature of the island’s terrain; a player can spend cosmic energy on these tiles and, in a subsequent action, place them on a map hexagon, immediately transforming it to their own player color to enable expansions, or use them during a military attack to assimilate and bring an enemy building under their control instead of destroying it.

An important element is the Dice, divided equally into the four colors of the civilizations (three dice per color). They are drawn at random from a cloth bag at the start of each round, rolled, and displayed in the action selection area according to the numerical value obtained, which determines exactly which action (from 1 to 6) can be executed. Players claim them in turns to place them in the civilization rows, thereby activating the corresponding move and granting additional energy bonuses if the color of the die matches that of the destination row, keeping in mind that it is not allowed to place dice with equal values in the same civilization row. It is important to note that it is not mandatory to use dice of the same color as a civilization to perform actions with it.

Another key element is the Priests, which are pawns associated with the four civilizations. At the start of the game, they are placed on the starting space of their respective tracks on the Temple Board. Their sole functional purpose is to act as devotion markers, moving up the worship tracks whenever a player performs an action that increases their influence or favor with that specific civilization, reflecting the scoring level achieved with each of them at the end of the game. Each player will have one pawn of each civilization to progress along its track on the temple board.

Each civilization has a Fortress, which represents the capital or original core of each culture. They act as the starting point for the deployment of civilizations, serving as the axis for adjacent expansion actions, with the peculiarity that they are permanent structures that cannot be destroyed or converted by any military action.

As the first expansion structure, we have Houses, the smallest and most numerous building pieces of the civilizations. They represent basic settlements and are placed on free hexagons on the map that are adjacent to other structures of the same faction through the expansion action. They serve as the fundamental unit of territorial growth for civilizations on the island, also acting as the indispensable prerequisite that players must possess on their lands to be able to replace and evolve them into factories or barracks.

Moving on to Factories, which enter play by replacing an existing house on a hexagon belonging to the active player’s color. They allow for the production of crystals; at the moment of their construction, and each time their corresponding action is activated, the factory generates a crystal of the color of the terrain it occupies and deposits it into its civilization’s reserve, also triggering a chain production that benefits all active factories of that same culture and the player’s properties on the map.

Similarly, we have Barracks, which also enter play by replacing an existing house on a hexagon belonging to the active player’s color. Their construction or subsequent activation causes the immediate recruitment of troops, taking warrior figures from the civilization’s general supply and transferring them directly to its active reserve on the board so they can be used in future incursions or conversions.

Warriors are cubes that represent the armed force of the peoples. These pieces start in the reserve areas and are transferred to the active supplies in the action rows through the use of barracks. They operate as a military resource that is consumed to execute offensive actions; players must spend specific amounts of these figures to remove monsters from the map, raid enemy settlements, or carry out the cultural conversion of rival buildings, depositing them after use into the corresponding chronicles.

To represent the progress of civilizations, we have the Chronicles, which are small booklets or sets of pages numbered 0 to 7 individually assigned to each of the four civilizations, initially showing only their cover page. Each page includes a series of empty spaces and printed tables with score multipliers. They act as the historical record of that people’s development; as players wage war or declare festivities, they fill the gaps on the visible page with the spent warriors or consumed crystals, and once completed, the page is turned to reveal a new level of development that will increase the victory point value granted by that civilization at the end of the game.

As the last element, we have Pyramids, large monumental structures. These are added to the map by replacing an advanced building (factory or barracks) whenever the condition of removing a group of three adjacent buildings of the same culture is met. Their functional role consists of granting the builder an immediate bonus by obtaining special tokens and accelerating the progress of the civilization’s chronicles; on the other hand, they remain unalterable on the map, protecting the hexagon against attacks, boosting the acquisition of worship during festivities, and granting advancement steps in the temples during final scoring.

Upon building a pyramid, players can choose one of the Pyramid Tokens. These serve as rewards obtained upon finishing the construction of a pyramid on the map or when a player manages to bring a first priest to the top end of a worship track. The player can choose one of the available tokens to immediately obtain its printed benefit, flipping it to its reverse side to record the limit of monuments allowed per player.

The factories are related to the Crystals, which are divided into player colors, a green neutral resource type, and contaminated black variants. Initially, they are scattered across the map hexagons that match their color and are harvested into the civilizations’ reserves when building settlements. They serve as the cultures’ material resource; they accumulate in their storage areas and are consumed to declare festivities, being deposited in the chronicle books and granting temple points or penalties depending on the color of the crystal used.

Monsters are placed on the hexagons of the Central Board that show their symbol during game setup. They act as geographical obstacles, blocking access to those spaces and preventing any attempt at expansion or construction on them. They remain fixed on the map until a player orders a civilization to perform a war action, requiring the expenditure of a warrior to eliminate them and granting the draw of a power card as a reward.

Round Bonus Cards are randomly deployed face up in the spaces designated for each round on the Temple Board during setup. Each of these cards shows the icon of a main game action. Their function is to establish a temporary reward for the current round, granting an extra worship point in the corresponding temple to any player who successfully executes that action during the current round.

Civilization Development Cards are initially placed next to each culture’s reserve areas. During the resolution phase at the end of each round, they dictate an automated and independent action that the civilization must perform on its own. Once all are resolved, the cards physically shift from right to left, changing civilizations for the subsequent round.

The First Player Tokens and the End of Round Card are phase-management components located in reserved spaces on the central board. The first player tokens regulate the turn order of the participants, being passed to the player who decides to activate the action of value one. For its part, the End of Round Card is claimed along with the die placed on it and grants its holder the functional right to execute an additional expansion action in favor of the civilization indicated by that die just before starting the collective development phase.

Lastly, Power Cards offer alternatives and exceptions to the standard rules; players can play them during their turns to activate the special effects printed on them by paying their energy cost, or discard them directly without applying their text to bypass the restriction preventing the repetition of the same action consecutively or to change the elemental color of a selected die. They are obtained by fighting monsters, suffering the loss of advanced buildings, or executing specific actions, keeping them hidden in their hand.

That is enough for the concepts.

Preparación de la Partida

1. Place the game board on the table and the temple board to one side.
2. Place a priest of each civilization on its starting space, just below the scoring area, on each of the temple tracks.
3. Place all dice inside the provided bag and leave it next to the game board.
4. Separate the components of the civilizations by color into four distinct civilization areas within reach of all players.
5. Place each civilization’s chronicle booklets so that only the first page is visible, adjusting it according to the number of players: showing page zero for four players, page one for three players, or page two for two players.
6. Place the four civilization fortresses on the board hexagons showing their respective symbol.
7. Add two barracks and two factories to the hexagons with their symbols adjacent to their corresponding fortress to complete the initial setup.
8. Give the two civilizations starting with a barracks one neutral crystal for their area and two warriors for their reserve, while the two civilizations starting with a factory receive two neutral crystals and one warrior.
9. Place a crystal of the corresponding color on each hexagon of the board according to the terrain type, excluding volcanoes, deserts, and spaces occupied by initial buildings; leave the remaining crystals aside in a shared supply.
10. Place four contaminated black crystals and one warrior from each of the four civilizations in each of the round spaces on the temple board.
11. Distribute the plains and desert monsters on the hexagons showing their corresponding icons.
12. Position the players’ cosmo markers on the zero space of their temple tracks.
13. Place the penalty markers on the zero space of their respective tracks with the blank side face up.
14. Shuffle the four civilization development cards and place one in each civilization area.
15. Shuffle the five round bonus cards and randomly place one in each round space on the temple board.
16. Shuffle the deck of power cards, deal one in secret to each player, and place the rest face down near the board, leaving space for a discard pile.
17. Place the end-of-round bonus card and the next round’s first player token in the corresponding area of the main board.
18. Display the pyramid tokens face up in a common supply. In three-player games, remove one copy of any duplicate token.
19. Each player chooses a color and receives their initial conversion tile, while the remaining unlockable tiles are placed on the marked spaces of the temple board at a rate of one tile per player.
20. Choose the first player at random, who receives the first player token for the current round.
21. Starting with the first player and following the color order, players adjust their initial cosmo markers: the first player advances to space two, the second and third to space three, and the fourth starts with four cosmo.
22. Starting with the last player and moving in reverse order, each player chooses a civilization that has not been chosen by anyone and places a house of that civilization on the hexagon of their own color adjacent to the corresponding fortress; in three- or two-player games, the unchosen civilizations will build their houses on the hexagons of the unused player colors.
23. Each player collects the crystal that was on the hexagon where they just built their house and deposits it in the chosen civilization’s area.

We are ready to begin!

Desarrollo de la Partida

A game of Theocratia takes place over 5 rounds (4 rounds in 2-player games) consisting of three phases.

Phase I: Setup

In this phase, proceed as follows:

1. Roll the dice that will form the common supply (9 dice for 4 players, 7 dice for 3 and 2 players). If, after rolling, there are more than 3 dice with the same value, the excess ones are increased by one value point. A six turns into a one. In case of five or more dice, repeated colors are chosen.
2. In 2- and 3-player games, a die is rolled and placed in the leftmost space of the corresponding civilization track. In 2-player games, this civilization expands by placing a house on a space of a terrain type not controlled by the players (this must alternate between rounds). In 3-player games, this occurs in rounds I, III, and V.
3. In 2- and 3-player games, a second die is rolled and placed in the leftmost space of the corresponding civilization track. It must be for a different civilization than the one in the previous step. This civilization does not expand.
4. A final die is placed on the end of round card.

Phase II: Actions

This phase takes place over two action rounds. In each round, starting with the first player and continuing clockwise, each player takes a turn.

On their turn, the active player must perform the following steps in order:

• Choose and assign a die. The player takes an available die from the action table and places it in the leftmost free space of the row of the civilization they wish to activate. A die cannot be placed adjacent to another with the same number, unless a Power card is discarded to ignore this restriction. If the color of the die matches that of the civilization, the player immediately obtains a matching bonus (Cosmo, Worship, or both, depending on the position).
• Perform the corresponding action. The player executes the action indicated by the die number using the chosen civilization. Before resolving it, they can spend Cosmo to modify the die face (with the restriction that a 6 can never be transformed into a 1, nor vice versa), at a cost of 2 cosmo points for each point added to or subtracted from the die. If the action is incentivized according to the bonus card of the current round, the player obtains an additional worship point in the civilization where they execute the action.

After this, the turn passes to the next player. The phase ends once the two action rounds are completed.

The main actions available based on the die value are:

• Value 1: First Player Action. It does not affect the activated civilization (except for the color bonus). The player takes the first player token for the next round. Furthermore, if available, they can claim the End of Round Bonus card (along with the die on top of it); otherwise, they draw a Power card. Finally, they obtain 1 Cosmo point.
• Value 2: War/Conversion. Allows the civilization to attack a target on the map by spending warriors from its supply (it does not have to be adjacent to a structure of that civilization). Depending on the target, the player must use a certain number of warriors (1/2/3 warriors for monsters/houses/advanced buildings (factories or barracks)). The target is removed from the board and the spent warriors are placed in the civilization’s chronicles. The active player gains 1 worship point for that civilization (and any other player with a barracks of that civilization also gains 1). Alternatively, if the player owns a Conversion tile, they can perform a Conversion, and instead of destroying the building, the player’s tile is placed underneath it. If the building belonged to another player, a Compensation is triggered (the defender gains a worship point in the attacked civilization, a power card if it was an advanced building, and the most expensive conversion tile if it was converted).
• Value 3: Expand. The player takes a House from the civilization’s supply and places it on a free hexagon of their own color that is adjacent to another building of that same civilization. The crystal that was on the hexagon is transferred to the civilization’s reserve. The player can use a Conversion tile to change the color of a neutral hexagon before building.
• Value 4: Upgrade to a Factory. The player chooses a House of that civilization located on one of their hexagons, returns it to the supply, and replaces it with a Factory. This Factory immediately produces 1 crystal of the player’s color for the civilization. Furthermore, all other Factories of that same civilization produce a crystal (based on the terrain where they are located) and all factories of the active player on the board produce a crystal of their color for their respective civilizations.
• Value 5: Upgrade to a Barracks. The player replaces a House of that civilization on one of their hexagons with a Barracks. This new Barracks and all others belonging to the same civilization train a Warrior, which is added to that civilization’s Warrior supply.
• Value 4 or 5: Build a Pyramid. If a player has an advanced building (Factory or Barracks) of the civilization and it forms part of a group of 3 adjacent buildings of that same civilization, they can remove the 3 buildings to build a Pyramid in place of their advanced building (the owners of the other two buildings receive compensation as if they had been attacked). The active player obtains 1 Worship point, turns the page of the civilization’s Chronicles (removing any cubes on the current page), and receives a Pyramid token with immediate benefits. Each player can only build 2 Pyramids per game (3 in 2-player games), and each civilization can only have two pyramids.
• Value 6: Divination. The player advances one step on their penalty track. In exchange, they can transform the die into any value from 1 to 5 and execute the corresponding action following the usual rules.
• Alternatively to resolving the action associated with the die, the player can Declare a Day of Festivity if the die matches the color of the civilization (or by using a Power card to ignore it). The size of the civilization is calculated (all its buildings except Pyramids) and the player must pay that amount in cosmo points. Additionally, they will have to place as many crystals from the civilization’s supply onto the chronicle booklet as the size of the civilization. When placing a crystal of another player, that player obtains a worship point in that civilization. Placing neutral or one’s own cubes has no reward. And placing corrupt crystals causes the player to advance one step on the penalty track for each of these crystals. Finally, the player gains as much worship as the civilization has Houses plus 1 (for the fortress), and all players with pyramids in that civilization gain 1 worship point.

Phase III: Civilization Development

Proceed as follows:

1. The holder of the End of Round Bonus card resolves its effect (an additional Expansion action for the civilization indicated by the die on the card).
2. Starting with the leftmost civilization, the effect of its assigned Development card is applied (Expansion, Day of Festivity, or Nothing), granting the corresponding Worship points to the eligible players.
3. The Development cards shift from right to left, moving the leftmost one to the last position on the right.

After this, a new round begins.

Fin de la Partida

The game ends after completing the fifth round (the fourth in 2-player games), proceeding directly to the final scoring phase. When evaluating a player’s score, the following are added:

• The value of the first Temple multiplier located below the Cosmo marker.
• Each owned pyramid grants 1 worship point for the civilization the player chooses, advancing their corresponding priest one space on the Temple track.
• The priest that is furthest advanced on the Temple tracks is removed from the game, completely ignoring that civilization’s score for the final tally. In case of a tie, the player chooses which one to ignore.
• For each remaining priest in play, the number of the current page visible in their Civilization Chronicles is multiplied by the last multiplier reached by that priest on their Temple track.
• The victory points indicated on the space where the player’s penalty marker is located are subtracted.

The player who has accumulated the most points will be the winner, and in case of a tie, the involved players will share the victory.

Variantes

Solo Mode. The player competes against a divine bot managed by a custom deck of cards. The game takes place over four rounds of three turns each, in which the player takes their turn in the usual manner and then yields control to the bot. This bot acts through a card system: at the start of the round, two cards are prepared on its board and, during its turn, a third is revealed; the arrow printed on this new card determines which of the previous two is finally executed. Following the guidelines of the selected card, the bot takes a die from the supply, assigns it to a civilization, and executes the indicated action, ignoring most resource or row space restrictions that limit the human player. After resolving the effect, the bot progresses on its worship tracks, the used card is discarded, and the remaining ones shift for the next turn. When the rounds are exhausted, a standard score count is performed to determine if the player has managed to defeat the artificial deity.

Opinión Personal

The theme of co-authorship has always been something that caught my attention in the world of board games, especially because it’s hard to distribute merit among the designers. When, for example, you think of War of the Ring (here is its tocho-review), it is common to wonder which of the three authors, Di Meglio, Maggi, or Nepitello, carried more weight in the development.

Not because we need to reward whoever had a greater importance in the creative process in some special way, but rather to pay closer attention to those authors when they design solo or alongside different authors. Which brings us to one of the authors responsible for the game at hand today.

You see, Daniele Tascini has made a name for himself within the gaming scene by accumulating titles in his famous “T-Series,” which share the common thread of being medium-heavy Eurogames focused on civilizations and having the Italian author involved in their development. But normally, he is not alone. It is very noticeable when Simone Luciani is in the mix compared to when he isn’t.

We are going to check if in this Theocratia we once again miss good old Simone Luciani keeping the designer born in Porto San Giorgio on a short leash. But first, it’s time to thank Maldito Games for providing the review copy that enables this wall of text you’ve just started to digest.

In Theocratia, each player will assume the role of an alien entity seeking to shape fledgling civilizations on a young planet and, along the way, get them to worship them as a superior being. But of course, the universe is vast, and we are not alone in our task; other alien entities will compete for the religious attention of this world’s inhabitants.

Mechanically, we find an action selection system via a dice draft in the purest Grand Austria Hotel style (here is its tocho-review). At the start of each of the rounds that make up the game, a set of dice will be rolled which, depending on the value they show, will allow one action or another to be executed.

The main difference compared to most games featuring this system is that here, the color of each die is what matters. These will be associated with the four civilizations and, if a die is used to resolve an action with the civilization it is associated with, the player will get a reward in cosmo points and/or worship points.

These last ones are the most important in the game, as they will largely determine each player’s final score. These worship points will translate into advancements of pawns (priests) on each player’s individual scoring track, which will represent one of four elements, namely: water, earth, fire, and wind (primitive deities for the world’s inhabitants).

At the end of the game, each player will score points based on the highest multiplier they have passed on their track with each priest, applying that multiplier to the chronicles of the corresponding civilization. These chronicles are books whose pages determine an amount of points for each multiplier. These pages will be turned as the civilization develops, whether by celebrating festivities, fighting monsters or other civilizations, or building large pyramids.

It is important to note that each player will only score for three of the four civilizations, since the one where they progressed the furthest with their priest will be discarded in the final scoring, so one must try to progress in a balanced way across all civilizations. A very Knizia-esque scoring system.

Right, so we have the premise. Thus, players must essentially advance their priest pawns and, in parallel, develop the civilizations so that these priests provide the greatest number of points possible in the final tally, which brings us to the actions that can be executed.

These essentially allow civilizations to expand. Thus, out of the seven possible actions we can resolve, four are destined for territorial expansion. With one of them, we can expand the number of spaces a civilization occupies by placing a new house on an empty space. Here, it is important to discuss what is understood as controlling a space.

As I have already said, in Theocratia, from the point of view of the inhabitants of each civilization, players are deities associated with elements. Most of the spaces on the board will be associated with one of these elements. Thus, building a house on a certain space implies that the player who controls the element represented on that space controls that element. It could be interpreted that the inhabitants of the structure placed on that space are worshippers of the deity associated with the element represented there.

For this reason, one of the actions will allow attacking spaces that are not associated with the element controlled by the player, whether they are monsters (to free up neutral spaces upon which to build) or structures of other civilizations (either to destroy them or to convert them into structures of the volcanic/attacking civilization).

The warriors used in these attacks are represented by cubes available in each civilization’s individual supply. Depending on the target, the required number of warriors will vary, with no possibility for the defender to do anything to prevent the attack. All used warriors will pass into the annals of history for that civilization, being placed in the chronicle book and, if the current page is filled, moving on to the next. In addition, the active player, as well as anyone with barracks of the attacking civilization, will obtain worship points when this action is resolved.

Returning to development actions, civilizations can occupy new spaces by building houses which can later, through other actions, be upgraded into factories (allowing the manufacture of crystal cubes) or barracks (allowing the training of new soldiers). When building a factory, all factories of that civilization as well as those controlled by the player will produce a cube of the element associated with each space occupied by one of these factories, whereas for barracks, as many warriors as the player possesses in that civilization will be trained.

The ultimate goal of this expansion and development is to be able to erect large pyramids to worship the gods. Thus, through another available action, the player can build a pyramid if they have at least one upgraded building (factory or barracks) and it forms part of a group of at least three spaces with buildings of the same civilization. The upgraded building becomes a pyramid (allowing them to gain a bonus and advance in the civilization’s chronicle book automatically) and the other two buildings are removed from the board (bonusing the players who controlled them as if they had been attacked).

Another available action is to take the initiative for the next round, so that the last one to execute it will be the new first player. All in all, it seems more important to me to be the first to execute it in a specific round, since it allows expanding a marked civilization at the beginning of the game for free (obviously, it will be in the interest to expand it to a space belonging to the player who gains this privilege).

The last available action, which is not associated with any die value, is to celebrate a day of festivity. This action allows the player—in exchange for paying cosmo points (which at the end of the game will also provide victory points and during the game will serve to obtain terrain replacement tiles to perform conversions or to change die values)—based on the size of the civilization, to place crystals onto its chronicle book according to said size to advance to the next page and obtain worship points equal to the number of houses (and only houses) of that civilization. In addition, players with pyramids in this civilization will also obtain worship points.

In addition to building pyramids and attacking other spaces, players can obtain worship points through two additional and perhaps most recurrent ways during the game. The first is by resolving actions with a civilization using dice of its same color, which allows activating the bonus in the corresponding action space (in two of these spaces, a worship point is obtained).

On the other hand, in each round there will be an incentivized action associated with the construction of the four types of structures and attacking. Every time a player resolves the incentivized action in the current round, they will get an additional worship point in that civilization, Terra Mystica style (here is its tocho-review), where each round features a criterion to earn victory points.

Alright, with this we have skimmed over what the game offers. It’s time to talk about impressions and dynamics. And the first thing to say about Theocratia is that it is a game far too opaque for what it proposes. We are looking at a game whose main objective is to progress along some tracks in a balanced way. To progress along these tracks you must resolve certain actions, but the way these actions are designed generates tremendous confusion among players.

It is as if Daniele Tascini, together with Daniel Marinangeli, set out to reinterpret Terra Mystica, since we have numerous overlapping elements. A temple track with priests where players want to progress, factions with a set of buildings of different types that can be added to the main board—having one type of expansion structure and the rest placed by upgrading previously deployed ones—spaces associated with terrain types that can be changed during the game, a type of incentivized action in each round, etc.

However, while in Terra Mystica or any of its derivatives the main core of the game is more or less clear, here we find that every action is completely its own beast. A clear example is found in the construction of factories and barracks. Apparently, they are analogous actions (a house is chosen and replaced by the upgraded structure, activating at that very moment). In both cases, all factories or barracks of the corresponding civilization are activated, but in the case of factories, those the player has in other civilizations are also activated, whereas in the case of barracks, those in other civilizations are not. On the other hand, barracks provide worship points when factions attack.

I’m not saying it can’t make sense, but it is one example of many actions that seem the same but vary in minor details. And this makes it enormously difficult to assimilate the basic concepts of the game to the point of internalizing them. We will be continuously consulting the iconography to try to avoid making mistakes.

Iconography that, in some cases, can be somewhat confusing, though not as much as the issue of identifying terrain types on the main board. It seems like a major mistake to me that, in pursuit of visual harmony (which we will talk about later), functionality and clarity have been sacrificed when identifying which player owns each space. It’s one of those games that requires a base to place under each structure to make it clear at a glance who controls it.

Moving on. Another aspect I don’t like at all is the upkeep, both at the start and at the end of each round. Numerous steps must be resolved and it’s very easy to miss one along the way. And all to dynamize the game, aiming to have additional things happen on the board beyond what the players have caused.

The element of luck is also something to highlight negatively. In this type of game, having random elements is usually not to the liking of those who enjoy these designs. And here, it comes in like a bull in a china shop through the power cards. Some are tremendously powerful (as their name indicates), while for others we won’t find the right moment to profit from them, and we’ll end up using them just to bypass some restriction when activating actions. This deck of cards is completely superfluous to me.

All these problems lead to a boring and frustrating experience, where there is a degree of chaos that doesn’t quite gel with the design, and players resolve actions almost more to secure worship points by placing dice matching the color of the civilization they’re going to execute the action with than anything else.

To add to this, the game does not scale well, something already sensed when reading the rulebook as it has three separate columns on how to proceed when setting up each round in each configuration, and the fewer players there are, the more steps need to be resolved. If you are going to play it, do it with four players, so at least the upkeep will be kept to a minimum (and it’s already quite a lot), because later the interaction between players is not as intense as one might expect.

Obviously, all these reasons are torpedoes aimed straight at the game’s waterline. It is a design that, once you understand it, doesn’t end up being interesting. But arriving at an understanding of it already requires a significant effort, considering all the peculiarities of the design trying to differentiate itself from others.

With Theocratia, something similar happened to me as it did back in the day with Transgalactica (here is its tocho-review) or Tabannusi (here is its tocho-review), which end up being more complicated than they should have been. In some cases, the premise is powerful enough to compensate for these problems, but in others, like the one at hand today, it isn’t.

Let’s move on to production. Here, in general, there are no major issues. We find wooden structures with good density and original shapes that clearly differ from one another, cardboard components of good thickness and punch (though the chronicles could have been replaced by card decks and would have been more functional), typical translucent cubes for the crystals, and cards of an appropriate weight, linen finish, and good snap (sleeving is not necessary). The rulebook, despite being well-structured, ends up generating quite a few doubts due to the very nature of the game. All in all, I think it’s enough to understand how the game works after a couple of reads.

In the artistic department, we find illustrations that evoke a mystical and ancestral atmosphere inspired by pre-Columbian cultures. Its style brilliantly combines smooth, organic, “fable-like” illustration work with a clean, modern graphic design. While the cover conveys dynamism, solemnity, and energy through the ritual under the eclipse and the imposing stone deity, the representation of the island map via biome hexagons (lava, mountains, plains, and rivers) doesn’t quite work properly, even though it is visually attractive.

And let’s wrap this up. Theocratia is an opaque design that poorly combines an action selection system via a dice draft with a cumbersome and confusing territorial expansion. The need to progress along the tracks in a balanced manner, the artificial disparity in the resolution of seemingly analogous mechanics, and the inclusion of chaotic luck via power cards end up causing tremendously boring and frustrating games, where players resolve turns looking to secure the most obvious points rather than charting grand strategies. Although the premise of embodying alien entities shaping the world feels suggestive on paper, its design inconsistencies and constant upkeep make it a highly unrecommended proposal. For all these reasons, I give it a…