How to Play Iwari

- Hi, welcome back to the channel. It is so good to have you here and today let's learn how to play Iwari. So set up first, you have a double-sided player board. It doesn't matter which side that you play with. So just put one side face up. Now, today we're gonna learn how to play through the deluxe copy.

And we're gonna set up for a two player game. This is the scoring track, which I gonna place right next to the board as well. And then every player is going to go ahead and pick a tribe or a color, and then take all of the corresponding totems. Like I'm showing you right here, along with all the associated tents as well.

So you're gonna take one of those tents and then place them at the very top of the scoring track, which is on the zero marker on the scoring track. Now there are some minor adjustments that you do make for two players. And since we're setting up for a two player game, I'll mention it along the way.

For example, right now, aside from the two different colors that we're gonna pick, we're also going to pick a third tribe and set them to the side for now. So this purple tribe right here will be our third player. Now, I also want to mention that I'm setting up as if it's your very first time playing.

There is a minor rule adjustment in terms of how you're drawing cards after you play your very first game. And if you want to see that it is on page three of your rule book. But you don't want to see that. That's why you're here watching the video. Now the next step we have these mountain pieces, depending on the number of players that you're playing with, you're going to put them in different areas.

So since we're starting with a two player game, we're gonna put one into a random one peak mountain and then one random two peak mountain. And then the three peak, we'll put it over here. And one in a four peak over here, any connection that is covered by a mountain tint is not gonna score at the very end of the game.

Now, the first player is the one that has most recently traveled and they also get this first player token, which is the totem connection marker. But if you have the deluxe version, I think you can also use the coin as well. Please use the one that suits your heart's content.

Now in the game it comes with a set of cards called your biome cards, and the two player game, we're going to remove two of each set of color cards. And then you're gonna give every player three cards for your starting hand. And even if the games says, first player should be the one putting up the display, it doesn't matter which player puts it up.

So we're just gonna put the deck right on top and then set up a display of four cards. And the last part of the setup, let me just explain the board and then we'll get started on how to play. Now in the world of Iwari, it is divided into several different territories, and each of those territories will correspond to the five different biomes.

You put tents on the smallest circles and you put totems on the bigger circles. The numbers that you see in the map, means that they are connections between territories. Now the goal in Iwari is very simple. Your goal is to expand your tribe to as many territories as possible, and then score as many victory points.

Most of the points by the end will win. And the ultimate question of the day, how do you play Iwari? Now on your turn, you can perform one out of two actions. Now the first action is to play up to three biome cards from your hand. So you can place tents or totems on the board.

So to play a card, the color and the symbol that you play indicates which territory you can place your pieces. You then discard that card right after you placed that piece. And then to play that piece, you put one piece for each biome card. Now on each turn, you can only pieces on a single territory that matches that biome card that you played.

Now in unexplored territories, so basically a place where there aren't any pieces from any player, you can put only one tent there. In an explored territory, so place where there's at least one tent of any color there, you can put up to two pieces between tents and or totems.

You can also play to band cards of the same color in order to make them a wild card. So you can put a piece in another biome in any color that you pick. And then after you finished placing your pieces and discarding your card, you can then replenish your hand back up to three cards.

Once you end your turn and then you can pick from the display, or you can pick from the top of the draw deck. If he chose from the display, it's gonna get replenished back up to four. And then the next player goes. A lot of words, but let's keep it simple.

I have these three cards in my hand. It's the first turn on the game, I'm gonna play one green card to put one of my tents into a green territory. So I'm playing as a yellow player. So I'm gonna put this tent right here, in the small circle, cause that's where it tents to belong.

And even if I have two cards leftover, I can't play them this term because A, they are different colors. And I can only put pieces in the green territory since I just played the green card and B, they don't match. So I can't use them as a wild card. So that green card that had just played will now get discarded.

And then I can pick and choose. I can pick one card from display or I can pick a random card. For me in this case, it probably benefit me to pick a car from the display. So I can now use these two as a wild card, and then I'm gonna replenish the display by picking a top card, and then that's it, next player's turn.

The second action, if you didn't want to play a card this turn, is you just discard one card and then draw a new one, either from the deck or from the display. Cool, easy, simple. Okay, so let me explain some tents and some totems, and then we'll go on to some two player rules and end game scoring.

So these are tents. These always have to be put on a tent's space, which are the smaller circles. And when all tents' spaces on a territory are occupied, you can no longer place tents in that territory anymore. Now these super cool components are called totems and totems have to be placed on the bigger circles, which are designated totem spaces.

And unlike tents, you can stack many totems on top of each other. So tents within a territory are going to determine the max number of totems of any color that can be present in that territory. And you cannot place totems without first placing tents.

Okay, so with two players, you are sharing a third tribe, the purple tribe that we set up in the beginning, right. Now, after you finish a turn, you're going to play a turn as the third tribe. And you do this before drawing new cards. And this again is specific to the two player game.

All you have to do is play at least one card that's remaining in your hand after your own turn. And if you don't have any cards to play, then that third try will not take a turn. So in essence, you can use the third tribe in order to help with your strategy.

The problem is the "AI" does score points. So at this score more points than both of you, then you both lose. And the last part of the tutorial today, let's talk about end game scoring. Now, when you run out of cards from the draw deck for the very first time, you will trigger the half journey scoring.

So here you'll shuffle the discard pile into a brand new draw deck. And you're gonna interrupt the game immediately. If the player does need to draw a new card to refill their hand, you draw the remaining from the new deck, and then you're going to interrupt in play.

And then now you're going to count just the tents. So these are territory scoring markers. You use them in order to keep track of the territories as you score them. The player with the most tents in the territory will get one point for each tent in the territory, regardless of the color.

Now, second place will get one point for the number of tents that is held by first place. And then you continue from there. So if you have more players, third place will then get one point for each tent in second place, and so on. Now, if we don't have any tents in that territory, you don't get any points for that area.

If there is a tie, players will get four points, according to the rules that I just mentioned. So if you both tie for second place, because you both had the same amount of tents, then you both get second place points. And then the other players will receive points the same way without skipping a position.

So this means that player four, will then get third place points. So that is half journey scoring. When you exhaust the draw deck for a second time, or if a player runs out of tents, then you triggered the end of journey scoring. So from here, the current round is gonna keep going until everyone has an equal number of turns.

And now you'll count tents. And you'll also count totems and settlements. So for totems, you don't actually count the totems themselves. Instead, what you do count is whether two totems and a neighboring territory are connected. You will only score points.

If you have the most totems in both connected territories. Now here, you can put the totem connection scoring marker on the map in order to track which connection you're scoring. You do get one point for each totem in both territories, a color doesn't matter.

So here's an example. You have the glacier tribe and the coastal tribe equal in the glacier's territory. And the red tundra region, the yellow coastal tribe has two totems there, but the blue glaciers tribe only has one. Therefore, yellow score is five points for each totem and connecting territories, but blue will score zero.

Now also remember that the mountains that we said at the very beginning of the game come into play now. So any two territories that have a mountain in it, will be blocked. So there are no points scored with a mountain blocking two different territories.

And lastly, a settlement is made when you have four more tents of the same tribe that are, "uninterruptedly" connected by one or more paths like this. Settlements can't cross territories and you do get one point per tent. Winner is the one with the most points at the end.