Ethnos 2nd Edition Review - A Breezy Power Struggle

Published by CMON, I got the chance to try out Paolo Mori's Ethnos 2nd Edition thanks to a preview copy sent by distributor Asmodee USA. This update to the original Ethnos game features all new artwork, updated components, a new clan, and a solo-player mode. Follow along as I dive in!

What Is Ethnos 2nd Edition?

In Ethnos 2nd Edition, players take on the role of aspiring leaders battling for control of the continent of Ethnos, with the goal of becoming emperor. To do so, you’ll need to gain the help of scattered clans, uniting them in your quest for conquest.

Ethnos 2nd Edition Stats:

• 1 - 6 Players
• Est. Game Time: 60 Minutes
• Game Genre: Tableau Building, Area Influence
• Complexity: Medium

How Do I Play Ethnos 2nd Edition?

Setup begins by laying out the central board and determining which six of the twelve included clans will be a part of the game (after your first few games with more straightforward clans, this is determined randomly, which adds nice variability from game to game). Each clan has a different special ability, and you'll take turns either drawing Ally cards from a shared pool or playing Ally cards from your hand.

When you play a set of Ally cards, they have to either each be of the same clan, or be from different clans but all in the same color. You do this to place a control marker (nicely stackable pagoda-style plastic pieces) on a section of the map matching the color of the top card you play in your set.

Which card you choose to be the top of your stack of Ally cards, or to "lead" the set you play, also triggers' that top card's special ability. If you have more Ally cards than the amount of control markers present in any given color-coded territory, you place your marker.

This creates a really interesting gameplay loop of trying to build sets of cards in your hand, and determining the right time to lay down your sets of cards to place control markers. If it weren't for the cards' special abilities, this would be a very, very simple game - but each clan can do its own thing to slightly tweak the rules, opening up layers upon layers of strategy.

Ethnos 2nd Edition Clan Abilities Add A Dash Of Complexity

As I'd mentioned above, there are twelve different animal-themed clans in the game. You'll play with six of them present during your play through, and each one has different goals, can offer additional scoring opportunities, and more!

These abilities are all vastly different, and I won't lay them all out here, but I'll give a few examples. The Owl Summoners Clan allows you to play an additional party of Ally cards from your hand when you play a party with an Owl as leader (normally you have to discard the rest of your hand). The Tiger Samurai Clan needs one less card than usual to place a control marker in a region. The Monkey Nomads Clan has a separate board you'll set up when they're in play, allowing you to place markers to gain additional points.

That's just scratching the surface, with some clans being more complicated, or requiring extra components, while some are more straightforward. We've played Ethnos 2nd Edition over and over again in the past month or so, and the combinations we've come across, and fun interactions, never cease to amaze. It truly feels like an entirely different game each time I play it.

What's New With Ethnos 2nd Edition?

As you can tell from the game's title, this is a brand new edition of the game, and it comes with some quality of life changes... and an entirely new clan! The entire game has been given an overhaul visually, with all new clan names, brand new artwork on the board and cards, and new balance tweaks for Prestige points (formerly known as Glory points).

I'd never played the original Ethnos, but looking at Ethnos 2nd Edition it's clear what a difference these graphical changes make. The game board is easier to read, and the cards now feature bright, anthropomorphic animals vs. old fantasy creatures in the original edition. They've also done away with any text on the cards, instead using symbols to communicate each clan's special ability.

Though a bit daunting at first, after a few plays of the game we were familiar with the meaning of the symbols, and happy to not have lots of text cluttering the cards.

Then there's the new Clan, the Raccoon Merchants Clan - this clan adds coins - which serve as extra points when scoring - to the region they're played in. It provides a nice additional twist, and can begin to ramp up competition for particularly valuable regions pretty quickly.

The new edition also boasts a solo mode, where you can play alone against the game itself. The rules for solo mode look detailed and well-thought out, with tight mechanics around how the game's antagonist, Chief Bruno, draws and plays cards.

Ethnos 2nd Edition - Final Thoughts

Ethnos 2nd Edition is one of the more easy-to-grasp set collection and area control games I've played in a while. And in our playtesting we found the gameplay extremely satisfying once you have a firm grasp on what each of the clans on the board can do.

I loved 2023's Archeos Society, which was also designed by Paolo Mori and features similar gameplay mechanics. And overall, I do prefer Archeos Society over Ethnos, as I feel it refined the gameplay elements Mori worked through with this game.

But here's the big question: if you already own Ethnos, do you need to pick up this second edition? If you found the text-heavy cards, overall theme of the game, or map not to your taste, then this version of the game makes marked improvements in all three areas, and might make what is a very fun play experience even more to your taste.

And whether you already own it or not, there's certainly something nice about playing this streamlined set collector - and if you haven't tried the game before, and like what you've read so far, it's definitely worth checking out.

The copy of Ethnos 2nd Edition used in the creation of this review was provided by Asmodee USA. All photographs courtesy the author.