Taj Mahal Board Game First Impressions

Taj Mahal is a game where you bid to create routes in India.

It also has cool plastic bits.

Northwest India at the beginning of the 18th century. The rule of the Grand Moguls is waning, and the Maharishis and princes seize the opportunity to take control of the region. By influencing the prominent forces, building magnificent palaces, and ensuring a steady supply of commodities, the princes increase their power until the most successful has won.

In this, players take turns either playing a card to add to their ‘bid’ or withdrawing and potentially getting something.

Cards have symbols that refer to the things up for auction. These are 4 different dressed people, an elephant (for the location) or a King looking thing.

As you play cards you build up your influence in the types. Once you play a card you can only play cards of that colour for a round with the exception of being able to play a white card with one of your coloured cards.

If you have the most of one or more when you withdraw you get them.

People

The People give you tokens which you can cash in for bonus cards, the elephants give you a token from that location which gives you points and the King lets you put a ring on one of your buildings. More on that in a bit.

If you get a majority in one of the people tokens you get to put a palace on the board. You have to put it in empty space around the current province. If you get the ring you can put one in a space already taken by somebody else.

You score points for connected Palaces so knowing when to win these is important.

You repeat this for each Province do a bit of scoring and that’s it.

Taj Mahal Summary

It’s very simple and very fun. Playing cards is similar to bidding but it doesn’t feel like it. It makes it feel like a different game. I’m not a fan of bidding or auctioning…

You need to work out what you’re going for when to withdraw and save cards… You’re only going to draw 2 cards at most at the end of your turn so if you commit 3 or more to a round it needs to be worth your while.

A very good game, I enjoyed it a lot.

Jesta ThaRogue