Inis is a game of following many paths, all at once. You play leaders of Celtic tribes exploring a previously uncharted land. You discover new territories, build castles and religious buildings, hold feasts and have feuds, and compete to be declared the high chief of the new territory. It comes with beautiful art (including ethereally lovely landscapes and mysterious myths illustrating cards), a great draft-based action system and the possibility of glorious deeds. But I find the path to victory the most fascinating. In many games where players compete for land, there’s a straight path to winning. You build up resources, train soldiers and fight your opponents. As you win, others lose their forces and get weaker.
Yet in Inis, your moves towards victory are often simultaneously others’ moves towards victory. In the game, there are three ways to win – and any one can get you there:
- Have your pieces present in six spaces.
- Have your pieces present in any number of spaces that together contain at least six buildings of a certain type.
- Rule over at least six pieces belonging to other players (you “rule over” their pieces if you have more pieces in that space than they do – if you have three pieces in a space, I have two and another player has two, you “rule over” four of our pieces).
It’s fascinating because there’s a simultaneous push and pull.
- Push outwards – You want to spread thin in order to win by having your pieces in many spaces. But the more you spread out, the easier it is for someone else to rule over your scattered pieces and move towards that victory.
- Pull inwards – You want to concentrate your forces to rule over large numbers of opposing players’ pieces (e.g. ruling four pieces with five or yours gets you close to winning) and to give you a powerful army to attack with. But the more you do that, the more territories your opponents can easily claim without a fight.
You pull your opponents up the ladder behind you as you expand and then have to figure out how to push them down without losing your own balance. For example, if someone is about to be present in six territories and win, you can attack them in one of those territories to push them out of it. But then you don’t get to rule over their pieces there any more, since they’ve been removed. It hurts you and it hurts them.
Since you can win different ways, multiple players can “win” at once. If they do, suddenly the tiebreaker becomes whether you’ve met the victory condition for just one path or for several. So you have to grow in all directions at the same time, trying for all three ways to win, accepting that your fortunes will ebb and flow and seeking opportunities to coexist and grow with your opponents. At least until the moment where you realize that they’re about to win and you can’t coexist anymore.
In other words, Inis is about being open to opportunity, and about knowing when to make your move and when to cooperate. It’s about watching your options grow and shrink and making decisions on both logic and instinct – a real gem of a game.