Near: Echoes of Civilization

After reading the rulebook before the fair, this instantly became one of my must-buys at SPIEL 2026. It’s already hit the table twice, and it was fantastic with both 3 and 4 players. Snappy decisions, you need to keep an eye on your opponents, and you really can’t waste any of your 24 actions. There’s tough competition for majority scoring in each age, and sometimes also for the best spots on the map. The combat system is super simple (the attacker wins) and therefore totally predictable. Losing your own buildings doesn’t hurt as much as in other games, because you can rebuild them onto the map and even get a bonus for doing so. No dice rolling, and randomness only comes into play when you draw from the face-down deck instead of taking open cards. If you get a card that doesn’t fit your strategy, you just discard it to build a corresponding building – great mechanism! Each age also features a negative event that can really sting (with bigger impacts in later ages), but luckily there are ways to peek at these events beforehand or protect yourself against them.