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Yamataï
Year
2017
Players
2–4
Play time
80min
Min age
13+
Weight
2.96
BGG rating
7.16
BGG rank
#890
Best with
2

Owned by

Michael Redlich

Local copies

Rating: ★ 7.0

Board game

Yamataï

Designed by Bruno Cathala, Marc Paquien

MeepleMates notes for Yamataï

Public snippets combine board game metadata with MeepleMates play history so visitors can evaluate the game for real group play and game night planning.

  • Yamataï is available as a public board game page on MeepleMates for group planning and collection tracking.
  • Best with 2 player according to player poll data.
  • BoardGameGeek average rating 7.16 and BGG rank #890.
  • Groups use this page to connect Mythology metadata with real play history, ratings and game night notes.
  • Recommended player counts include 3, 4.
In Yamatai, 2-4 players compete to build palaces, torii, and their own buildings in the land of Yamatai. The game includes ten numbered action tiles, each showing one or more colored ships and with most showing a special action. You shuffle these tiles, place them in a row, then reveal one more than the number of players. On a turn, each player chooses a tile, collects the depicted ships from the reserve, optionally buys or sells one ship, then places the ships on the board. The land has five entryways, and you must start from these points or place adjacent to ships already on the board. You can't branch the ships being placed, and if you place your first ship adjacent to another, then that first ship must be the same color as the adjacent one; otherwise you can place ships without regard to color. After placing ships, you can either claim colored resources from land that you've touched with new ships this turn or build on one vacant space. To build, the space must have colored ships around it that match the ships depicted on one of the available building tiles. If you build a personal building that's connected to others you own, you receive money equal to the number of buildings. You can bank one ship before the end of your turn, then you can use any three resources or a pair of matching resources to purchase a specialist, each of whom has a unique power. After all players go, you shuffle the action tiles, place them face down in the row, then reveal enough tiles at the front of the line to set up for the next turn, with the turn order being determined by the numbers on the tiles that players chose the previous turn. Once you trigger one of the game-ending conditions - e.g., no ships of one color or no more specialists - you finish the round, then count points for buildings built, specialists hired, and money on hand.

Categories

Mythology

Mechanics

Modular BoardIncrease Value of Unchosen ResourcesContractsNetwork and Route BuildingAction Drafting

Best with how many players

1
Not rec.
2
Best
3
Recommended
4
Recommended
4+
Not rec.

Community votes from BoardGameGeek

Language dependence

No necessary in-game text(12 of 16 votes)

Sub-rankings

  • Strategy Game Rank#558

Videos

BoardGameGeek7

Review5

Unboxing2

External data

No Wikidata data is stored for this game yet. If the scheduled enrichment has run recently, Wikidata probably has no BGG mapping for it.

Latest Wikidata run: ok · 11/08/2026.

Links