Monday, 2 November 2026

Diluvium

Antoni Guillen · 2024 · Nuts! Publishing

Players

1–4

On the box

30–60min

At our table

45min

Weight Medium· 2.22 out of 5

Text in the game None

What it is

Diluvium is a 4X, the genre of civilization games built on four verbs: explore, expand, exploit and exterminate. Here it all happens on an archipelago, after the flood. Each player leads a civilization in exile, and the sea is made of hexagonal tiles that start partly face down.

With your exploration ship you discover new islands, then you bring your settlers there, and they gather food, weapons and artifacts. Food lets you sail farther, artifacts are sold for gold, weapons raise your military strength. With your warship you hunt the monsters and drive opponents off the islands where they have settled. The factions are asymmetric, each with its own powers and abilities, and from your very first game they hint at what to aim for. Whoever puts aside the most gold wins.

How it plays

There are only four actions, and you can’t repeat last turn’s action straight away. So you’re forced to switch, and you can’t fixate on just one thing: if you want to keep settling you can, but you have to alternate it with something else.

We noticed it right away: piling up on one island doesn’t pay. With your ship and three settlers in the same spot, if an opponent’s warship arrives and drives them off, you’ve just handed them four points and thrown away all the actions it took to get there. The tips in the rulebook all hold up too: whoever reveals an Ocean tile first picks the bonus and the island they need, and resources can be traded in pairs, even several times in the same turn.

It’s taught in a moment and flows smoothly. Count on a quarter of an hour per player, so even with four you’re done in an hour, and there’s time for another game in the evening, or a rematch.