Thebes is a game of competitive archeology. Players are archaeologists who must travel around Europe to acquire knowledge about five ancient civilizations -- the Greeks, the Cretans, the Egyptians, the Palestinians, and the Macedonians -- and then must use this knowledge to excavate historical sites in the areas of these civilizations. Through the course of the game, expositions are revealed, and an archaeologist who has treasures from the requisite civilizations may claim the prize. The archaeologist who learns the most about the civilizations, claims the greatest-valued artifacts, and collects the most exhibitions will win out over his or her colleagues.
The unique element to the game is that it is played out over a period of two (or three) years, and each action takes a certain amount of time - measured in weeks. The game uses a novel mechanism to keep track of this: there is a track of 52 spaces around the outside of the board, each time a player moves and takes an action, he or she moves their token forward in time. Players take turns based on being the one who is furthest back in "time". So, a player can go to an excavation site and spend 10 weeks digging for artifacts, but that will also mean that the other players will likely be taking several actions in the interim while that player waits for the "time" to catch up. Excavation at each civilization is represented by drawing tiles from a bag some tiles represent valuable treasure, but some may only be worthless dirt.
Thebes was nominated for the Spiel des Jahre 2007, but lost out to Zooloretto.
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