Zenith Board Game Review: Two
Blog Andrew Joseph 06 Aug , 2025 0
I'm a loyal fan Two-day board gameespecially for head-to-head or cooperate Play like 7 Miracles: Duel, Sky Team and Brilliant: Duel. These games tend to be faster than games with larger players but still provide the juicy decisions I crave. So when I heard that Zenith is a new tug-of-war duel game set in space, I immediately caught my interest. Zenith features strategic resource management, advanced player interaction, cards, light engine building and technical tracks – all incorporated into the experience under 30 minutes (making it a great experience Quickly play board games). It checked all the boxes for me and quickly became one of my favorite games on the shelf.
Zenith board game
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Zenith managed to wrap many components into a relatively small box. Inside, you will find three separate game boards (Planetary, Technology and Diplomacy) that can jointly create the main game zone. The technical committee is two-sided, allowing you to mix and match to create a random process track before each game needs to adjust its strategy to match. Each player uses a set of wooden technical markers to track their progress in the game.
Before you start, there are a large number of small cardboard pieces that can be removed from the punch board, including three different credit denominations that are the game's main currency, reward tokens, and leader badges. The remaining components are made of high-quality recycled materials (including 80% wood) and all have an etched design. They weigh well and smell very good (who doesn't like the smell of fresh wood?)
Another currency for Zenith is the appropriately named Zenithium, represented by a set of yellow wooden tokens. Players interact with each other during the game mainly through the influence disks placed on planetary boards. Each disk has a different color and etched design, representing one of the five planets you are fighting for control: Mercury, Venus, Pottery, Mars and Jupiter.
The gameplay in Zenith spans three factions around its deck of over 90 unique agent cards. Each agent card contains a name and playful character artwork, many of which are subtle nods to famous sci-fi icons such as Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick, Frank Herbert, Ray Bradbury and George Lucas, to name just a few. I'm trying to find dozens of references that are spread across the deck.
In addition to the relatively short instruction manual, Zenith also includes two play cards outlining the turning structure, as well as two double-sided aids that explain the myriad effects found on the proxy card and the tech board.
Rules and how they play
On the surface, Zenith is a very simple game. The first player to control the Senate victory. This can be achieved in one of three ways: control three of the same planet, control four unique planets, or control any five planets.
When you have enough influence, you can control a planet, which is indicated by the colored disks on the planet's plate. Each planet has an orbit with nine spaces: four around you, four on one side of your opponent, and one in the middle. Throughout the game, you and your opponent play cards and develop techniques to move each of the five impact disks back and forth on the corresponding tracks as you try to reach one of the winning conditions.
For setting, the player is opposite the planetary plate in the middle. Three tech boards (one for each faction) were randomly selected to connect to one side of the planetary board and the Foreign Affairs Commission connected to the other. Each plate has a unique pattern at the bottom, ensuring it is connected to the correct side of the planetary plate.
Players randomly distribute reward tokens throughout the Earth and Tech boards, earning 12 credits and 1 Zenithium, and drawing four cards from the deck to make a start. Since the hand size is small, you can give any number of cards Mulligan to your best start. Once the player finally finishes his hand, the game is ready to begin.
Players take turns performing one of three actions during the turn: recruiting agents, developing technology, or becoming a leader. To recruit an agent, you can type a card with your hands, pay for its credit fees and apply the effect of the card. Each card on the deck has a unique effect and has a a lot of Portraitology is to be remembered, so you may rely quite a bit on effects description aids in the first few games. Each proxy card will get at least one effect on the corresponding planet, which allows you to move the matching effect disk to the side of the board.
When you recruit agents, they are placed in a column below the corresponding planet. Each playback agent offers a credit discount for future agents of future colors. This light Engine construction Component incentives to recruit multiple agents to the same planet and enable you to play a stronger agent without disrupting the economy.
The alternative action you can take during the round is that the Development Technical Committee tracks on the Technical Committee. Each of the three technical committees represents one of the three factions of the game: humans, robots and animations, which are basically just anthropomorphic animals. Instead of recruiting agents (playing cards from your hands to gain influence), you can play the corresponding faction on its tech track after paying for the cost required by Zenithium. However, this resource can also be used to unlock the powerful impact of certain cards, so you need to manage your reserves wisely.
Each faction’s tech track contains five spaces, which increases costs as you move forward while providing more powerful effects. The first space of each column costs only one Zenithium and has a relatively bland effect. However, every time you raise the tech track up, you perform all the actions below as you advance to a new level. This makes the technical committee an important part of your strategy as it can have game-changing effects when it reaches its peak.
However, early on, investing in the technology track can lose momentum because it doesn’t help you gain influence immediately, so you need to carefully balance this in a part of your strategy. While investing in one faction’s technical track has increasingly strong returns, investing in these three factions is another viable option as it provides you with an impact when each faction reaches the next level. The technical committee is an important part of the game as a whole and should not be ignored or you will soon lose your position on your opponent.
During the turn, the last action you can choose to perform is to become the leader of the faction. By discarding a particular faction’s card, you will get a one-time effect as well as a leadership badge. Each faction has different effects to help improve your economy: Humans give you 4 credits, robots give you a Zenithium, and an animator mobilizes two cards (places two cards on top of the deck below the corresponding planet without applying its effects).
The Leader Badge is important because it increases the size of your hand while holding the hand (the only way) while also unlocking the powerful bonus effects of certain cards. The coveted components usually play mini tug-of-war in larger games as both players try to maintain their control and earn money.
Most strategies in Zenith boil down to carefully managing your resources. Between credits, Zenion, your recruiting agent and the card in hand, it's a delicate balance when you try to get the rhythm of your opponent. Low credit rate? You won't be able to play any agent from your hands. Low temperature? Your progress on the technical committee will stagnate until you manage to get more.
The only aspect you can hardly control is the card in your hand, as you always draw your own hand size at the end of the turn and can't discard anything in any useless hand (except an agent that allows you to throw away the entire hand when playing). Although rare, at some point you can effectively tiles when digging out specific color cards or factions. Most of the time, this is the result of making your resources bad, but when it happens, it feels sad to watch your opponent gain motivation.
Zenith has a high level of player interaction but never manages to feel unfair. Many card effects can destroy the opponent's board status, such as transfer, which allows you to move the agent from the opponent's board side to the side or exile matching column, which allows you to discard one of the agents on the opponent's side. Investing on various technical tracks can give you some credits or Zenithium, but they have limited uses. While these effects can be annoying, one aspect I thank Zenith is that there is absolutely no way to destroy the opponent's hands or completely eliminate the economy through playing cards. This creates a level playing field for players and limits the number of “bullying” that feels bad in other games.
Although the peak was designed for two players, there is one 4 players The version can fight two teams against each other. Although the rules are basically the same, teammates control the hands of agents they cannot discuss with each other and can only recruit agents on three planets half of the board. When obtaining a leadership badge, the player can choose to give his teammate two cards, but otherwise he cannot share any resources. It's an interesting twist in the standard game, but Zenith does play the most in the expected number of two players.