![My Wishlist, 5 Games at a Time! [Episode 4]](https://img.youtube.com/vi_webp/szNetmgWJVY/hqdefault.webp)
2020Phil Eklund, Justin Grey, Jon Manker, Dom Rougier
- Videos
- 99
- Creators
- 37
Mainly how-to-play
1 - 5 players30 - 240 minVery heavy weight
Bios: Origins (Second Edition)
2019Phil Eklund, Jon Manker
- Videos
- 29
- Creators
- 5
Mainly reviews and how-to-play. Bios: Origins (Second Edition) is covered on BoardGameVideo.com by 10 reviews, 6 how-to-play guides, 5 recorded sessions, 5 unboxings, and 3 other videos.
1 - 4 players
120 - 240 min
Very heavy weight: Rules-dense, long sessions
From BoardGameGeek
Bios:Origins is the 3rd part of the Bios Trilogy. The action starts much earlier than most Civilization games: 200,000 years ago or even earlier. One to four players represent the human subspecies extant at that time: Sapiens, Neanderthal, Denisovans, & Hobbits. Take them on an adventure to enlarge your brain, acquire language, discover new worlds, domesticate strange beasts (such as riding war kangaroos or mammoths), discover the wonders and terrors of religion, dive for pearls, challenge the gods, enslave rival hominins, and perhaps enter the Enlightenment. Although wars of conquest and religion are possible, most of the fighting will be internal. You have only limited control of over your ruling class, and if your priests are in control and do a poor job, they will get killed and usurped by merchants or warlords. Win by specializing as cultural, political, or industrial civilization. This means, unlike most civilization games, that a cult figure on a mountaintop in New Zealand can win over an Emperor that has swept the globe with his armies. The game integrates with Bios:Genesis and Bios:Megafauna, so that you can start as a variety of intelligent but not-quite lingual marine or terrestrial creatures. Two maps and 26 hex chits are included, to accommodate variable landforms and cratons on habitable Earth, Mars, or Venus. Solitaire and cooperative variants are included.
Watch first
Which Bios: Origins (Second Edition) video should I watch?
Bios: Origins (Second Edition) has 29 videos from 5 creators: 10 reviews, 6 how-to-play guides, 5 playthroughs, 5 unboxings and 3 other videos. They date from 2019 to September 2025.
To learn the rules, start with "Bios: Origins - How to Play!", which runs 53 min. For a quicker teach, "Bios Origins 2nd ed., règles complètes : 1/4" runs 10 min.
For an opinion before you buy, start with "Bios Origins 4p Teaching & Play-through by Heavy Cardboard". To see it played, watch "BIOS:Origins (2e) gameplay (4 players), TTS", one of 5 playthroughs.
If you like it, try High Frontier 4 All, Pax Renaissance: 2nd Edition and Pax Hispanica, also by Phil Eklund, or Crusader Kings, also by Jon Manker. It appears in convention videos from Spiel Essen 2019.
All videos
4 of 5
Creators who cover this
Board Game Bonkers
1 video of this game
Loud N Board Gaming
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Pizin
1 video of this game
Unboxing Board Games
1 video of this game
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About Bios: Origins (Second Edition)
From BoardGameGeek:
Bios:Origins is the 3rd part of the Bios Trilogy. The action starts much earlier than most Civilization games: 200,000 years ago or even earlier. One to four players represent the human subspecies extant at that time: Sapiens, Neanderthal, Denisovans, & Hobbits. Take them on an adventure to enlarge your brain, acquire language, discover new worlds, domesticate strange beasts (such as riding war kangaroos or mammoths), discover the wonders and terrors of religion, dive for pearls, challenge the gods, enslave rival hominins, and perhaps enter the Enlightenment. Although wars of conquest and religion are possible, most of the fighting will be internal. You have only limited control of over your ruling class, and if your priests are in control and do a poor job, they will get killed and usurped by merchants or warlords. Win by specializing as cultural, political, or industrial civilization. This means, unlike most civilization games, that a cult figure on a mountaintop in New Zealand can win over an Emperor that has swept the globe with his armies. The game integrates with Bios:Genesis and Bios:Megafauna, so that you can start as a variety of intelligent but not-quite lingual marine or terrestrial creatures. Two maps and 26 hex chits are included, to accommodate variable landforms and cratons on habitable Earth, Mars, or Venus. Solitaire and cooperative variants are included.
Designers
Phil Eklund, Jon Manker
Artist
Johanna Pettersson
Publisher
Sierra Madre Games
Categories
Mechanics