Tips & Strategy

First-game guidance and planning ideas from the rules and verified teaching and playthrough videos.

How to teach it

Start with the scoring constraint: only the lower of Sun and Moon counts. Then show how your personal grid controls the size of each action and how removing Tambos opens bonuses. Explain Day before Night: movement, Tambo placement, power, activity, then shared triggers. Finish with the retreating Ayar and repeated Dawn scoring.

Use one example of each activity rather than teaching every icon in advance. Point out that players can use less than their available power and should check the four legal building slots before moving an Ayar.

Your first game

• Watch your Inti dial early. Every Dawn adds its current total, so an early Sun gain pays again on later rounds.
• Develop at least two activity areas. Each retired Step marker scores one Moon activity, and Temple placements can reward different activities across the four Ayar rows.
• Do not treat empty rows as purely a bonus hunt: their empty Tambo spaces raise your action power, while the remaining Tambos constrain later turns.
• Check each Raymi threshold before advancing its Ayar. A threshold can award a Llama, and the tile flips for a later crossing.
• Take a zero Moon score early if it preserves a better activity for a later Step marker. The values change as you build your boards.
• Llamas are a late balancing tool. Keep track of the printed conversion rather than spending them mentally before final scoring.

Plan actions around the path

Your Step marker chooses a row or column and its Ayar, while the open spaces set the power. These two effects make every action a timing decision. Before placing a marker, check which Ayar can reach a Raymi space, whether its Temple row is close to scoring, and what building slots remain between it and Tiwanaku.

Early in the game, completing a Sun source can multiply through the remaining Dawns. Then turn attention to the activity you expect to score with your next retiring Step marker. The first Day has a separate power-1 starting activity before five Step-marker turns; after each Night, an Ayar retires and later rounds have four, three, then two Step-marker turns. Later turns reward actions that improve a developed scoring area rather than spreading every piece thinly.

The video playthroughs underline this timing puzzle. In Ayar - Tutorial & Playthrough, Gaming Rules! demonstrates an early personal Sun bonus compounding at Dawn and discusses pushing the Ayar path that matches an activity lead. Ayar - Learn While Playing, Getting Games, shows the round’s sequence and how the Tambo choice limits the available activity. Ayar - 4p Teaching, Play-through & Roundtable Discussion by Heavy Cardboard, Heavy Cardboard, gives a four-player view of shared path timing.

Use the activity shapes

Pottery rewards collecting same-colour sets and can convert a facedown wild Pot into a missing colour. Weaving needs contiguous completed columns: adding a Textile to a later column does not raise the current Moon value if an earlier gap remains. Terrace farming trades Maize for visible values and may unlock Viracocha when a box empties. Reed bundling makes the Boat’s route matter: a high Island slot helps Moon scoring, while Islands on marked spaces can provide access to lake Viracocha.

Choose these activities based on what your Step marker can score soon. A big pottery set is only useful if you can complete it before scoring; a weaving column is only useful once all earlier columns are filled. When you need a stronger activity later, a matching Viracocha bonus adds power permanently, up to five.

Solo play

Against the Ayllu, track its next unscored Raymi activity before it chooses a Tambo. Its token and bag draw make the Ayar path unpredictable, but its placement priorities give you useful information about likely actions. Keep the solo board’s separate values visible; the Ayllu’s Pottery and Weaving procedures differ from the human rules. Solo First Impressions of Ayar: Children of the Sun Board Game (Review copy provided), Totally Tabled, shows the automated opponent in play; follow the written rules for its priority order and apply the 2025 errata for its lake-area choice. For a second perspective, All about the interaction! - Ayar Board Game Review, Board Gaming Ramblings, discusses the higher contest for path slots at four players.

Player counts

At higher counts, think about which Ayar paths other players’ Temple rows and activity strengths depend on. The competition is on shared paths and limited building slots; a move can both reach your scoring event and change which row is most exposed to retiring. In the two-player game, that same race has more open spaces, so plan around the Raymi sequence and improve the activity you want to score.

The first-game advice here comes from the rulebook and video examples, not a fixed point target. Avoid setting a numerical score benchmark: activity order, Raymi thresholds, Temple bonuses and final Llama conversion change the balance each game.

Videos versus the rulebook

In Ayar - Tutorial & Playthrough, Gaming Rules!, a Temple is initially considered for a different row; the rulebook requires the leftmost open Temple slot in the row of the Ayar moved that turn. The teach corrects this during play. The written rule also governs Tambo count, Raymi flips and solo tie-breaks if a demonstration skips a detail.

Sources

• Ayar - Tutorial & Playthrough — Gaming Rules!
• Ayar - Learn While Playing — Getting Games
• Ayar - 4p Teaching, Play-through & Roundtable Discussion by Heavy Cardboard — Heavy Cardboard
• Solo First Impressions of Ayar: Children of the Sun Board Game (Review copy provided) — Totally Tabled
• All about the interaction! - Ayar Board Game Review — Board Gaming Ramblings
• ►►► You have not seen a combination of mechanisms like this before! — Rahdo Runs Through

The Osprey rulebook governs rules; its official errata corrects setup and solo details. Questions and published clarifications are linked in the FAQ.