Age of Rome: Greek Version (Kickstarter – Senator Pledge)

Board Game Geek Reviews

1. 9 out of 10

   AKours

   Was very excited to play the game and it definitely delivered. I ll start with the rules that are amazingly simple and straightforward. A short explanation session of 15-20 minutes can essentially get everyone on track. A significant advantage over the "spend half a session to explain everything" games I have played before. Most of the rules revolve around influence in various tracks (senate, temple building, glory track) and assist with the "take that" mindset of the game without being super aggressive or disrupting. Definitely a fun game to play even when competing with friends. Next up, build quality. I believe that from all the recent games I ve tried, it had the best build quality by far. The acrylic pieces are amazing and a welcome introduction. Boxing and unboxing were easy and great as well with a very well designed box. Even the rotating big pieces are boxed easily without compromising their structural integrity (looking at you foldable maps in most games that start tearing after opening and closing 10 times). Workers, legions and votes (game pieces) were easily distinguishable from one another and no confusion as to what is what. Choices. The amount of choices on every turn is enough to keep you thinking long enough to not become time consuming. Downtime is minimal and you still get to choose from 4-5 actions with 1-2 variants every round. Overally, pleasantly surprised given the randomness factor of many mechanics. Strategy. The game revolves around 4 main axes. Senate, Trade, Legions and Temple building. Being first in everything is not viable (which is a great thing) so you have to properly focus on something and adjust based on what the game (and luck) throws at you. You do have to adjust based on the resources given to you but having 2 (or 3 if you are a bit luckier) different vectors of progress is definitely possible and definitely requires some planning (you generally plan for the current and next round since planning without knowing the rotating direction / amount on subsequent turns is extremely hard if not downright impossible). Overall, strategy plays a huge factor and you will be rewards with some hefty bonuses if you manage to pull good plays and combos off. Plus, disruption against other players is mandated based on the fact that you also unblock yourself and requires planning which means you never really switch to a solitaire-style gameplay and need to always track a majority of the board and player choices. Randomness. I will lead by saying I am not a randomness lover. In general I prefer longer strategic planning much more than luck. Through the first playthrough I felt I was struggling to counter luck way more than I struggled to manage the arching strategies of other players on the table. My starting quests (awarding extra points in the final scoring) were all focused around a bonus my randomly picked character couldn't use for 95% of the game unless I spent significant resources towards it. Also, I started as the first player and never got to play first again (most of the rounds I was in 3rd or 4th place) which is also a huge factor since making choices first (or having the 4th -> 1st rotation) is a pretty huge advantage in most cases. Finally, even once I properly started going down a path in my game choices, a random event card, that cut the game one round short, further compounded in my inability to properly achieve some of my late game goals. In addition to this, if you are a bit luckier in the first half of the game you can end up with significant bonuses due to medal acquisition just because the right buildings rotated in front of you at the right time (which further enhances your passive and active bonuses). Overall, the game would feel much better tailored to a longterm strategic playstyle if some luck elements were toned down a bit. Luckily, the creators have a suggested variant of the game where the board stops randomly spinnning back and forth which I am eager to try in the next playthrough since longterm planning will be back on the menu. Another change I would suggest is picking 5 cards instead of 3 for the starting quests (from which you pick 2 to keep) since then you can align those to your character's game profile much better. I feel this wouldn't alter your game choices throughout the game and would, instead, give you a better chance at using your available bonuses without having to go out of your way to have them available. Catch up. Straight up the best designed catch up mechanics I have seen in a game. You can never be left too far behind in the game and since buildings are shared among all players, you almost always get equal or semi-equal opportunities as everyone else. Additionally, all the catch up is properly designed to not feel like it's pulling the leading players backwards on purpose. You get extra workers earlier (but not before others), you can get points from the senate even if you don't commit half your actions to it (but without disallowing other players from focusing on it) and the provinces you place your legions in (in addition to the hard limit on how many legions someone can use) are enough that you can almost always compete for one, if not more, of them. Replayability. Different characters, board rotations, quests, trade cards, opponent choices and round events guarantee that you will be getting an entirely different game every single time. There is no doubt in my head that every game will feel totally unique and no choice you take will be one that you have taken ever before. Infinite replayability may be hard to achieve but Age of Rome certainly comes as close to it as possible. Overall, the game is amazingly fun. Its competitive nature is in no way aggressive or manipulative and just adds another fun layer on top of the already packed action. Randomness plays a huge role but could be toned down (if you don't already love the game as is). It's 1-2 hours of fast paced strategic choices, scheming tactics and history-adjacent action. Easy to start playing, hard to master and with an amazing build quality.

2. Grimsalt

   Kitchen sink point salad : [url=https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/129948]Carrara[/url] wheel with [gameID=50750] splice, [gameID=301257] plexi tiles, with run-of-the-mil hand mgmt, secret objectives, and resource mgmt. All this basically to race on 3 majority tracks to actually win : population number, stack of votes and meeple army. Sum-zero euro lacking in ludonarrative pizzazz, unlike some older Roman themed euros such as [gameID=80979] and [gameID=179385]. TL;DR Too much blending tastes like chicken.

3. 8 out of 10

   ConraDargo

   A really cool and astonishingly beautiful game that manages to offer quite a lot of variety within a surprisingly short amount of game time! Some interesting choices to make between turns that all stay fresh and interesting from one turn to the other. This is all thanks to not only how the turn order changes, but also that the board itself constantly changes - both through luck and player-made choices! Offers kind player interactions and take-that moments as well as some good catch-up mechanics, both random such as well as those triggered by the game's mechanics. I do wish that the game would actually only take 30-60 minutes though. I don’t really see this happening, even on two players due to all the choices available, and the more followers (workers) you get the longer each round will take. Thus I would’ve liked to see that the game ended after 7 or even 6 turns rather than 9!