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At the height of its power, the Roman Empire covered a vast amount of territory and brought major advancements in engineering, architecture, science, art, and literature. Corruption and economic crisis has made the empire unstable and paved the way for aggressive barbarian tribes to attack.
Bertuccia
I have tried it only as one player and I did not particularly like the original pandemic, however I’ve enjoyed many mechanics such as the the tribes having paths to Rome and revolts putting the discard pile on top of the barbarian deck. However, it felt repetitive and not particularly exciting.
bartekb8
My first game of the series. And I love playing it...solo! Very intense gameplay comes with great satisfaction whenever you get to outsmart AI.
aaj94
OK, Pandemic. On this site it needs no introduction. I know it is "the co-op" and has a great deal of historical weight (alongside [thing=823][/thing] and [thing=15062][/thing], it's in the big 3 of early co-ops IMO), but I've never enjoyed it. Sure, [thing=161936][/thing] was pretty great, but I got tired of the game system by [thing=221107]season 2[/thing], and I haven't played Pandemic since. That said, Fall of Rome adds just enough new to the system that it's still appealing to me. For one thing, dice-chucking and battling barbarians is exciting. For another, the 'migration paths' add some tension to the game and a natural flow to the increase of cubes on the board (in base-game Pandemic, the cubes could just feel random). On top of all that, I appreciate the translation of the theme to the Roman empire. It's all pretty natural, and given the events of the past two years, I'm inclined to a non-infectious-diseases version of Pandemic right about now. Something that I dislike in all of Matt Leacock's games is the alpha player tendency, and there's not much to fix that here. I know I can be this kind of player myself, and I hate that the game doesn't do anything to smack me down and keep the collaboration even among players. While it is intensely satisfying to dream up a last-ditch effort to 'save the empire' and win the game, it's frustrating that the game doesn't [i]force[/i] you to come up with that plan together. By comparison to some of my other preferred co-ops, Fall of Rome adds a nice, shorter option to bring to the table. It's far shorter than the two I mentioned before, but is a nice mid-weight option that's a bit longer than [thing=194879][/thing] or [thing=158900][/thing]. Not Alone is still my favorite co-op by a landslide, but Pandemic: Fall of Rome does enough right that I'm happy to keep it in my collection. It's Pandemic. I have problems with the alpha-player tendency, and just like the base game, I have questions about the repetitiveness of each game, but it's everyone's starter co-op of choice for a reason. I'm happy to rate Pandemic a [BGCOLOR=#99FFFF] [b]7.0[/b] [/BGCOLOR], and it probably deserves nearly a point higher if I could bring myself to forgive the past.