I've mentioned this a few times, but I've always been on the lookout for a good civ. type game that plays in a reasonable amount of time. I've tried a whole lot of them, and none have really satisfied. It's hard to cram politics, war, technologies, etc into one game that plays in roughly 3 hours, so it's understandable that most have dropped one or more of these facets.
Mare Nostrum has been on my watchlist since it's been released. It has had a much publicized falling from grace on BGG due to it's inability to live up to the Civ-lite hype, but I wanted to try it for myself because it has a very attractive presentation and an admirably simple ruleset. I received it and the mythology expansion at the most recent math trade, so I got my chance.
Mare Nostrum
Since we were only 4 players, and since it was our first game, we played with just the base game despite the fact that I've heard so many positive things about the expansion. We DID include the Greek blockade rule, and the revised heroes, etc. We set it up and got started. I was Carthage, Shemp was Rome, Kozure was Greece and Luch was Egypt.
There was a standoff brewing north of the Mediterranean between Rome and Greece. Meanwhile, on my side of the pond I focused 100% on producing resources. My sole, starting legion wandered eastward and attacked an undefended Cyranae. I was able to convert it and hold it for a few rounds, and during that time I had quickly amassed 2 heroes and a wonder. That last wonder seemed easy to get, but just then Luch managed to take back what was his. I was just a resource or two short of purchasing that last wonder/ hero, but by then the fleets and legions of Rome and Greece were heading southwards to make sure I wouldn't make it. Helen of Troy was doing her best to make my enemies love me, but it wasn't enough. I was decimated. Meanwhile, Shemp had managed to claim the military leader and the director of commerce roles and Rome was unstoppable. Despite a failed attempt to disrupt the Greek trireme chain to Carthage, which would have stranded many of Kozure's forces there, Shemp still managed to pull together enough resources to get the win.
We made a few rules errors: We forgot to carry over 2 tax cards from turn to turn, and during my reign as director of commerce I didn't know I was supposed to give a card from my hand to even out the trades if one player ended the trading period with one less card than the others. Given the difference a single resource card makes in this game, I'm glad I didn't win because I would have felt like I cheated.
All in all, it was a very fun game. The constant exchange of cards is irritating, but in most other respects there is a lot to like. The small number of... everything (legions, caravans, triremes, etc) keeps the game moving along, both in terms of forcing players to act aggressively in order to avoid getting shut out AND because there simply aren't huge numbers of units to consider. The heroes and wonders aren't really the same as a technology tree, but the impact (your civilization gains an advantage over the others) is quite similar. The combat mechanic is simple, but the fact that it integrates randomness keeps things unpredictable enough to be exciting. Lastly, the competition for resources and space makes a certain amount of alliances and deal making inevitable. Having players take on various roles to determine turn order and determining the trade limits is equally interesting aspect which also opens the door for a certain amount of diplomacy.
Speaking of trade limits, the trading mechanism in the game is very peculiar. The way it works is that the director of trade names a number of goods and every player HAS to put that many down and then the director chooses one of the available cards. That player can now choose an available card, and so on until all cards have been chosen. If you can't put down the number of cards, you can't participate. The reason this makes any sense is that the board very cleverly groups goods in various corners of the board, making most starting civs able to produce a couple units of a couple of different goods right from the start. The trick is that in order to use goods to purchase things, you need to make sets of DIFFERENT goods. This means that in the beginning, it is very easy to accumulate one or two sets of three different cards to purchase military units, caravans and influence markers, but getting sets of 6 or even 9 different goods requires some conquest and/or trading. The act of exchanging cards creates diversity without forcing players to take a province in each corner of the map, and simulates the actual exchange of goods that would take place in the world without taking the time necessary to actually barter between players. Already in our first game, certain strategies emerged. With four players, it's possible for three players to exchange amongst themselves and shut out the fourth player. This was used to good effect against me, forcing me to put all my doubles back into my hand, and thus not having the set of 9 needed to win before Luch started taking back provinces. Taxes seemed less popular than goods, but a few players started taking advantage of this and specifically targeted these easy to get cards (the rule that allows 2 tax cards to be carried over would make this even more attractive). I'm less sure how to make the most out of limiting trades to zero, unless the director of trade has more diversity than the others. I'm sure there is quite a lot more than we are seeing. I can also see that players looking for a traditional trading game could be disappointed, and that others might just not "get" this very important stage of the game and might dislike the experience because of the seeming uselessness of it all. Gladly, I thought it was quite interesting, and I think the whole group did, too.
I do have one big concern, however. Most games that revolve around resource gathering force players to build up their stockpiles over several rounds in order to afford bigger purchases. This makes it necessary to budget over time, and to weigh the short and long term benefits of the various items up for sale. In Mare Nostrum, players get resources every round, and must spend all of them that round. Then, the game makes the winning condition the purchase of 4 of the most expensive items, heroes and/or wonders. This means that a player who is able to generate 9 resources one round is also probably able to produce them the next round and the next round unless provinces are taken away or trading is shut down. Once a player gets to 9, the other players essentially have a two turn window to smack down that player or the game is over. So the first part of the problem for me is that I found this a little strange, that a player goes from nowhere to the verge of victory so quickly. The second part of the problem is that once the other players decide to take down a player, there probably isn't too much that player can do to stop them, and I don't see any reason why this process couldn't go on forever (one player rises up, others conspire to take him down). It reminds me of Ideology, another game where the leader can be bashed forever and the game can go on for much longer than it should because of it. I would have liked to see a kind of timer mechanism like end of the Triumvirate to ensure an end to the game after a set period of time. Anyway, with only a single game under my belt I have no idea if it will actually be a problem, but it is a concern that I have. Now that we've seen how the game can go, we will certainly be more wary of letting anyone get ahead... will it lead to a vicious cycle? Who knows.
So, ultimately Mare Nostrum is a world domination game more than a civ-lite game, but I am happy to say that it's an upper tier one. I look forward to playing it again, and to eventually including the mythology expansion.
Ra
We played a quick game of RA, which is always fun to play, and I'm glad we did... I won by healthy margin! (Ha!) I think I had the better part of the Nile sitting in front of me, and a fortunate grab gave me a number of monument points right at the end.
Dominion: Intrigue
Luch made up a semi random set of cards, and we quickly realized it was mainly composed of expensive cards and powers that screwed other players. For this reason, it took some time before anyone managed to get an engine going in order to start purchasing the 6 victory point cards. I never got there, but Luch starting grabbing them at an alarming pace. My saboteur robbed Kozure of 2x 6 point victory point cards, but otherwise I did very little in the game. I came in a distant last, Luch came in a distant first. A postgame recap revealed that Kozure would have narrowed the gap considerably if I hadn't made him lose those cards. Sorry, man.
It was an enjoyable game, though frustrating at times. I feel like I'm not very good at quickly processing the combos I need to get going. Like Race for the Galaxy, I enjoy the game despite not feeling like I'm any good at it. For me, the two occupy a very similar space... optimising random cards for VPs. Whereas Race for the Galaxy feels like a far more strategic optimization game with more options than Dominion, there is less direct interaction as well. I'd say I still like Race better, but I think I'm in the minority at WAGS.
One thing that clicked for me this game, however, is that you really want to do whatever it takes to draw as many cards as possible at all times. HAving multiple actions and buys is often useless if you are only holding five cards (or 4, as I was for much of the game due to Shemp's constant play of the torturer. Grrr.) Maybe I'll do better next time.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
Out to sea, with no Romans in the Boat (The End of the Triumvirate, Mexica)
Another Math Trade has come and gone, and this one has been particularly good to me. New in my collection are Mare Nostrum+ expansion, Steam, Attika and End of the Triumvirate. I'm sure they'll all eventually see some table time (well, not sure about Attika), but this week End of the Triumvirate was chosen by Shemp along with Mexica.
End of the Triumvirate
When this game came out a few years ago, I was intrigued. Games that play well with three are probably the most difficult to find, and this one comes along that is specifically designed for three. It was also getting good reviews, which didn't hurt.
It's a game set in (where else?) ancient Rome. Caesar, Pompei and Crassus are vying for control of Rome in the dying days of the senate. Players take on the role of one of these leaders and try to win by achieving one of three possible victory conditions:
1) Military victory: Control 9 regions.
2) Political victory: Get elected consul twice, or get elected consul once and then get 6 senators under your influence.
3) Competence victory: Reach the maximum level of competence in politics and military skill.
On a turn, a player checks to see how much income or legions his controlled provinces generate, then moves around the board collecting said resources and/ or conquering new ones. The last step of the turn is to take up to three actions, with the available actions changing depending on the province the player's marker ended on. Possible actions include swaying politicians, training military units or advancing competency on the political or military track.
A few things struck me as I played the game:
- Mechanically, this is a very streamlined, very abstract euro. The game is essentially a variety of ways to push around cubes, and these types of games often have thinly applied themes. Surprisingly, the theme comes through very well and I consider that a testament to the quality of the design. To me, there was a real feeling of balancing three spheres of influence (military, politics and competency). The conquest of provinces worked well, and the combat mechanic was very nice (essentially, it's a one for one loss system, but supplemented with a cube draw from a bag. Any cubes drawn count as extra casualty for the other side. Simple, not fussy, but adds a little excitement and risk).
- The component design is excellent. There are a number of little touches that make reinforce the rules in unobtrusive ways. For example, players are given 9 province markers. When they are all placed, one of the victory conditions is met. Another example: the player marker is an odd flat square. When moving around units (which happens a lot), the piece is perfect for loading up the units and bringing them together to their destination.
- The ability to win through three distinct paths meant that everyone was in the running until the very end. It was anyone's guess who would win, and it's also possible to make it look like you are pursuing one path while secretly going for another.
- The game has a distinct "Tug of War" feeling with the military. Provinces are taken and lost throughout the rounds, but there is never a feeling of futility because the voting for consuls and progression in competency means that the end has to arrive eventually. A player going for a military win needs to act quickly to succeed, while the political win takes more time. The competency track seemed like it progressed at a similar pace between players, and it seemed like the most likely way for the game to end early. It's also the one way that players have no way of directly countering the leader's progress (provinces can be retaken, and politicians can be swayed back).
Overall, I was very impressed with the game. As a three way tug of war with a timer continuously running in the background, the action started right away and the tension did not let up until the last round. The mechanics are impressive in their elegance and simplicity, and the playtime is short for this type of game at one hour. My only concern is that the whole thing is simple and streamlined enough that I'm not 100% sure how much it will be re-playable before it gets stale. Luckily, few of my games get played often, so it shouldn't be too much of a problem...
For the record, I took a rather aggressive tact as Caesar and amassed a number of armies and conquered quite a few regions. Meanwhile, I had designs on winning a political victory while the other two were focussed on combat. Unfortunately, Shemp slyly stole the first consul vote from me. By the last round, I had managed to get my first consul vote and had the choice to end the game by improving my competence for the win or enlisting the 6 senators I needed. I went for the senators, because it seemed cooler...
I think Shemp liked the game quite a bit as well. Luch, well Luch seemed like he had more fun sending the player marker out to sea without soldiers than playing the game itself. He said at the end that he wasn't crazy about it. Oh well.
Mexica
Afterwards, we played Mexica for the second time a a group. Not much to say, except that there was a lot of nasty bridge moving by the end and the area majorities where hard fought. We concluded that we probably spend too much time defending our regions by attempting to block bridges, etc, than allowing the chips to fall where they may while being aggressive elsewhere (I don't want to make it sound like we were playing in silos, however, we WERE all over the board and in each other's faces... ). Anyway, Luch managed to out Aztec-temple us for the win.
In the end, the board was an absolute mess of canals and bridges to blocked spaces. If we were in charge of Aztec planning,
they may not have become such a great civilization after all.
It's a very good, fairly abstract euro. I'd say I like it nearly as much as Tikal, and yet they are different enough to keep both for now.
End of the Triumvirate
When this game came out a few years ago, I was intrigued. Games that play well with three are probably the most difficult to find, and this one comes along that is specifically designed for three. It was also getting good reviews, which didn't hurt.
It's a game set in (where else?) ancient Rome. Caesar, Pompei and Crassus are vying for control of Rome in the dying days of the senate. Players take on the role of one of these leaders and try to win by achieving one of three possible victory conditions:
1) Military victory: Control 9 regions.
2) Political victory: Get elected consul twice, or get elected consul once and then get 6 senators under your influence.
3) Competence victory: Reach the maximum level of competence in politics and military skill.
On a turn, a player checks to see how much income or legions his controlled provinces generate, then moves around the board collecting said resources and/ or conquering new ones. The last step of the turn is to take up to three actions, with the available actions changing depending on the province the player's marker ended on. Possible actions include swaying politicians, training military units or advancing competency on the political or military track.
A few things struck me as I played the game:
- Mechanically, this is a very streamlined, very abstract euro. The game is essentially a variety of ways to push around cubes, and these types of games often have thinly applied themes. Surprisingly, the theme comes through very well and I consider that a testament to the quality of the design. To me, there was a real feeling of balancing three spheres of influence (military, politics and competency). The conquest of provinces worked well, and the combat mechanic was very nice (essentially, it's a one for one loss system, but supplemented with a cube draw from a bag. Any cubes drawn count as extra casualty for the other side. Simple, not fussy, but adds a little excitement and risk).
- The component design is excellent. There are a number of little touches that make reinforce the rules in unobtrusive ways. For example, players are given 9 province markers. When they are all placed, one of the victory conditions is met. Another example: the player marker is an odd flat square. When moving around units (which happens a lot), the piece is perfect for loading up the units and bringing them together to their destination.
- The ability to win through three distinct paths meant that everyone was in the running until the very end. It was anyone's guess who would win, and it's also possible to make it look like you are pursuing one path while secretly going for another.
- The game has a distinct "Tug of War" feeling with the military. Provinces are taken and lost throughout the rounds, but there is never a feeling of futility because the voting for consuls and progression in competency means that the end has to arrive eventually. A player going for a military win needs to act quickly to succeed, while the political win takes more time. The competency track seemed like it progressed at a similar pace between players, and it seemed like the most likely way for the game to end early. It's also the one way that players have no way of directly countering the leader's progress (provinces can be retaken, and politicians can be swayed back).
Overall, I was very impressed with the game. As a three way tug of war with a timer continuously running in the background, the action started right away and the tension did not let up until the last round. The mechanics are impressive in their elegance and simplicity, and the playtime is short for this type of game at one hour. My only concern is that the whole thing is simple and streamlined enough that I'm not 100% sure how much it will be re-playable before it gets stale. Luckily, few of my games get played often, so it shouldn't be too much of a problem...
For the record, I took a rather aggressive tact as Caesar and amassed a number of armies and conquered quite a few regions. Meanwhile, I had designs on winning a political victory while the other two were focussed on combat. Unfortunately, Shemp slyly stole the first consul vote from me. By the last round, I had managed to get my first consul vote and had the choice to end the game by improving my competence for the win or enlisting the 6 senators I needed. I went for the senators, because it seemed cooler...
I think Shemp liked the game quite a bit as well. Luch, well Luch seemed like he had more fun sending the player marker out to sea without soldiers than playing the game itself. He said at the end that he wasn't crazy about it. Oh well.
Mexica
Afterwards, we played Mexica for the second time a a group. Not much to say, except that there was a lot of nasty bridge moving by the end and the area majorities where hard fought. We concluded that we probably spend too much time defending our regions by attempting to block bridges, etc, than allowing the chips to fall where they may while being aggressive elsewhere (I don't want to make it sound like we were playing in silos, however, we WERE all over the board and in each other's faces... ). Anyway, Luch managed to out Aztec-temple us for the win.
In the end, the board was an absolute mess of canals and bridges to blocked spaces. If we were in charge of Aztec planning,
they may not have become such a great civilization after all.
It's a very good, fairly abstract euro. I'd say I like it nearly as much as Tikal, and yet they are different enough to keep both for now.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Games with "tik" in the title (Tikal, Antike)
It was Kozure, Luch and I this week, joined by a surprise visitor, David.
It was my choice, and I chose a few older favorites that played well with three (though, luckily they also play well with four!)
Tikal
We played this long time favorite for the first time in a while. I love the game, and I'd say that it's probably one of my favorite games to introduce to people when I want to show them what these games are like. Simple rules, straightforward but interesting decisions, beautiful board and components, it's all there. The only problem is the downtime when played by new/ hesitant players, which is why I prefer it with 2-3 players. Luckily, the four players in question did their best to keep things moving.
As an aside, the recent acquisition of Mexica has been interesting because it offers a similar package but with shorter playtime and less AP. Having played it a few times, I'd say that it's also quite compelling but even though it's slightly shorter or easier, I wouldn't say the difference is significant. Further, the components are fine but not nearly as appealing to me. For now, both can exist side by side in my collection.
It was a pretty close game. David managed to keep up admirably considering we all had more experience with the game than he did. Kozure managed to sneakily make my life quite difficult by adding pawns on a couple of temples I was counting on keeping to myself late in the game. On his second last move, he stole a 9 temple I had been building for a while and it was impossible to get it back. To be fair, I had just claimed a temple under his nose a few turns earlier. Ahhh, these types of plays are why I love the game.
Kozure won by a nose, but everyone was close. Well played.
Antike
Antike is yet another game I claim to like a lot, but then don't play. I guess I should say instead that I appreciate the design quite a lot, but I constantly have this feeling that I'll play a game and THAT TIME I'll have a bad experience like the ones I read about on BGG (where people just build up their forces eternally and exist in perpetual stalemate for hours until people get bored and quit). It's never happened to us, and I've never seen signs of the possibility, but the doubt remains. I suppose it could happen, but in practice when we play there seems to be a compelling force which causes us to avoid this situation game after game. I'm not sure what to make of it, except to say that it must boil down to some sort of group-think.
I started out with just a few land units, expanding the empire and focusing on gold. I had successfully won in the past by focussing on tech. David was building a lot of temples (a strategy I've never tried), Kozure was building quite an army and Luch was expanding very rapidly. I failed at an attempt to destroy one of David's temples because I miscalculated a little bit. Advertising my intentions in this way unsurprisingly came back to bite me... but I was still doing ok. I was one point from winning but I couldn't find an avenue for that last point. My army was too small, my borders were threatened by Kozure and David, and Luch was quickly heading to victory. We weren't able to stop him, and he won by getting his last point by completing all the technologies.
I still admire the game, and I enjoyed the session quite a lot. In my opinion, every player would need to decide that an arms race was required in order to lead to an interminable game. If even a single player opts out, others are forced to react and keep up. Anyway, if I had to criticize the game it would be more because much of the theme is left on the cutting room floor when streamlining a game to this degree. It's chess meets Risk, not civ-lite.
It was my choice, and I chose a few older favorites that played well with three (though, luckily they also play well with four!)
Tikal
We played this long time favorite for the first time in a while. I love the game, and I'd say that it's probably one of my favorite games to introduce to people when I want to show them what these games are like. Simple rules, straightforward but interesting decisions, beautiful board and components, it's all there. The only problem is the downtime when played by new/ hesitant players, which is why I prefer it with 2-3 players. Luckily, the four players in question did their best to keep things moving.
As an aside, the recent acquisition of Mexica has been interesting because it offers a similar package but with shorter playtime and less AP. Having played it a few times, I'd say that it's also quite compelling but even though it's slightly shorter or easier, I wouldn't say the difference is significant. Further, the components are fine but not nearly as appealing to me. For now, both can exist side by side in my collection.
It was a pretty close game. David managed to keep up admirably considering we all had more experience with the game than he did. Kozure managed to sneakily make my life quite difficult by adding pawns on a couple of temples I was counting on keeping to myself late in the game. On his second last move, he stole a 9 temple I had been building for a while and it was impossible to get it back. To be fair, I had just claimed a temple under his nose a few turns earlier. Ahhh, these types of plays are why I love the game.
Kozure won by a nose, but everyone was close. Well played.
Antike
Antike is yet another game I claim to like a lot, but then don't play. I guess I should say instead that I appreciate the design quite a lot, but I constantly have this feeling that I'll play a game and THAT TIME I'll have a bad experience like the ones I read about on BGG (where people just build up their forces eternally and exist in perpetual stalemate for hours until people get bored and quit). It's never happened to us, and I've never seen signs of the possibility, but the doubt remains. I suppose it could happen, but in practice when we play there seems to be a compelling force which causes us to avoid this situation game after game. I'm not sure what to make of it, except to say that it must boil down to some sort of group-think.
I started out with just a few land units, expanding the empire and focusing on gold. I had successfully won in the past by focussing on tech. David was building a lot of temples (a strategy I've never tried), Kozure was building quite an army and Luch was expanding very rapidly. I failed at an attempt to destroy one of David's temples because I miscalculated a little bit. Advertising my intentions in this way unsurprisingly came back to bite me... but I was still doing ok. I was one point from winning but I couldn't find an avenue for that last point. My army was too small, my borders were threatened by Kozure and David, and Luch was quickly heading to victory. We weren't able to stop him, and he won by getting his last point by completing all the technologies.
I still admire the game, and I enjoyed the session quite a lot. In my opinion, every player would need to decide that an arms race was required in order to lead to an interminable game. If even a single player opts out, others are forced to react and keep up. Anyway, if I had to criticize the game it would be more because much of the theme is left on the cutting room floor when streamlining a game to this degree. It's chess meets Risk, not civ-lite.
Friday, September 04, 2009
It's for the good of Rome... (The Republic of Rome)
Ummm. Wow.
Kozure chose to play an old Avalon Hill game called "The Republic of Rome" this week. Although we all knew we likely wouldn't finish due to length, we gave it a try.
The Republic of Rome is a game that attempts to recreate the feeling of operating in the Roman senate during the time of the republic. A such, the core element of gameplay revolves around voting for various things... whether Rome should raise troops, go to war, and who should lead the armies. Who should the next leader be? Who should be sent out of Rome to be the governor of a faraway conquered land? Around this central concept, players attempt to increase their senator's influence, popularity, etc. Random events occur, such as the advent of war, labour strikes, plagues, etc. So many things are happening, it will make your head spin.
This is definitely an old style game. The rules are long and complex, play time is very long, luck is highly prevalent, it can take a long time between player turns, each turn has an enormous amount of steps to go through, etc, etc. I would normally really criticize this type of game, but in this case it seemed to work. Not for me, because I could never get this long of a game to the table, but at a different point in my life I can see myself enjoying the game.
The cool thing is that most games of this type graft a political system onto a war game. This means that the process of building units and moving pieces on a board usually dominate the experience. RoR dispenses with all this and leaves the players with a multi layered exercise in politics which seems to work quite well. The wars, the revolts, the natural disasters, etc, are all abstracted, but the experience of working in the senate is elaborate and flavourful. Deals need to made constantly because no player can advance his/ her own agenda without the help of another player.
The other thing I really liked is that all the players need to work together to prevent Rome from falling to wars, etc, but parallel to this each must try to fulfill conditions which will guarantee their victory should Rome survive to the end of the game. In our partial session, this worked very well to keep us all focused, to force us to arrive at solutions, but also to encourage players to keep an eye out for any/all opportunities to gain every small advantage for the possible win.
In this session, Kozure and Shemp quickly rose to the top ranks. Shemp became the field consul and promptly won a war. Upon his return, he threw some games for the people and he became quite popular. Kozure was the Consul of Rome and seemed to be skyrocketing in influence. A death in my faction on the first round was a blow, but Counsellor Furious offered himself up to lead troops to the next battle. Upon doing so, he failed myserably. Meanwhile, Senator Fluvius became governor of some God-forsaken place. He intended to steal from the coffers of the populace. My senators were all out of Rome, and I paid for that somewhat. When Furious did come back victorious, he tried to use his new-found popularity to become consul of Rome, which worked. However, it was too little, too late. I was very far behind and when we wrapped up I wasn't close enough to be a challenge. If I had to guess, I'd say that Kozure was winning.
Anyway, in theory I quite like the game. I think we only scratched the surface of the political intrigue that is possible in this game. It would be great if someone could somehow use this system in a game that would be half the length.
Kozure chose to play an old Avalon Hill game called "The Republic of Rome" this week. Although we all knew we likely wouldn't finish due to length, we gave it a try.
The Republic of Rome is a game that attempts to recreate the feeling of operating in the Roman senate during the time of the republic. A such, the core element of gameplay revolves around voting for various things... whether Rome should raise troops, go to war, and who should lead the armies. Who should the next leader be? Who should be sent out of Rome to be the governor of a faraway conquered land? Around this central concept, players attempt to increase their senator's influence, popularity, etc. Random events occur, such as the advent of war, labour strikes, plagues, etc. So many things are happening, it will make your head spin.
This is definitely an old style game. The rules are long and complex, play time is very long, luck is highly prevalent, it can take a long time between player turns, each turn has an enormous amount of steps to go through, etc, etc. I would normally really criticize this type of game, but in this case it seemed to work. Not for me, because I could never get this long of a game to the table, but at a different point in my life I can see myself enjoying the game.
The cool thing is that most games of this type graft a political system onto a war game. This means that the process of building units and moving pieces on a board usually dominate the experience. RoR dispenses with all this and leaves the players with a multi layered exercise in politics which seems to work quite well. The wars, the revolts, the natural disasters, etc, are all abstracted, but the experience of working in the senate is elaborate and flavourful. Deals need to made constantly because no player can advance his/ her own agenda without the help of another player.
The other thing I really liked is that all the players need to work together to prevent Rome from falling to wars, etc, but parallel to this each must try to fulfill conditions which will guarantee their victory should Rome survive to the end of the game. In our partial session, this worked very well to keep us all focused, to force us to arrive at solutions, but also to encourage players to keep an eye out for any/all opportunities to gain every small advantage for the possible win.
In this session, Kozure and Shemp quickly rose to the top ranks. Shemp became the field consul and promptly won a war. Upon his return, he threw some games for the people and he became quite popular. Kozure was the Consul of Rome and seemed to be skyrocketing in influence. A death in my faction on the first round was a blow, but Counsellor Furious offered himself up to lead troops to the next battle. Upon doing so, he failed myserably. Meanwhile, Senator Fluvius became governor of some God-forsaken place. He intended to steal from the coffers of the populace. My senators were all out of Rome, and I paid for that somewhat. When Furious did come back victorious, he tried to use his new-found popularity to become consul of Rome, which worked. However, it was too little, too late. I was very far behind and when we wrapped up I wasn't close enough to be a challenge. If I had to guess, I'd say that Kozure was winning.
Anyway, in theory I quite like the game. I think we only scratched the surface of the political intrigue that is possible in this game. It would be great if someone could somehow use this system in a game that would be half the length.
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