Time for Tea

If you are of a certain age, then you may perhaps associate ‘elevenses’ with sticky buns and hot cocoa served at a certain  antique shop on the Portobello Road by its owner, Mr. Gruber. A more modern reader or film goer might associate it with the meal served somewhen between second breakfast and luncheon. Most of us though are not bears (from darkest Peru or elsewhere) or indeed hobbits, so we shall have to make do with elevenses, that quintessentially refined repast consisting of tea—never coffee (how uncouth), sandwiches, cakes and biscuits, served from a tea trolley at precisely 11 o’clock to one’s guests.

Elevenses is also the name and subject matter for a card game from Australian publisher, Adventureland Games, successfully launched on Kickstarter in 2013. Now the publisher being Australian could have led the game to be called ‘mornos’, but fortunately, Elevenses - The Card Game of Morning Tea has nothing to do with the Royal Australian Navy. Instead, it is a game in which respectable 1920s socialites strive to serve the finest morning tea!

Designed for between two and four players, aged eight and up, Elevenses is a hand management game that can be played in thirty minutes. It consists of forty-four Tea Party cards, four player aid cards, a Sugar Bowl card, six Special Guests, a Starting Server cards, and thirty wooden Sugar Cubes.  The Tea Party cards are actually four identical sets of eleven cards, each set having a different coloured back for easy identification. The cards in a set are numbered consecutively and include a Tea Trolley (1), Tea (2), Milk (3), Sugar (4), Cups & Saucers (5), Fine China (6), Biscuits (7), Sandwiches (8), Cakes (9), Servants (10), and Elevenses (11). Each card is marked with its title and number, a piece of colour text, a rather charming watercolour illustration, an action, and possibly a number of silver spoons (these are Elevenses’ victory points).

For example, the Tea (2) card has the colour text, “My tea is the finest tea in town!”; a single spoon; and the action, “Choose a player. Flip one of her spread cards valued 2 - 9 face-down.” Other cards force everyone to pass cards round the table, force a player to swap cards with another, force a player to reveal his Kitchen, and so on. In general, the higher numbered cards have more silver spoons on them and actions that often hinder a player rather than help him.

Each player is attempting to arrange his Spread in the correct order, getting each of his cards in their right position so that he has as many silver spoons out as possible when he—or another player—plays his Elevenses card. Each player’s Spread is made up of two rows of four cards, the remaining three cards forming his Kitchen. At the start, each player shuffles his set, lays eight cards face down to form his Spread, and looks at his Kitchen.

On his turn a player can do one of two things. He can play one card from Kitchen to his Spread face up and enact its action. This must be in the correctly numbered position. Two cards—Tea Trolley and Servants (10)—can be alongside the Spread, but not on it. Or he can arrange two of his cards on the Spread, essentially moving into their right position, but leaving them face down. Once a player has four or more cards face up on the Spread, then he can play his Elevenses (11) card. This marks the end of the round. The player with the most visible silver spoons wins the round and is awarded two sugar cubes taken from the Sugar Bowl card. The player with the second most visible silver spoons is awarded one sugar cube. Play continues with more rounds until one player has won seven sugar cubes and thus served the finest tea and won the game.

Now if multiple players have more than seven sugar cubes, then they give each other a kiss on the cheek, and agree to share the victory! How very polite.

Tactically, Elevenses is a light game. If a player has to swap or pass a card, it should be card that the other player has already placed in his Spread. This presents the other player from playing it again—plus it gives the play of Elevenses that little bit of an edge. If he has it in his Kitchen, a player should know when to play his Elevenses card, ideally when he will score as many silver spoons as he can or when he can prevent another player from playing more silver spoons.

The advanced version of the game adds six Special Guests. Each is a member of polite society and each has specific requirements. In particular, three cards that need to be face in a player’s Spread. The Special Guest is kept hidden until it has been fulfilled when it scores a player more silver spoons.

Physically, Elevenses is a lovely game. It has a genteel charm, the art is a delight, and the addition of the wooden sugar cubes is a nice touch. Another nice touch is that barring a little bell, all of the rewards from the Kickstarter edition are in the retail version too. Elevenses - The Card Game of Morning Tea is a charming little filler that plays better the more players there are, a delightful blend of art and theme with indecently quick game play. 

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Of Mice and the Moon

Conduct scientific research! Undertake ground-breaking feats of engineering! Manage the greatest minds of the age! Get some dullard of an accountant to manage your finances whilst you prepare for the greatest endeavour of all time—getting to the Moon! The year is 1898 and Her Majesty Victoria, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Queen, Defender of the Faith, Empress of India, has decreed that only the British Empire can put a man (or woman) on the Earth’s nearest celestial neighbour. The race is on for the honour of fulfilling Her Majesty’s dream, one that will see England’s many Clubs or Leagues desperately designing and building mad-cap rockets and launching them into space!

This is the subject for Rocket Race: A Steampunk Rocket Building Card Game from Triple Ace Games. Better known for its RPGs such as Sundered Skies, All For One: Régime Diabolique, and Leagues of Adventure: A Rip-Roaring Setting of Exploration and Derring Do in the Late Victorian Age!, this is the publisher’s first non-RPG design. It is set in the same world as Leagues of Adventure and was a big hit at UK Games 2014 where its Preview Edition of one hundred copies were quickly snapped up. Now the game is coming to Kickstarter.

The game comes in Standard and Advanced versions. In both, the aim of the game is to get a rocket to the Moon. To do this, a player must assemble a rocket, which must consist of a capsule, a propulsion system, and a steering mechanism, with up to three accessories. Their attempt can be affected by Events such as bad weather or sabotage, but eventually one League will ensure that Her Majesty prevails!

Rocket Race consists of fifty-seven cards, two six-sided dice, sixty cog counters, and the rules booklet. The cards are done in full glorious colour and depict the components and accessories that go into building a rocket, events that might help or hinder the process, and for the Advanced version, the Leagues themselves, plus their Workshops and Workshop Accessories. The components and accessory cards are each marked with a number that goes towards the Reliability total for a player’s rocket, plus a research cost used in the Advanced version. Every card is fully illustrated and titled, and many come with a piece of colour text. For example, the Capsule, ‘Martian Salvage’ has the text “I managed to secure one of the Martian landing capsules used in their abortive invasion from the Aegis of Terra. Oh wait, that’s supposed to be a secret. Forget I spoke.”; the means of Propulsion, ‘Giant Helium Balloons’ has the text “Do balloons float upward? Is the Moon not up above us? Then my logic is sound!”; and the Steering Mechanism, ‘One Hundred Hungry Mice’ has the text “The Mice will naturally be drawn toward the Moon, which is made of cheese, which in turn tip the craft to point in the right direction.”

In the standard version of the game each player begins with ten tokens, each representing his finances and resources he has to devote to the rocket building project. On his turn a player turns a card over from the deck and everyone gets the chance to bid or pass on it using their tokens. The highest bidder gets the card and has to put the tokens he bid to win the card actually on the card—this represents the card’s development time. At the end of the turn, any player with tokens on a card can remove a single token. Once a card no longer has any tokens, its development is complete and it can enter play. This applies not only to the components and accessories needed to build a rocket, but to Event cards too.

Once a player has assembled a rocket—complete with a capsule, a propulsion system, and a steering mechanism (plus any accessories)—he can launch it into the heavens. To do so, he adds the total of the Reliability factors on the cards and rolls two six-sided dice. If the result is equal to, or lower than, the Reliability total, he has successfully landed on the Moon and may bask in the glory of his achievements. If not, he has crashed on take-off, must discard a random card from his rocket ship, and begin again! The winner of course, is the first player to successfully land on the Moon.

Thus the standard version is a simple bidding game with limited resources and a simple balancing mechanism. Bid too much on a desired card and it not only takes too long to develop, it reduces the finances a player has to gain new cards. Thus smaller bids will invariably bring cards into play quicker and give a player greater control over his finances. Of course, a player can make bids to drive up the cost of card without any intention of buying it, but that might not go his way...

Where the Standard version of the game will support as many as six players, the Advanced version is for two to four players. It adds the Leagues of Adventure proper, makes use of cards that will enhance each League’s laboratory, and the advanced options on each of the Event cards. Each player is assigned a League and a workshop card. Each of the four Leagues—Aegis of Terra, Daedalus Society, Lunar Exploration Society, and Society of Aeronauts—sets a player’s starting values in three scientific disciplines, Chemistry, Engineering, and Electrics. Each  workshop has a track for each of the three scientific disciplines. Finally five cards are drawn from the deck—which now include the Workshop Accessory cards—and laid out in a row.

On his turn, a player can undertake two actions, selected from two sets of options. The first set of options are Launch, Scientific Research, or Event Acquisition, whilst the second consists of Component Acquisition or Discard. Launching a rocket works just as it does in the Standard version; Scientific Research allows a player to increase a single scientific discipline and roll for the chance to increase all three; whilst Event Acquisition lets a player take an Event card from the line. During Component Acquisition a player can use up the points he has in scientific disciplines to purchase components and accessories, whilst if he has not taken an Event card or any components or accessories, he can Discard a card from the line.

The Standard version of Rocket Race plays in about ten minutes. The Advanced version is double the playing length, and is slightly more complex. It also feels slightly more random than the Standard version, with less skill involved, whereas the Standard version gives the player some decisions to make in what to bid for and for how much. Both versions could benefit from more Event cards to encourage more player interaction. Nevertheless, both versions are decent fillers and both are let down by the flavour text that is printed just that little too small. (It should be noted that the publisher will address the size of the text with the new edition launched on Kickstarter and will offer more Event cards as stretch goals as part of the Kickstarter).

What Rocket Race really has going for it—and what it has not in spades, but in whole shedfulls—is charm and flavour. The cards themselves are a delight, beautifully illustrated, and the flavour text has a certain tongue-in-cheek humour.  Rocket Race: A Steampunk Rocket Building Card Game is an amusing, if simple diversion that brims full of derring do, erratic scientific endeavour, and of course, the best use of One Hundred Hungry Mice ever!

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Command Arrows

Lords of War is a tactical fantasy battle game published by Black Box Games. The winner of the award for Best Strategic Card Game at UK Games Expo 2013, it pitches two armies into a fierce confrontation that can be played out in roughly thirty minutes. Designed for two players aged twelve and over, the original set consisted of Lords of War: Orcs versus Dwarves. It was quickly joined by Lords of War: Elves versus Lizardmen and then by Lords of War: Templar versus Undead which was funded via Kickstarter.

Each set is described as “Dual Deck Expandable Gaming Cards”, which means that the army decks from each set are interchangeable with those of another and that the cards in each army deck are also interchangeable with those of any other. This means that each army can be modified with cards from another deck and that rather than battles being fought between the armies in one set, they can be played out as 'Templars versus Orcs', 'Elves versus Dwarves', 'Lizardmen versus Undead', and so on. In this review, the Lords of War: Orcs versus Dwarves set will be under the spotlight. Not only because it is the first set in the line, but because a confrontation between Orcs and Dwarves is very traditional when it comes to fantasy battles.

Each set consists of two armies—represented by two thirty-six card decks, plus a rules sheet and a Battlemat. The latter is marked with a seven-by-six grid of spaces upon which the game’s cards will be placed and is done in a slightly mottled, golden brown. (The colour varies from set to set, so for example, the Battlemat in Lords of War: Elves versus Lizardmen is green, representing the swamps or forests that they fight over rather than the mountains or rough terrain of Lords of War: Orcs versus Dwarves). The rules sheet is large and double-sided, but is only done in black and white. It is easy to read and does a decent job of explain the rules. What stands out about Lords of War: Orcs versus Dwarves—and any of the three sets to date—are the cards that form each army and are the heart of the game.

All of the cards are done in full colour by artist Steve Cox, each one depicting a single warrior or unit in a style reminiscent of Games Workshop’s Warhammer Fantasy Battles. Which is no bad thing since it gives the game a certain familiarity. Besides its illustration, every card has a name; a number of Attack Aarrows that determine the direction in which the unit can attack—forward, back, to the sides, and diagonally out of the corners; and a Defence Value. Each Attack Arrow also has an Attack Value attached to it. The more Attack Arrows a unit has, the greater its flexibility on the battlefield, both in attacking enemy units and pinning them in place.

Every card also has a Class—Infantry, Cavalry, Spear, Ranged, and Berserker. Infantry units are generally balanced in terms of their Attack Arrows, Attack Values, and Defence Values; Cavalry units tend to have broad Attack Values, but low Defence Values; Spearmen have low Attack Values, but high Defence Values; Ranged units can attack enemy units at a distance; and Berserkers have limited Attack Arrows and high Attack Values, but low Defence Values. Every unit also has a Rank from Recruit and Regular up to Command and General. Six of the cards in a deck are Command units and one of these is the army’s general—unlike the standard units, they are all named. 

Throughout the game, each player will have a hand of six cards. At the start of the game, this hand will consist of five cards from his shuffled deck and his army’s General. Once each player has placed a unit in one of the Battlemat’s starting positions, the game begins. A turn consists of three phases.

In the Deployment phase, a player places a unit on the Battlemat orthogonally or diagonally adjacent to an enemy unit so that one of its Attack Arrows points at the enemy unit. A support unit like a Ranged or Spear unit can also be placed adjacent to any friendly unit so that its Attack Arrows do not engage it or it is not engaged by friendly Attack Arrows. This means particularly with Ranged units that they can be placed behind friendly units away from the front lines and enemy units that would attack them directly.

During the Elimination Phase, every unit on the Battlemat attacks—including those of both armies! Thus, if the combined Attack Values of the units attacking an enemy unit via their Attack Arrows exceed the enemy’s Defence Value, it is eliminated. This has to be done unit by unit until every unit on the Battlemat has been checked to see that it has not been eliminated. The result of this is that a player has to consider both how his unit can attack and how his unit might be attacked. 

The third and final phase is the Reinforcement Phase. During this, a player can either refresh his hand back up to six or have one retreat from the Battlemat into his hand. The latter unit must not have been placed or fought that turn, or be engaged by an enemy unit’s Attack Arrows. It is possible to pin an enemy unit to prevent it being removed from the Battlemat during the Reinforcement Phase.

The battle proceeds until one army can defeat four of its opponent’s Command units or any twenty of its units. Then it will have won the battle.

The key to Lords of War is positioning the units so that they make the best use of their Attack Arrows and avoid being subject to attack in return. Placement is all important to controlling the battlefield and as a game progresses, it becomes more and more difficult to find the weak spots in an opponent’s defences. The choice of army will also influence a player’s actions—with the Lords of War: Orcs versus Dwarves, each side has its own strengths. The Dwarves have better Defence Values, whilst the Orcs have better Attack Values.  

As good as Lords of War looks and as simple as the rules are, what it lacks is flavour. There is some that comes through in the cards, but there is none in the rules. For that the purchaser needs to visit the publisher’s website for the background to the game, where he will also find rules for multiplayer battles and more advanced rules. Whilst simplicity of the design does make Lords of War easy to play, the lack of flavour does leave the game lacking substance. Another issue is that there is a certain artifice to the game in that it does not feel as if you are fighting a battle except in an abstract way. This is fine in a game like Chess, but in Lords of War it feels as if you should be fighting each other for something rather than a simple stand-up confrontation because the art on the cards suggests so. Hopefully, the Terrain & Weather Expansion Pack will go some way to alleviate this issue and provide the game a bit more substance as well as variety.

Lords of War: Orcs versus Dwarves is a pleasingly simple combat card game that offers tactical challenges and thoughtful play without overwhelming the participants. The design is attractive and easily expandable and should also serve as solid introduction to wargaming fantasy battles too.

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The Unlikely Next England Captain

If you know me at all, you will know how passionate I am about football. I loathe it. I am bored by it. I take a particularly perverse pleasure in every single loss that the England football team suffers. As you can see, I am singularly passionate about football.

So what the hell am I doing reviewing a football-themed game when I am still trying to work out why my parents gave me Super Striker for Christmas when I was five? Which was in 1972.

So here is what happened. I was at Curry & Games, a local games meet that takes each month here in Birmingham. J-P Treen approached Chris and myself and asked if we would like to play a game of his. It was, he explained, a game about football titled Next England Captain. Given this theme, both Chris and I agreed with a certain reluctance. We played through it and much to our surprise, found that we had enjoyed ourselves and we had enjoyed the humour of the game. We did break the game though. Sort of.

Leap forward eighteen months and another game design or two and Next England Captain is not only being showcased at UK Games Expo this weekend, but it also being launched on Kickstarter. My name may or may not be in the credits because I helped J-P Treen with the game’s blurb, but the game itself is all his and this review is all mine. So read on and be surprised as I am to find myself reviewing a football-themed game.

The game in question is Next England Captain: The Anti-Football Game, published by Too Much Games. This is a meticulously researched card game for two to four players aged ten and up that can be played in twenty minutes. Each player controls the fate and dreams of a football player—he can make career moves, but sometimes his career is out of his control—who one day hopes to become the Next England Captain. The game is a satire, but a gentle one at that…

It consists of four Playing Mats—one per player; twenty Career Tokens—five per player, each representing a Career Move; and seventy-two cards. The cards are divided into six colour-coded types. Club (black) cards represent the football team that a player plays for—such as Flower Show F.C. or Leyton Occidental; Squad (blue) cards represent his position on the team from ‘Catastrophic Loss of Form’ to ‘He Scores When He Wants’; and England (red) cards are his position on the England national squad, usually ‘England Regular’, but if he is fortunate, ‘England Captain’. If he is unfortunate, it will be ‘Scotland Regular?’ and thus make him ineligible to play for the England team. Status (orange) cards represent a range of things, whether he has a ‘Girlfriend’, ‘Wife’, ‘Children’, or a ‘Car Crash Personality’; Money (yellow) cards are deals that the football player can make, such as ‘Coaching Ambassador’ or ‘Trademark Celebration’; and Final (black) cards represent what a player does after his career, perhaps ‘Foreign Move’ or ‘The Pundit’. Final cards can only be played on a player’s final turn.

Every card has a points value. At the end of the game, each player totals the values of his visible cards—some cards will add to, or modify the total—and the player with highest score will win the game.

Each Playing Mat has spaces for each card type when they played, one on top of each other—only the top card counts. The Playing Mat also has spaces in the middle for placing a player’s Career Tokens when played.

The first problem with the game—all right the second problem with the game, because the first is that it is after all, a football-themed game—is determining who goes first. According to the rules this is the person who last kicked a football. Which is a problem in some gaming groups as they collectively try and work out exactly how many years go any one of them actually kicked a real life football… Once that has been decided, each player receives a hand of four cards and the game can begin.

On his turn, a player can do one of two moves. The first is a Career Move. This allows him to play as many cards as he can, but only one of each type. Essentially, this is the football player doing his best to further his career. It also uses up one of the player’s five Career Moves. The second is to discard cards and refresh his hand. A player can discard as many as he likes, but he must take a ‘Penalty!’, drawing a single card and playing it if he can—this representing the fickle hand of fortune—before he refreshes his hand back up to four.

For example, Dave has the following hand: Woolwich Rovers (8) Club card, Chairman’s Toy (6) Squad card, Trademark Celebration (5) Money card, and Sponsored Boots (2) Money card. As a Career Move, he plays the Woolwich Rovers, the Chairman’s Toy, and Trademark Celebration cards, but not the Sponsored Boots card as it is not worth as much. The other advantage is that the combination of Woolwich Rovers Club and the Chairman’s Toy Squad cards make him eligible to play for the England.

On his next turn, Dave still has the Sponsored Boots card in his hand as well as the Aston Park F.C. (6) Club card, the Scotland Regular? (5) England card, and The Pundit (9) Final card. Of these, he decides to save The Pundit until the final turn because it is worth points and opt for a Penalty! in order to get a better hand. The card he draws is the Leyton Oriental (3) Club, which he has to play. Unfortunately, not only is the card worth fewer points, it also makes him ineligible to play for England! Oh well, Dave had better hope that his new hand of cards gives him a Club card that will make him eligible.

Two Career Moves grant a player certain benefits. ‘Write your own History’ allows a player to take a card from the discard pile before having a normal Career Move, while ‘This is your Year’ enables him to play two cards of the same colour instead of the usual one allowed. Both are useful because certain cards have requirements that need to be met before they can be played. The most basic is the need to have a strong combination of Club and Squad cards so that the football player is eligible to play for England and the player can play an England Regular card. These requirements grow the nearer a player gets to becoming Captain of the England Football team. To become that, he needs to be an England Regular and have the Children Status card, the latter also needing Wife or Celebrity Wife Status cards, and they each have their own requirements.

Why all of these requirements? Well, as the game designer has explained to me, no Captain of the England Football Team of the past seventy years has held the position and not been married or had children. As he has also explained, Next England Captain is meticulously researched, and who am I to say otherwise? (Anyway, saying otherwise would probably mean having to look up a bunch of tedious facts about a very tedious game—and no, I do not mean the one that I am reviewing).*

*(It should actually made clear that not all of the facts given in the previous paragraph is true. This was also relayed to me by the game's designer, which might not lend much credibility as to his reliability as an expert on the position of Captain of the England Football team. Neither does the fact he himself has never held the position of  Captain of the England Football team, but then again this may also prove to be untrue—how would I know? In the meantime, the designer discusses the subject of the position of Captain of the England Football team and marriage in a post here).

Once a player has conducted his last Career Move, everyone else has one more turn. This is the only turn in which Final cards can be played. Then everyone totals up the value of the top cards on their stacks and the highest wins the game. 

Next England Captain combines card drafting and hand management elements with press your luck and storytelling game play. Each player needs to discard cards and take a Penalty! several times in order to get the cards into his hand to make a Career Move a worthwhile move, but will often be forced to play Career Moves in order to keep up with his rival players. As a player puts his cards down, he is also playing out the career of his player and all its highs and lows. What makes this entertaining are the cards, which whilst all drawn from the lives of football players in the Premier League, are all absurd in one way or another, if they do not out and out poke fun at football players and the Premier League. For example, the Sports Drink Promo Deal Money card has the slogan, “Looks like wee. Tastes like sweat. Makes you awesome.”; the Car Crash Personality Status card has words “Why Always Him?” on it as well as the symbol of a sports car; and the ‘Super-Injunction’ Status card has no effect at all, not even a score value at game’s end! (It has been suggested that the latter prevent the other players from talking about the player).

So what do I think of Next England Captain: The Anti-Football Game? Well, first we need to deal with the Rooney in the room. So here goes… I HATE FOOTBALL. Nothing short of a lobotomy is going to change this. So what do I think of Next England Captain: The Anti-Football Game in light of the Rooney in the room?

I actually enjoy playing Next England Captain: The Anti-Football Game.

I actually like Next England Captain: The Anti-Football Game.

It is not quite a perfect design in some ways. Some cards are more important than others—the Status cards in particular. This though, is by design. The role of England Captain is primarily a public relations role and thus whatever football player has the role needs to project the right image—married, children, and so on. So it reflects the Premier League just as it should. 

Next England Captain: The Anti-Football Game can of course be played straight and its satirical elements ignored, but the ‘Anti’ of the game’s subtitle is very much part of the game’s enjoyment. Surprisingly, it is an enjoyable kick up the pomposity of the Premier League and a footballers’ life that in twenty minutes shatters what dreams you might have of being the Next England Captain.

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Playing Fireworks Blind

Most co-operative board games have the players working against the clock or the game itself, sometimes with a traitor amongst the players trying to thwart their efforts. Battlestar Galactica, published by Fantasy Flight Games, and Grosso Modo Éditions’ more recent Nosferatu are typical of cooperative games with a traitor mechanic, whilst Z-Man Games’ Pandemic and Indie Cards and Games’ Flash Point: Fire Rescue are typical of co-operative board games without a traitor mechanic. These games have made the co-operative style of play popular and accepted, the board game Pandemic having made the breakthrough in 2008. Most co-operative games revolve around the players attempting to cope with limited information that they all share. In Hanabi, the players must share information about what each other has on their cards, but they will never know exactly what they have on their own cards.

Named for the Japanese word for fireworks, Cocktail Games’ Hanabi was the 2013 Spiel des Jahres Game of the Year Winner. The players are apprentices who are attempting to put on a firework display for the emperor, but have managed to mix up the powders, fuses and rockets. To succeed, they must launch the fireworks in the correct sequence, and if they do, they please not only the emperor, but their master too.

Designed for two to five players, aged eight and up, Hanabi consists of five sets of coloured cards—red, blue, green, white, and white, plus three red tokens and eight blue tokens. Each set consists of ten cards, each containing three cards numbered one, two numbered two, two numbered two, two numbered two, and a single card numbered five. The red tokens are failure tokens, indicating a poorly displayed firework; the blue tokens are clue tokens, used to impart information to another player about the cards in his hands.

A complete firework consists of a single colour that contains cards played in order, from one up through two, three, four, and finally, five. Completing a firework gains the players a blue token; playing a card out of sequence onto a firework, for example, playing a white-4 card onto a white-2 card, would earn the players a red token. If they gain all three red tokens, the game is over.
At game’s start, each player receives a hand of cards, either four or five, depending on the number of players. A player cannot look at his hand, but instead holds them face out so that the other players can seem them. Thus each player can see everyone else’s cards, but not his own.

On his turn, a player can undertake a single action. He can discard card to gain a blue token; he can play a card, either to an ongoing firework or to start one if there is not yet one of that colour; or he can expend a blue token to give a clue; giving clues lies at the heart of Hanabi. To give a clue, a player points to another player’s hand and imparts certain information about that hand. This can be about the cards of a single colour in a player’s hand, such as “You have a green card here” or “You have two white cards here and here”; or about the cards of single number in the player’s hand, such as “You have a three here” or “You have a four here and here”. The clues given must be complete—so if a player has two four cards, the informing player must indicate both of them. If a player discarded a card or played one onto a firework, then he draws a new card.

Play continues until either the players have acquired all three red tokens and thus lost the game; or all five fireworks have been completed in the correct order and the players have scored maximum points, or the deck has been exhausted. In the case of the latter, points are awarded based on the fireworks completed, the top card on each firework adding to the final score. A maximum of twenty-five points can be scored, with scores of between sixteen and twenty-four at least being memorable.

Hanabi is as simple as that. During play, a player is free to arrange his cards how he likes and to an extent can talk about his hand in general terms—only the other players can be specific about his hand and only after having expended a blue token. For a game as simple as Hanabi, it requires a great deal of thought and no little care, because it is a game about memory and deduction, that is remembering where your cards are in your hand and deducing which card to play next from the clues previously given. Essentially though, it is a game about communication and understanding that communication, and about remembering that communication. Get the communication wrong and potential points are lost as the wrong cards are discarded or played onto a firework.

Hanabi is also a filler game, play being expected to last no longer than twenty minutes or so. Unlike more recent filler games, for example, Coup or Love Letter, this one is not combative. Indeed, in comparison to many other co-operative games, Hanabi is benign, the players are not really playing against a game that is set up for them to fail, as in Pandemic or Battlestar Galactica. Even its subject matter is benign, but despite that and its benign mechanics, it is actually more challenging than your average filler game because it is asking the players to think and communicate. Also, where another co-operative bears repeat play by increasing the difficulty level of the game the players have to beat; Hanabi bears repeated play if a group wants to improve its score.

Despite its simplicity, Hanabi is clever because it gives us a new playing experience. One that emphasises communication and deduction to support its co-operative play.

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Down with The Resistance

 In the near future, the government has become a ‘Corporatocracy’, the CEOs of the multi-national corporations forming a new ‘royal class’. Their greed has widened the divide between rich and poor until eventually, The Resistance grew out of the oppressed masses, dedicated to the overthrow of their corporate rulers. The efforts of The Resistance have not been in vain, sowing discord, intrigue and weakness in the political courts of the ‘noveau royal’, bringing the government to brink of collapse. With government so weak, now is the time for a powerful government official to manipulate, bribe, and bluff his way into absolute power.

This is the set up for Coup, a card game of secret identities, deduction, and deception set in the same universe as Indie Boards & Cards’ The Resistance in which the players, as ambitious government officials, plot to be the one to overthrow the current regime. It is designed to be played by two to six players, aged thirteen and up, in roughly fifteen minutes. To win a player must end the influence of his rivals and force them into exile—there can only be one man to take the reins of government in this tempestuous time.

The game consists of fifteen character cards, six player reference cards, a bag of fifty coins, and an eight-page rules booklet. The fifteen character cards consist three each of five characters—The Duke, the Assassin, the Ambassador, the Captain, and the Contessa. Each of the characters can legitimately perform one or more actions, but often these actions will be ‘illegitimately’ performed by other characters. If caught doing so and challenged, then the player controlling that character will lose Influence. Lose enough Influence and the player is forced into exile and knocked out of the game.

At game’s start, each player receives two coins, two character cards, and a reference card that explains the actions that each player can undertake on their turn. The two character cards are laid face down and remain hidden until challenged. Certain actions allow a character card to be replaced, but because the two character cards represent a player’s Influence, if both are eliminated, the player is forced into exile.

On his turn, a player can conduct one of seven actions. The Income action allows him to take one coin from the bank. The Foreign Aid action allows him to take two coins, but the Duke can block this action. The Duke can also be used to conduct the Tax action and gain the player three coins. By expending three coins, a player can use the Assassin’s Assassinate action to remove one of a rival’s characters and reduce his Influence. The Assassinate action can be blocked by the Contessa—the Contessa does not have an action of her own, only this blocking action. The Ambassador’s Exchange action allows him to replace one of characters with a new one from the Court deck. The Captain’s Steal action enables him to take two coins from another player, though this can be countered by another Captain or the Ambassador. Lastly, by expending seven coins, a player can launch a Coup and remove one of a rival’s characters and so reduce his Influence. If a player accumulates ten or more coins, he must launch a Coup on his next turn.

Once a player has selected and announced his action, his rivals are free to respond with a challenge or a counteraction. This is where the game becomes interesting. A player can conduct the Income, Foreign Aid, and Coup actions with impunity (though Foreign Aid can be blocked), but every other requires that state that he has the appropriate character to conduct that action—the Captain to Steal, the Duke to claim Foreign Aid, or the Assassin to Assassinate, for example. Similarly, when issuing a counteraction, such as the Contessa’s ability to block Assassinations or the Duke’s to block Foreign Aid, a player must state that he has that character.

Of course, in stating that he has a character and is using its action or counteraction, a player might be bluffing. If either goes unchallenged, then play continues, but if he is challenged, a player has to prove that he has the character. If he does, the character is replaced by a new one from the Court deck, into which the old character goes and he does not lose any Influence. Instead, the challenging player loses a character and the associated Influence. If he does not have the character, he loses a character he does have, plus its Influence.

Whenever a player loses a character, either from a lost challenge, an assassination, or a Coup, the character is not discarded, but left face up where the other player can see it. Thus they know which characters have been discarded and to an extent, can count cards…

Play continues with the bluffing and challenging until there is only a single player left. He has won and can launch the Coup. Players need to be careful with their challenges as losing characters and Influence means reducing their choice of actions that they can prove if challenged. They should also be aware of any rival accumulating enough money to launch a Coup, which cannot be blocked. Although bluffing is part of the game, a player should also be prepared to use the characters and their actions he has as he can prove their use. Do that often enough and he might be able to bluff his way through a turn. Of course, a player may have to bluff because he does not have the characters he needs.

Physically well-produced, Coup’s cards have an Italianate, almost Dune-like feel to them. That said, the game’s theme is light and easy to grasp. The game itself is simple, and like any decent filler, plays fast enough to repeat once or twice in a session. 

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Finding Romeo

Where art thou Romeo? is not even a ‘Microgame’, it is something smaller. Indeed, the game’s full title, Where art thou Romeo? A Nano game set in the World of the Council of Verona, gives substance to its tiny size. Released as a near ‘Pay What You Want’ project on Kickstarter, Where art thou Romeo? is a card game inspired by Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet and published by Crash Games that can be played in as little as five minutes. It consists of five cards, plus the rules, and is quick to learn as it is to play. It is a ‘role’ game in which players takes turn being Juliet who is looking for her beloved, Romeo. Depending upon their roles, the players will score points if Romeo is found or if he is not found.

The five cards are all role cards. The first is Juliet. The other four each have two roles on them, so for example, Romeo and Count Paris are one card, whilst Mercutio and Benvolio are on another. At the beginning of each round, one player will be Juliet whilst the other players are each given one card. Each of these other players will choose one of the two roles on their card. So for example, a player receives the Nurse/Tybalt card and must choose to be either Tybalt or the Nurse for that round. Whatever role these players choose, they must keep it a secret until Juliet asks everyone to reveal their roles.

As the players are choosing their roles, a lobbying period of roughly thirty seconds ensues. During this period, Juliet essentially asks the question, “Where art thou Romeo?” and the players have to convince her of the fact whether or not they are Romeo. By the end of the period the players must have selected their role and then Juliet gets to choose which player she thinks is Romeo.

The aim of the game is to score as many points over the course of its several rounds. The numbers gained each round depends who Juliet chooses. She scores the most points if she chooses Romeo, as does Romeo, the Nurse, and Friar Laurence. Mercutio also scores the most points if Romeo is chosen, but will reduce the points gained by both Romeo and Juliet. Benvolio, Tybalt, and Prince Escalus all score a point if Romeo is not chosen or Juliet cannot decide.

The players are free to tell Julia whatever they like during the lobbying period, bar revealing their identity. It is clearly in the interests of several of the roles for Julia to identify Romeo—certainly Romeo, the Nurse, and Friar Laurence have no reason to lie when it comes to stating whether or not they are Romeo. Likewise, Mercutio certainly wants Romeo found, though for different reasons and thus will not lie about his not being Romeo. Benvolio, Tybalt, and Prince Escalus, as well as Count Paris, all have an interest in Romeo not being found and so are likely to lie. This may change as one person gets ahead in terms of points, but in a ‘Nano game’, it should be no surprise that the tactics are ‘Nano’ too.

Physically, the game’s five cards are sturdy and presented in black and white on a sage background. Currently and disappointingly, Crash Games has no plans to develop further titles as ‘Pay What You Want’ projects on Kickstarter—for reasons that are explained here. That said, Tasty Minstrel Games has picked up this baton with titles such as This Town Aint Big Enough for the 2-4 of Us! PWYW, Burgoo - A PAY-WHAT-YOU-WANT game of community stews, Templar Intrigue - A Werewolf type game by @tastyminstre, and Coin Age - A PAY-WHAT-YOU-WANT area control microgame.

There are numerous hidden role games available at the moment, from The Resistance and Coup to Battlestar Galactica – The Board Game and Love Letter. In comparison to those titles, Where art thou Romeo? is likely to get a little lost, but then its slight scope and playing time combined with the fact that it reached only a limited audience, this is hardly surprising. Yet this should not be held against the game. After all, Where art thou Romeo? is a five minute, $5 game that is understandably light and undemanding.

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Meme Melee Mash Up

Alien Ninja versus Dinosaur Tricksters versus Pirate Wizards versus Robot Zombies or Alien Dinosaurs versus Ninja Pirates versus Robot Wizards versus Trickster Zombies or Alien Wizards versus Zombie Tricksters versus Robot Pirates versus Dinosaur Ninjas or… Take an Internet meme like Pirates versus Ninja versus Robots versus Monkeys and whisk into a stiff froth and what you have is Smash Up: The Shufflebuilding Game of Total Awesomeness!, a card game published by Alderac Entertainment Group. Best known for its Legend of the Five Rings CCG and Legend of the Five Rings RPG, Alderac Entertainment Group has within the last three years expanded rapidly into the design and publication of board and card games. Smash Up, which was the  2013 UK Games Expo Awards Best General Card Game Winner, is a light card game, designed for play by two to four players, aged twelve and up, in which different factions team up and battle for control of the world!

Smash Up consists of eight factions – Aliens, Dinosaurs, Ninjas, Pirates, Robots, Tricksters, Wizards, and Zombies, each represented by a twenty-card deck. A ninth deck, containing sixteen cards, consists of the Bases, such as the ‘Temple of Goju’ or ‘Evans City Cemetery’, which the factions will battle over. To win, each player must take control of a pairing of two of these factions, usually randomly determined, which might be Robot Tricksters or Pirate Zombies, and use it to take control of these Bases. Score enough points from these Bases – fifteen Victory Points is enough – and a player will win.

Each faction consists of Action and Minion cards, the latter valued between one and seven Power, but at the heart of the game are the special abilities particular to each faction. Aliens zap the minions of rival players back into their hands; Dinosaurs, many with lasers for eyes, get to stomp on Bases with their big Power and scare other factions when it is not their turn; Ninjas sneak onto Bases just at the right time when you least expect it; and Pirates can set sail easily from one Base to another. Robots bring out lots of tiny little microbots that quickly stack and power each other up; Tricksters – fae such as gnomes, gremlins, and leprechauns play seemingly random ruses that protect their Minions or have consequences on attacking players; Wizards cast spells that let them play extra Action cards; and Zombies never die, but end up in the player’s discard pile to swarm back out again. Playing one faction might be easy enough, but mastering Smash Up means getting to grips with how one faction interacts with another, because the abilities of one faction will usually affect the other faction in a pairing. 

The game starts with each player taking two faction decks and shuffling these together. This is the ‘shufflebuilding’ of the game’s title and it is how a player forms his deck for the game. Then a number of Bases are laid out, equal to the number of players plus one. Each Base has a Breakpoint, ranging from sixteen to twenty-five. When the total value of Minions on the Base played by everyone equals or succeeds this Breakpoint, the Base is smashed and Victory Points are scored. Each Base awards points to the player with the highest total value in Minions on the Base, and then to the players with the second and third highest totals. As soon as a Base is scored in this fashion, a new one is added to fight over. Each Base has a special ability of its own. For example, ‘The Central Brain’ grants everyone Minion a +1 bonus to its Power when played on the Base, whilst the ‘Rhodes Plaza Mall’ awards one Victory Point to each player for every Minion he has on the Base when it scores.

Each turn a player can play two cards – an Action card and a Minion card, though he does not have to play either. Played onto a Base, a Minion has a set of instructions that trigger as soon as it is played. Usually this means getting to add another Minion to a Base or sending a rival Minion away, but the exact effect varies from one faction to another, and this essentially is Smash Up. Play is very simple, but things get somewhat complex when it comes to working out how the cards interact with each other and how they continue to affect the game from turn to another. This requires keeping track of the text on the card, and that can slow game play down, as can having to add up the total value of the Minions on a Base at the end of almost every turn, though neither really impedes play. Indeed, the text on the cards actually adds a little tactical substance to the game.

Physically, Smash Up is an attractive game. The cards are very nicely illustrated and the rules are clear and simple. The language used in the rules is sometimes annoyingly, if not patronisingly, informal and should never got past the editor. The inclusion of a scoring track would have been a useful addition.

A recent trend in game design has been the ‘deck building’ game, a type of card game in which a player builds and manipulates his own deck of cards in order to create the optimum deck and so win the game. Alderac Entertainment Group has published several of these, including Nightfall and Thunderstone, but Smash Up cuts to the chase – one ‘shufflebuild’ of two twenty-card decks and a player is ready to go and finds himself playing a simple, but strongly themed beat ‘em up card game that adds a little complexity and a surprising tactical substance when working how the cards interact. Smash Up: The Shufflebuilding Game of Total Awesomeness! is light and fun, attractive and varied with innumerable combinations to try out and see who gets to Smash Up the world!

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Think Fluxx

As many copies as have been sold in the fifteen years – almost a million according to publisher Looney Labs – Fluxx the Card Game is divisive a design. The problem for many players is that the game is purely random, is too chaotic, and can last anywhere from two minutes to sixty minutes… That there is no way in which any one can win other through random chance. To an extent, this is true, but Fluxx the Card Game is a game about change and adapting to that change, from one turn to the next. Personally, I quite like playing Fluxx, although I prefer the versions without the Creeper mechanic unless thematically appropriate as in Martian Fluxx or Zombie Fluxx, because otherwise, the Keepers slow the game down. Now Looney Labs has turned Fluxx into a board game, and the question is, will Fluxx the Board Game be as good or as bad some think that the card is?

Designed for between two and four players, aged eight and up, Fluxx the Board Game uses much of the same mechanics as the card game, but as its title suggests, it uses a board and playing pieces. What the board represents are objectives to be reached – such as Cookies, Money, the Rocket, Dreams, and so on – and matched to the Goals given on the Goal cards. These objectives can be reached by moving a player’s pieces around. A player simply has to have his pieces on these objectives to gain a Goal, and where in Fluxx the Card Game a player only needs to have his Keeper cards match one Goal card in order to win, in Fluxx the Board Game, a player has to match and win multiple Goal cards in order to win. This being a ‘Fluxx’ game though means that everything is subject to change. Just as in Fluxx the Card Game, the number of a cards a player must draw, play, and discard fluctuates during Fluxx the Board Game, but being a board game, the number of times a player can move his pieces, the actual colour of the playing pieces he can move, the number of Goals he needs to acquire in order to win, the board layout, and the rotation of the tiles are all also subject to change.

The board consists of nine square tiles. One of these is the Start Tile, the other eight represent the playing area. Each of the eight tiles is divided into four spaces, three of which are objective spaces for Goals and one of which is either where there can be more than playing piece or portal that links to a portal on another tile. Together these nine tiles are arranged into a square with the Start Tile at the centre. Two additional tiles serve as the Control Boards. One for the Goal cards, five of which are randomly placed face up in a stack; the other a peg board used to indicate how many cards a player draws, plays, pieces he moves, and his hand limit as well as if he rotate and move tiles, and move off the edge of the board and onto the other edge. A set of pegs are slotted into the spaces.

The cards are also divided between the familiar – to anyone who has played Fluxx the Card Game, and those new that take account of the new playing area. Action cards will be familiar and do various things such as ‘Taxation!’ which forces rival players to each give you a single card or ‘Discard and Draw’ which lets a player effectively change his hand. New Action cards interact with the board and playing pieces. For example, ‘Back to Square One’ forces the playing pieces of every other player back to the Starting Square and ‘Rotate Colours’ forces players to change the colour of the playing pieces they control. New Rule cards like ‘Hand Limit’ will be familiar although instead of the limit being set by the card, the player now shifts the appropriate peg on the board, whilst ‘Rotate On’ and similar cards turn the board movement on or off. Goal cards remain unchanged from Fluxx the Card Game except for setting the objectives that the players need to move to claim each Goal card. The new Leaper cards send playing pieces to a particular Objective, like ‘Music’ or ‘The Eye’, or to any ‘Octagon’ or ‘Portal’ space. Lastly, the Color cards determine which playing pieces a player currently controls.

At the start of the game each player gets to adjust the control pegs up once and receives a hand of three cards and a color to determine his initial playing pieces. Five Goal cards are placed on the Goal Control Board all face, the uppermost one setting the initial objectives.

On his turn each player draws a number of cards, then plays cards and moves pieces, and then discards cards, all according to the positioning of the pegs on the Control Board. A player is free to play cards and move pieces in any order that he wishes, and this is where the game begins to get interesting. To start with, if a player moves a playing piece into a space already occupied, it bumps the playing piece already there into an adjacent space – except for Octagon spaces which can hold more than one playing piece. That is the least of it because a player can also examine the cards in the Goal stack, though not change their order, so thus he knows what Goals and what Objective spaces he needs to reach throughout the game. Plus a player may also have Goal cards in his hand and these can be played onto the top of the Goal stack to claim. What having this knowledge of the Goals and their Objectives throughout the game means is that a player can actually plan both his card use and his moves. If he is clever, it is possible for a player to use his cards and move his pieces to gain more than a single Goal in just one turn.

What these together add is a strategic element to Fluxx the Board Game that is not present in Fluxx the Card Game. They also serve to counter the random element so often criticised in Fluxx the Card Game. Not completely though, as the cards drawn and the actions of rival players still effectively have a randomising effect. The great thing is, is that it does all this without adding anything in the way of complexity.

If there is anything disappointing about Fluxx the Board Game it is the Control Boards and the pegs. The latter do not always sit easily in their holes and it is sometimes difficult to keep track of which peg is meant to sit in which hole. That said the other components are decent enough and the playing pieces are pleasingly differentiated by both colour and shape. The rules are clearly written, but another  pleasing touch is the inclusion of a box that explains the differences between Fluxx the Board Game and Fluxx the Card Game.

In developing Fluxx into Fluxx the Board Game, the designer has created a game that is more thoughtful than Fluxx the Card Game. Still a light game though, so suitable for a family audience, but still just enough of a challenge so as not to bore a gaming audience. 

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What Glory Rome?

The year is AD 64. A great fire has struck Rome and at Nero’s command the city must be rebuilt. A number of young Patricians have come forward to answer the imperial call, hoping to win influence and a fortune in helping the Emperor. As their influence grows, they will be able to command Architects and Craftsmen who will rebuild Rome for them, Labourers who will gather the materials needed to rebuild Rome’s finest buildings, the Legions to take materials for their building efforts, Merchants to sell the hoarded materials that will ensure their wealth, and Patrons who will gather more Clientele who will also serve as Architects, Craftsmen, Labourers, Legionaries, and Patrons for each Patrician. All this must be done if a Patrician is rebuild the greatest city in the known world and bring Glory to Rome!

This is premise behind Glory to Rome, a strategy card game published by Cambridge Games. Originally published in 2005, in 2012 it was redesigned with all new artwork and a new box and funded through Kickstarter. Known as the “Black Box” edition, this is the version being reviewed here. Designed to be played by between two and five players, aged twelve and up, it is a card-based city building and resource management game with a novel mechanism. Most of the cards are Order cards that can be used not in one or two different ways, but in four different ways. Each Order card can be built as a building, used as a raw material in the construction of a building, hired as a patron, or sold for its material value. Each Order card can only be used the once, so a player will need to choose carefully if he is to gain the winning benefit from it.

Each Order card is first and foremost a building that a player can construct and then gain the special ability that the building grants. Each Order card is also a material that could be used to construct buildings, though if a player uses it as the material to construct part of another building, he cannot construct the building on the card. There are multiple copies of the buildings in Glory to Rome, so if a card is used for material in another building, another copy might pass into a player’s hand enabling him to try and build it. Each and every building grants its builder a special ability that will help him win the game.

Each Order card is also marked with one, two, or three coins. Once the building on an Order card has been built, these have a dual purpose. First, they indicate the Victory Points scored at game’s end for having constructed the building. Second, they indicate the player’s Influence. By increasing his Influence, a player increases both his capacity to hire more Clients and store material in his Vault.

Lastly, each Order card is marked with one of six Client types and an associated material. These are the grey Architects, which can also serve as Concrete; the green Craftsman, which also serve as Wood; the yellow Labourers, which also work as Rubble; the red Legionaries, which also serve as Brick; the blue Merchants, which also serve as Stone; and the purple Patrons, which also serve as Marble. Each of the six Client types performs a particular role or function in the game. The Architect can lay the foundation of a building or add material to its construction from a player’s Stockpile. The Craftsman can lay the foundation of a building or add material to its construction from a player’s hand of cards. The Labourer takes material from the game’s central pool and adds it to a player’s Stockpile. The Legionary demands material from both the game’s central pool and the hands of neighbouring players. The Merchant allows a player to move material from his Stockpile to his Vault. Lastly, a Patron hires a Client from the game’s central pool and adds it to a player’s Clientele.

So for example, the Market card serves as a Craftsman if used as a Client, as Wood in the construction of a building, but if built does two things. First, its single coin increases both the player’s Victory Point total and his Influence. Second, it grants a special ability, in this case, an increase in size of the player’s Vault above the limit set by his current Influence.  Whereas the Archway serves as a Legionary if used as a Client, as Brick for constructing a building, and it increases a player’s Victory Point total and Influence both by two. The special ability that the Archway grants lets a player take material from the central pool of cards instead of his Stockpile.

Glory to Rome consists of three other card types. One is the Jack, a wild card that can be used instead of a Client on an Order card. Another is the Foundation card, which come in the game’s six material types – Brick, Concrete, Marble, Rubble, Stone, and Wood – with a Foundation card being required to be laid before construction can begin on a building. Thus a Wood Foundation card must be laid before construction can be begun on the Market. The last card type is the Merchant Bonus, there being one of these for each material. Each is awarded to the player who the most of the corresponding material in his Vault at game’s end.

In addition to beginning the game with a hand of five Order cards, a player also has a Player Camp heavy card mat. The Player Camp serves as a reference for the players, providing a brief description of what each of the Order cards does when used as Clients. Primarily though, a Player Camp mat is used to organise a player’s cards once they have been played. Order cards are tucked face up under the top of the Player Camp so that only their Influence values are visible; face down under the right hand side in the player’s Vault; face up under the bottom of the Player Camp in the player’s Stockpile; and face up with only the Client type visible under the left hand side of the Player Camp in Clientele section. This neatly organises the cards that a player has so far played. Constructed buildings or buildings under construction are kept separate from each Player Camp. There is also another card mat called the “Rome Demands” which is used with the Legionary Order card.

At its core, Glory to Rome is simple to play. On each turn one player is the Leader (there is a Leader card which is passed round the table as the leadership changes). As Leader a player chooses an Order card from his hand and announces his intention to play its Client as an action. So for example, as Leader, Dave chooses to play the Ludus Magnus card as his Order card and use its Patron action so that he can take an Order card from the pool and add its Client to his Clientele. Now each of Dave’s rivals can do one of two things. If they decide to “Follow” Dave as their Leader, then they must also play an Order card with a Patron action from their hand, play a Jack card from their hand, or Petition. The latter allows a Patrician to play to two or three (depending upon the variant of Glory to Rome being played) identical Client cards of another type to serve as a Jack. So for example, Anthony has neither a Patron card that he can play to follow Dave, nor does he have a Jack, but he does have two Legionary cards that he can play as a Jack.

If a player does not Follow the Leader, he can instead “Think.” In which case, he draws cards up to his hand limit, a single card if he has more cards than his hand limit, or he takes a Jack. If a Leader decides not to lead, but instead to “Think,” he takes a single “Think” action and then the Leadership changes to the next player. Similarly, once everyone has followed a Leader or decided to Think, then the leadership also changes hands.

Normally, only single actions are possible from one turn to the next, but multiple actions become possible when a player has Clients placed in the Clientele section of his Player Camp. Actions for a player’s Clientele can be taken when either the player or another player Leads with the particular Client type. A player can decide to “Think” rather than “Follow” the current Leader and still have his Client take an action as long as the Client matches the Order card played by the Leader. So for example, when Dave used the Patron action of the Ludus Magnus card, he managed to take the Market card from the central Pool and add its Craftsman to his Clientele. On a subsequent turn, he managed to add an Architect to his Clientele, giving him two Clients. On a later turn, Anthony is the Leader and plays a Palisade Order card to make use its Craftsman action. Dave can choose to “Follow” Anthony and play a card that would give him the Craftsman action, so giving him two Craftsman actions – one for the card he is playing and the other for the card he has in his Clientele. Or if he does not have an Order card with a Craftsman, he can “Think,” draw cards or a Jack, and still gain a Craftsman action from the Client because Anthony Lead with a Craftsman.

Once each and every player has played an Order card, that card is not out of the game. Rather it goes into the central pool of cards from which cards are drawn as material, using either the Labourer or Legionary actions (the Legionary action also steals from a player’s neighbours as well as taking from the central pool). To an extent it is possible to deny rival players the materials that they want by not playing certain types of Order cards and thus not discarding them to this pool. Plus it is easy to track what materials that a player wants from the buildings that he has under construction. For example, Dave knows that Anthony requires Concrete because he is building a Vomitorium. As long as Dave or another player does not Lead or Follow with an Architect action, the Concrete that is on all Architect Order cards is not discarded to the pool where Anthony might be able to get it later with a Labourer or Legionary action. Anthony is, instead, forced to rely upon the Architect/Concrete Order cards that he might draw when he “Thinks.”

During the initial stages of the game, constructing buildings will take several turns, as will moving material into a player’s Vault. As a player adds Clients to his Clientele, he increases the number of possible actions that he can conduct on a turn, either as Leader or a follower. Further, completing the construction of buildings not only adds towards a player’s Influence and Victory Point total, they also provide him with a special ability or benefit that will help him on subsequent turns. For example, when constructed, the Circus Maximus doubles the ability of a player’s Clientele by letting each one act twice. Thus each time that Dave uses his Architect or Craftsman clients, they take two actions rather than one. Essentially, the more buildings that a player can construct, the more he is able to do, and what he can do, he is better at.

Glory to Rome ends when the draw pile has been exhausted or there are no Foundation cards available to lay without the use of two Architect or Craftsman Order cards, at which point the player with the most Victory Points wins. Victory Points are scored by constructing buildings and by getting materials into a player’s Vault. Both of these objectives take several actions to complete. To construct a building, a player must use an Architect or a Craftsman action to lay its Foundation card and then add material to the building either from his hand (with a Craftsman action) or from his Stockpile (with an Architect action). Getting material into his Stockpile requires a Labourer action and there has to be the right material available in the central pool. To get material in his Vault, a player must use a Merchant action and the material must come from his Stockpile – so a player needs to decide whether to use a material card in his Stockpile as part of a building or to add directly to his Victory Point total in his Vault.

This is a medium weight, strategic card game with a light theme, one with plenty of replay value because of the variety of buildings and their special abilities available for construction. It offers replay value because although there are only two ways of achieving victory – constructing buildings and squirreling away material in a player’s Vault – there are multiple means to support those two ways, and those means are the special abilities granted by each building. It can be played in in an hour and it fits neatly in a surprisingly small box given the number of components in the game.

Physically, Glory to Rome is well done. The Player Camps and the Rome Demands mats are done in sturdy card. The cards are neatly designed and attractive. The previous edition had cartoon-style illustrations, but the updated “Black Box” edition opts for an elegant art style that echoes that of the classic board game, Civilisation. One issue with the cards is that they do get a lot of handling, so my advice would be to sleeve all of them.

As enjoyable as Glory to Rome is, it is far from perfect. Physically, the cards are not quite sturdy enough for the degree of handling that the game calls for – thus the suggestion above to sleeve them. A primary issue is with the rules which are underwritten and thus not easy to learn or comprehend. This has an effect on the teaching of the game because the multiple uses that the Order cards is not easily nor necessarily immediately grasped. Nor is this helped by the numerous special abilities that the buildings on the Order cards grant – reading them slows the game play down and understanding how a special ability works with the game’s mechanics is one further to learning the game. Thus learning to play Glory to Rome is a challenge in itself, but once grasped, the game just motors along. Experienced board game players will have less of a problem, especially if they have played games such as Puerto Rico, San Juan, or Race for the Galaxy. 

Once mastered, Glory to Rome is an enjoyable game to play. The game play is simpler than it first looks and it offers plenty of replay value as the number of buildings to construct means that no two games will be alike. Indeed, I enjoyed it so much that after my first play I purchased a copy for myself. 

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