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I mentioned this in the BOARDGAMES thread but I'll say it here as well. YOU SHOULD CHECK OUT MARE NOSTRUM! After a group of my friends rediscovered a love of boardgames we also overloaded on RISK.
Soon after we discovered Mare Nostrum and just this fall came accross its Mythology expansion.
The main game can be played with 3-5 players. It's a sort of civilization building game centered on the mediteranian sea. The 5 ancient civilizations that can be played are (clockwise from the top left of the board)ROME, GREECE, BABYLON, EGYPT & CARTHAGE. Each civilization plays very differently; you couln't hope to win a game using a winning Egypt stratigy when playing Greece.
Each civilization has a "hero" that affords their player unique abilities. Rome has Ceasar who enable the speedy building of soldiers while Egypt has Cleopatra who grants that civilization powerful economic staying power. As the game progresses and civilizations grow players can attract other ancient heroes to their civilization granting the player other abilities. Or they can build WONDERS which also grant the civilization specail abilities.
To win the game a player can build the Pyramids the single most expensive wonder in the game. Or they can win by accumulating the most heroes/wonders either a combo of 4 or 5. Does the game sound too simple? it's not.
A single turn in the game has 3 phases (4 with the expansion which I'll get to in a moment). The phases are Commerce, Building, Military. Each phase is presided over by a "director/leader" determined at the begining of each turn. How a leader presides over their role can effect the game drasticly and a change in such roles can create great shifts as those roles can be a powerful tool in bringing a player closer to victory.
Each civilization starts of with a set number of provences under their control, each provence has certain natural resources. These resources are reflected in cards which are used for trading (durring the commerce phase) or building (during the building phase). The commerce director is responsible for paying out these resources (acting as "banker") and also determines the level of trading that happens.
Being able to control the number of cards traded durring the commerce phase is a powerful tool available, especailly as the game progresses and a greater variety of resources are needed to build wonders and hire heroes, not to mention buying military units and the like. Shrewd trading can also force a person to waste resources if they are unable to make suitable combonations when it's time to build, allowing one civilization to prosper while another suffers from a glut in unwanted resources. It's entirely possible to win a game with stratigic trading never even ingaging in warfare.
The Building phase is ruled by the political leader. His player gets to choose the order inwhich players build their civilization. In a world of limited resources this is a powerful position to be in. This player can force opponents to build first, revealing potental plans in their choices of military build-ups. Or they can make sure they have first choice of heroes, wonders or the other finite items such as caravans (built upon resources to allow trading in that resource), cities (built to enable tax revenue; a unique type of resource), Temples (built alongside cities to double the tax income) or Markets (built alongsice caravans to double the number of resource cards earned).
During this phase players can elect to expand their civilization by purchasing "influece marker" which are then placed on adjacent provences. As each provence has different resources available, some civilizations may have a vested interest in controling and becoming the sole trader in a specific resources; gold, gems & metal are rather rare while grain, fruit & livestock are more common. Influence markers alos have a military use as well; they can be used to, in essence, replace an occupied provence's government.
The following phase is the military phase; presided over by the military leader. A civilization will have had to invest in military units to participate in this phase. As the military leader would be the player with the largest number of military units (in the same way that the commerce director is the player with the most Caravans and Markets and the role Political leader is given to the civilization with the most citires & temples) he can elect to attack first, or force an opponent to do so and determine his own actions based to those results.
There are 3 kinds of military unit available for purchase durring the building phase. Triremes (boats); useful in ship-to-ship combat at sea and for transporting land units in a convoy (allowing Greece to cross the sea and invade Egypt or whatever). Legions; the basic land unit that can march over land (one provence at a time) or be convoyed by sea. Fortresses; once built in one's own provence they cannot be moved, but guarantee the loss of one invading legion at least.
Combat is a rather simple dice rolling affare. one die is rolled for each unit in combat (certain heroes grant bonuses to those rolls) then added together. For each 5 and opponent looses one unit of their choice. Fortresses roll and automatic 6.
If Rome where to invade carthage by sea Ceasar will have to have built enouch triremes to ferry them accross the sea (2 triemes, each one cost a set of 3 resource cards). Ceasar's special ability is to buy Legions at a cost of 2 resource cards rather than 3; so let's say he bought 3 legions. A total of 12 resource cards will have been spent to finance this invasion a process that may have taken 2 turns.
In the mean time Carthage has bought 1 fortress in each of his two beachside provences to accompany the 1 free legion Hannibal (Carthage's Hero) begins the game with. This military build-up has cost him 6 resource cards (3 per fortress). We'll emagine he spent another 3 on an influence marker on an adjacent inland provence with a gems resource as well as 3 on a caravan; he's seeking to insure his status as commerce leader.
As Ceasar has 4 military units (2 triremes, 2 legions) as comparied to Carthage (2 fortresses, 1 legion) we'll assume he is the military leader (the other civilizations have been focusing on economic build-up and are otherwise occupied). At the begining of the military phase Ceasar can have everyone including Carthage act before him (Carthage has one legion which remains in his capitol). Ceasar then carries out his attack, invading the beach-side provence that has only 1 fortress present.
Upon land Ceasar rolls 2 dice, Carthage's fortress does not roll (it counts as an automatic 6). Ceasar rolls a 2 on one die and a 4 on the other. Added together the sum is 6 (all he needed was a 5) the fotress is distroyed, meanwhile the fortress's automatic 6 has cost Cesar one legion. While somewhat costly Ceasar's invasion has succeeded and since he had Carthage take military action before him Carthage can't retaliate in this military phase and must wait until next turn to repel the invader.
Cesar's invading legion now has some post battle options available to him. What he elects to do may affect Carthage's ability to play in the next turn. This legion can SACK; distroying a caravan or city in that provence eliminating that revenue for carthage (and perhap endangering hi status as Cammerce leader). The Legion can OCCUPY; the player can place this elgion upon one of the caravans in this provence causing that resource card to go to Rome rahter than Carthage durring the beging of the comerce phase. Finnally that Legion can convert Carthage's influence marker, with that legion piece sitting on the provence's influence marker Rome can buy their own influence marker durring the next building phase, replacing the marker already present.
This would cause that provence to become Rome's and any resouces generated there would thus become Rome's on the following commerce phace (2 turns after the initial invasion). Of course Ceasar will have to be prepared to fend off the legions carthage may well build in responce, as well as defend the convy of triemes that will allow reenforcements to get from Rome to Carthage.
So that's an example of how a couple of turns may play out. other dynamic can easily come into play as well. Carthage may still be commerse leader and could use his influence there to encourge Greece to sink one of Rome's trieme's, breaking the convoy and stranding that one Legion. Greece may instead deside to move their own legions into that embattled provence or invade Rome.
As the game progresses Heroes and Wonders will come into play creating a whole other level of interactions. Eventually somebody wins. |
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. And I thought we could do it here, just one thread for updates along with a map and everything else happens via PM.