the postman cometh

[reverancepavane]

Just received my copies of Colosseum, Cleopatra and the Society of Architects, and Caylus. [Maybe I should have looked at other letters of the alphabet too...] I must say that a good bit of the fun in getting a new boardgame is punching out the pieces, although this is rather expensive fun compared with, say, popping the bubbles of bubble wrap. Colosseum looks like it as interesting game where the players assume the roles of entertainment impressarios in Imperial Rome. It requires the players to stage events, from chariot races and gladatorial galas to theatre and religious ceremonies, in order to attract the largest number of spectators possible. Players have to bid in an auction to obtain the assets (lions, gladiators, comedians, naval ships) requires to put on these gala events. The player that manages to attract the largest number of spectators to any of their events wins the game. The difficult part is that the game only lasts 5 complete turns, which means that each player can stage a maximum of five different events. And since the larger festivities require larger and better facilities, and you can usually only improve your facilities once per turn, players are under extreme time pressure. A certain degree of additional randomness is added to the game by the players maneuvering three senators, two proconsols, and the emperor around Rome in an attempt to either get them into their arena, or to curry favour from them which can be used to do extra stuff (even take an extra action in a turn). Simple, but it could be very easy to mess up, and it could be very bad if two players attempt to compete too heavily in staging similiar events. Cleopatra and the Society of Architects is a game where you are attempting to build Cleopatra's new palace, whilst raking off the maximum profit for yourself. The bad news is that the player who gained the most corruption (and gaining corruption is really the only sure way of quickly getting money), gets fed to Cleopatra's pet crocodile and cannot win the game. And you get a little pyramid to store your corruption in, so neither you nor the other players quite knows how corrupt you all are. This game is rather simple, requiring judgement calls on how to earn the most money with the assets that you have. Alternatively, some thought could be given on how to incovenience other players, but as a rule such inconveniences are minor. The joy of the game, however, is its components. You get lots of plasticy goodness that you use to actually construct Cleopatra's palace, from the obelisks and sphinx outside, to the doors and walls of the palace to the actual throne room. All of these pieces are stored in their own plastic quarry. Caylus is a much more serious strategy game than either of the other two (which would make good games to play with reasonable non-gamey friends). And there are lots of little wooden markers too. In the game you are attempting to build the village of craftsmen that are working to build a new castle for King Philip. The player who gains the most prestige (that is, contributes most to the construction of the castle), wins the game. Unfortuneately you have rather limited resources to do this – six workers and very little money. While it doesn't look like much, there is a rich diversity of strategic choices in this game that are not present in the others. However unlike the previous two games, there is the possibility here of being really nasty to another player, so be warned if you game group gets vindictive it's probably not a good game to play. And if you have players that feel the need to calculate every possible option (I believe the technical term is "analysis paralysis"), then game play may get a bit slow.