1. Introduction

When I purchase games on-line, as opposed to taking the pick of the lot which a store might happen to have when I come in, I will listen to comments of friends and acquaintances about the games and more recently look to see comments here on BGG about the game. What initially peaked my interest in this particular game was the intriguing comment that game-play lacked any sort of random element. Although I enjoy many games with random elements in them—indeed the fact I like card games will shortly become relevant to this discussion—I generally think the crême de la crême are those board games, mostly abstracts, which include perfect information. Most of these are two-player games and so all the more Antike peaked my interest. Yet, although the remarks were generally positive, they were also generally vague about what specifically was the attraction of the game. This review is partly intended to try and remedy this vagueness by offering my opinion as to the merits of this game.

Yet, the manner in which I characterize the game may appear odd at first: namely, I would say that the goals of this game are in the main strongly reminiscent of the set-collection class of card games and yet without any of the “lick of the draw” element which makes me less fond of that class of card games than others. This is by no means saying that the board is irrelevant in this game; to the contrary, the board is highly essential, but I will get to that in a moment. Rather, I will explain by a seeming digression about card games. Although I will play games like Rummy once in a while, my taste tends to games like Hearts, Spades and a three-handed bidding game called, like so many other card games, 500. All of these have in common that the cards are dealt out completely at the beginning and so the only randomness is found in the initial deal; the rest of play is bidding and trick-taking which amounts to a strategic assessment of one’s hand and then resource-management. I do like games like Mille Bornes which depend on the draw and collection of certain types of cards—mileage in the last example—under certain restrictions, but the heavy element of randomness means that the game is not and cannot be pure strategy. By contrast, the mechanics of Antike can be largely regarded as a form of set collection where the first player to acquire a certain number of sets—depending on the number of players—wins the game BUT these “sets”, for each of which one acquires an “ancient personage” card, are obtained in a totally non-random fashion. In short, this game modifies to a board game a mechanic characteristic of a class of card games (a contention I will hereafter justify). That class of games is not entirely ruined by the heavy random element associated with “luck of the draw”, but certainly among the pro’s and con’s of these games that random element is the chief ”con”; in some games, randomness is a good thing, but not in this case. Antike takes that mechanic but puts it in a totally non-random context using the board; it adapts the “pro’s” without the chief “con”.

2. Components

In order to be able to demonstrate the perhaps startling premise of this review, one needs talk about the nature of game-play. This is much facilitated however by a primary treatment of the components of the game, to which naturally a discussion of game-play must refer.

a. The Board

The game-board is double-sided, with a map of the ancient world on each side. One side shows the Mediterranean and Black Sea region, going as far north as southern Britain and as far south as northern Africa at the latitude of the southern tip of the Sinai peninsula; the rules’ booklet’s claim with represents the domain of the Roman Empire is not entirely true but the areas briefly under Roman rule that are cut off are relatively negligible. The other side shows northeastern Africa from the eastern coast of Libya down to the Ethiopian peninsula, the Arabian peninsula, Persia and as far west as the southern tip of Italy and mainland Greece. Again, the rules booklet’s contention to show the domain of Alexander’s empire is not completely correct in that India is excluded, but likewise the conquest of northwestern India in the time of the Guptas was extremely transitory, albeit not without some important effects. Speaking as someone who strongly considered an academic career in ancient history, this is a very cool board.

Personally, I would have preferred the rondel and the scoring and knowledge tracks, all of which I will explain below when dealing with game-play, to be on a separate board like the battle board used in the Axis and Allies games; this would not only look better but would require only printing it once, not twice. Likewise, the logo of the game itself would be better in my opinion of the outer edge instead of obscuring part of the map, as it does on both sides. Yet, the board remains attractive and detailed.

Each map is divided into fifty territories—if my quick count is correct—with one city in each. Each city has one of three symbols on it to identify which of three resources that city produces—iron, gold or marble. Although the city markers obscure the symbols, the names are written beside the symbol on color-coded banners, using blue for iron, yellow for gold and white for marble.

The borders of the territories are red for land territories, blue for water territories [in practice, islands since a city must be built somewhere] and a combination for coastal territories.

b. Pieces

Each player has three types of pieces—circular city markers, galleys shaped like a stylized ship and legions shaped almost but not quite like Meeples [a helmet’s outline ruins an exact resemblance]-- in one of six colors, plus six similarly colored cylindrical markers each. All are painted wooden pieces and so quite durable but also making the box relatively heavy for its size.

In addition, the game includes twenty “white” temples, which are really more a light tan.

c. Other Elements

The rules are remarkably clear and well-written with several examples and a section of FAQs, but they are also dense. A lot of information is packed into each statement and few if any words are wasted. Most people will have to read through the rules two or three times to make sure they did not miss any important details. Four rules summary cards, double-sided in English and German, are included, but the rules are frankly simple and consistent enough that one probably will not need these past the second time playing.

The last two types of equipment of the game are both types of game money. In the ancient world, paper money did not exist and indeed coins represented only the intrinsic value of the metal. Keeping therefore very much with the theme of the game, the “money” comes in two varieties: Roman numeralled 1’s, 2’s and 5’s in the three types, iron, gold and marble and generic coins equivalent to one of any of these. The generic coins do not to my knowledge reproduce any specific species of actual ancient coin but stylistically resemble any number of ancient coins. Although these are all card-board, the card-board used appears to me the durable kind unlikely to fray over time with usage.

Finally, the game includes several cards. The only random drawing is when one picks which civilization one will play—a different set of six for each side of the board—but even then the first player is determined in each case, depending or whether three, four, five or six people and playing. The first player receives a first player card to set in front of themselves as a reminder to distribute one coin to each player before the turn of the first player’s turn on each round. The remaining cards have five types and always are stacked in the same order: kings, scholars, generals, citizens and navigators. A player receives one of these cards for accomplishing certain tasks in the game and the first player to acquire ten for three players, nine for four players, etc., wins.

3. Game-Play

Each player starts with three cities specified on the card of the nation being played. One produces iron, another gold and the last marble. Players also start with one iron, three gold and two marble, as well as a single generic coin given to each player before the first player takes his turn on each round, including as I read the rules the first.

Central to the game is the rondel, a circular device divided into eight wedges representing seven types of actions. Only “maneuver”, which allows one to move either legions or galleys on the board, appears twice on the rondel. Collection of iron, gold or marble is represented on the rondel by a wedge naming the specific resource. The remaining three actions are arming [which costs one iron per legion or galley placed on the board], building a temple [which costs five marble] and know-how, i.e., acquiring new technology or innovations [which costs gold in amounts that differ depending on whether the knowledge obtained is new or not and primary or secondary].

On the first turn, each player places one of his cylindrical markers on one wedge of the rondel and performs the appropriate action. Thereafter, one each turn, a player move his marker clock-wise up to three spaces on the rondel for free but can pay one of any of the thee resources for each space beyond three on the rondel he may wish to move his marker. One should however note that maneuver allows one to possibly perform two types of actions: founding of a city-- at the cost of one iron, one gold and one marble—or military action which destroys a city and possibly a temple with it, replacing the city with one of the player’s own city markers by eliminating the legion and/or galley used to do it.

The resemblance to a set-collecting card game likes in the nature of the goals set in this game. If one at any point possesses five cities, one gets a king card. To get a second king card one must then at some point have ten cities on the board. Only nine king cards exist and so these will tend to run out fast. Scholar and general cards I will explain shortly. If at any point, one has three temples on the board, one gets a citizen card. To get a second citizen card, one must then have six temples on the board. To get a navigator card, one must have seven galleys on the board in seven different regions simultaneously. To get a second navigator card, one would need fourteen galleys in as many different regions simultaneously. For these, the resemblance to sets collected appears obvious and straight-forward.

A scholar card is acquired for introducing one of eight types of “know-how”, the primary ones the wheel, sailing, market and monarchy and the respective secondary ones roads, navigation, currency and democracy. Introducing a new primary know-how costs seven gold and a primary second know-how costs ten. Once other players have introduced these innovations, primary know-how costs three gold and secondary five, although of course one must possess a primary know-how before one can proceed to the second. Not only does know-how give a player advantages in the game but any player possessing all eight know-hows gets an additional “ancient personage” card of whichever type have the most remaining. That clearly is a species of set collection. Yet even the acquiring of know-how involves the collection of a certain amount of gold; one must simply be the first to cash in the collection of gold if one wishes to acquire a card for it.

One should note here that the wheel increases a legion’s range of motion from one to two and roads from two to three. Similarly, sailing increases the range of a galley’s motion from one to two and navigation from two to three. Currency allows one to collect a single extra unit of iron, gold or marble whenever one collects these, and currency increases the extra units collected to two. This is similar to the fact that placement of a temple on a city increases the contribution from that city of its type of resource from one to three. Monarchy increases the defensive value of a city from one to two and democracy from two to three. The presence of a temple in the city similarly adds two to the defense. Thus, for example a player must place ordinarily only one legion or galley in a city to destroy it and replace that city with one of his own city markers. If a player has a temple in the city, three legions and/or galleys are needed and so on. The presence of a player’s own legions or galleys in a city also increases the defensive factor. This is important because players also acquire a general card for each temple destroyed. Although this is the most removed from the set-collection model, one also here places a certain number of units in a region in order to acquire the general card and those units are removed when one does so.

4. Over-all

Which specific cards one obtains or even which types does not matter, only the total needed to win. This results in high re-playability in that the method for achieving victory will vary widely. One can get gold and translate it into know-how and thereby scholar cards and possibly one wild card. Alternatively, one could get marble and translate it into temples to get citizens cards. Finally, one could get iron and translate it into galleys for navigator cards, legions and/or galleys to use to found cities—spending all three resources to do so—or simply to take cities and so get king cards or to take cities with temples and so get general cards. In reality, one will combine these.

This game probably will not have the excitement of head-to-head confrontation; it is not a war game and not designed to be one. Indeed, a player cannot lose the last city so that one must win by getting cards, not eliminating opponents. Yet, if one likes card games as I do, this game has the feel of Rummy—not just a single hand, but a full game—yet without any luck of the draw.