I don't often review games, but felt it worthwhile for this particular little gem, especially as there are only a few reviews so far, and I did want to recommend it to others.

This is a Z-man game, and comes in a small, extremely sturdy box, which holds the deck of cards, a bag of Achievement chips, the wooden player pieces, and a set of wooden ships, together with the game board; which itself is thick and very high quality. All the parts are well designed and graphically look good .... and I must admit to liking wooden pieces in my games!

I won't run over the rules in detail but will try and summarise enoght to give you hopefully a flavour of the decisions to be made. You are a trader and you will try and buy goods from the market of up to 4 different types (grapes, silk, jewels, and wheat), and have them shipped from the port of Alexandria, to the port of Carthage. Each good type has its own colour ship, and it takes the ship up to 5 moves to make it from one port to the other. Each time a player buys goods, the ship moves closer to the destination port - if you bought 1 good, then the ship moves 1 space; if you bought 2 or more goods, then the ship moves 2 spaces.
When the ship gets to Carthage, all the goods of that type for all players are sold, and points awarded, and an achievement chip given to each player who managed to ship goods of this type. The points are in the form of the cards themselves.

The game ends as soon as a player gets 8 achievement chips - and the player with the most points wins!

Sounds a bit easy and a little pedestrian doesn't it?

I thought so too ... until after I played my first game, and then I was hooked.

The cards themselves, in the grand tradition of these things, represent a number of things, either the goods themselves, as the cards are in 1 of 4 colours; a value of the goods, as the cards have a coin symbol of either 5, 3 or 2; money (the coin symbols are used here as well); or can be used to store goods, using the jar/amphora symbol on the cards.

With the use as points - that is 5 uses of a single card ... it must be a record!!

Five cards are dealt face up into the Market, and 3 cards face-up into the Farm. The farm will be moved into the Market when all the cards in the Market are taken ... so you get a heads-up and need to plan your future moves. An additional 2 cards are added to the Market when the Farm is moved to the Market (so there will always be at least 5 cards in the Market). You can never therefore be 100% certain of what is coming up. I am sure the 'randomness' of dealt cards will put off many players ... but I personally do like that degree of chance/unexpectedness to spice things up!

Enough of this!

How does it play?

On your turn you can either take a Card from the Market into your hand as Money, place a reservation marker on the Farm or Market (which means only you can take that card, and be careful, as you only have one reservation marker until it gets returned) or buy all the cards in the Msrket. To buy, you need money, as you take a card as money, then the cost of what is left in the market goes down, and is easier for another player to then buy. Placing a reservation marker also makes it easier for the next player to buy the market. If the other player buys the market - then you get left with a new market, and, unless you have lots of money, a hard task to buy it. As buying the market also moves the ships. you may not want to move a ship that other players have lots of goods on - since you may be helping them and not you. There is definitely some thinking needed here, especially as the designer has thrown in another variable to the pot ... that of Pirates

When a ship reaches Carthage, and players sell goods and receive points, any ships that are in transit and on two special pirate spaces, are raided and players will lose all their goods of that type unless they have been stored. All players get the option of discarding cards from their hand, of the appropriate colour, and with the 'amphora/jar' symbol. You can store as many goods as you have the cards for (and of course you then lose these, and the money they also represent ... but at least the goods are saved from the deprivations of the pirates for the rest of the journey to port)

Am I making sense?

It can make for some very interesting decisions ... and it is all down to making the right Market buys, hence ship moves, at the right time to hit the other players with Pirates. Therefore you may have to reserve, or take cards as money which are not the most obvious (ie highest value) simply in order to reduce the cards of a particular type and therefore restrict other players' Market buys. I know I am probably not explaining this very well

The game plays 2 to 4 players, and I would say that it makes a fantatsic 2-player game. My wife likes this a lot, and so it hits the table quite frequently. It is quick to play, and there are plenty of things to think about and plenty of decisions.

It is physically small, so makes a great travel game, and does not take up much table space. A great game, and was well worth the buy. I would highly recommend this to anyone.