Game: Rome

Thread: Re: Ending the Race

Caesar — 2008-09-04T05:33:21+00:00

NO, one end space "per chariot", so be the first to get the best space!

Thread: Ending the Race

punkzter — 2008-09-03T21:23:39+00:00

At the end of a chariot race, can more than one chariot occupy the same "end" space?

Thread: Re: Chariot Movement Order Question

Coffeebike — 2008-06-02T16:57:19+00:00

I would also play it A-E-F-D-C-B.

Thanks for posting a clear diagram which helps the discussion!

Thread: Re: Chariot Movement Order Question

AllenDoum — 2008-06-02T16:57:02+00:00

Since you asked, the two previous responses are correct. even though the rules only refer to 4 sections. Players that are still have chariots on the first straight when the leaders pass the 2nd corner may be in trouble, but it happens, particularly if any play sprints his lead chariot.

Allowing chariot C to move before the one in the corner would change the game a lot. One advantage that a trailing chariot has is that those in front of him have to move he does.

Thread: Re: Chariot Movement Order Question

punkzter — 2008-06-02T10:37:51+00:00

But the rules do specifically state to evaluate the movement of all chariots in one section before moving onto the next section.

I do understand your "spirit of the rules" argument however, and I think that this may be the way that I play in the future.

Thread: Re: Chariot Movement Order Question

Ed_the_Red — 2008-06-02T10:05:31+00:00

Without the game in front of me to check the rules, my strong inclination is to go in race order. Thus A E F D C B.

The 'furthest forward / left' bit is just to distinguish between chariots in the same part of the race.

C and B should put the whip to their horses though!

Edius

Thread: Re: Chariot Movement Order Question

franchi — 2008-06-02T10:03:04+00:00

Well, I know nothing is said in the rules, but the way I would play it is:

A-E-F-D-C-B

I think the spirit of the rule is furthest forward in the race. Once one chariot goes back to the 1st section of the board, I think you should consider that there are 5 sections, not 4. Treat first the right side of 1st section, then the other 3 sections clockwise, and end with the left side of the 1st section.

I guess!

Thread: Chariot Movement Order Question

punkzter — 2008-06-02T09:41:56+00:00

]]>I have a question about determining the order that chariots move. In the picture above, chariot A has actually completed the second straight before chariots C and B completed the first straight section. At the start of the next turn, what would the order be?

Would it be: A,C,B,E,F,D since you move the chariots occupying the same part/section as the race leader first and then go on to section with the second place chariot (this would be the turn section with chariot E).

However, what exactly does "furthest forward" mean. Is "A" the furthest forward or is "C"? C is further to the left, the original definition of forward of that section, but "A" is the furthest forward in the race.

These are some picky questions, I will admit, but I was hoping someone could help me out.

Thread: Close chariot race? Absolutely.

AllenDoum — 2008-02-16T20:12:10+00:00

Over the years, I have played this game a lot. It is reasonalby short, will hold 5, and is usually a hit with the players I introduce it to. I played the original version in New Games from Old Rome, and have been playing the GMT version since it came out.

Last night, we had a five player game with all players having experience with the game.

Green (Rodger) took the inside position in the grid first, allowing me (Red, of course) to take the leading position on the outside. The rest of the grid filled out conventionally, with each player taking the position that would move earliest.

On the first turn, I used the 5 and 4 to go straight. This puts the player, if he is not blocked, in position to use his 5 on turn 2 to occupy the inside of the first corner. If another player blocks, they will have to use a 3 cards for the blocking move, leaving their remaining chariots little flexibility.

Blue (Micheal) left his 1 & 5 for his last chariot on turn 1, and was blocked and had to eat the 5. The rest of the turn was "normal". From that point, all of us were careful enough not to have to eat a large card.

Since no one blocked me, I went into the corner with my 5 and started concentrating on gaining position with my other chariots. On turn 3, I used the 1 and the 5 (again) to keep the lead. That made it difficult to gain position with the others, that I was keeping together. But they were still ahead of 3 trailing chariots.

The player with all three of his ahead of those was Yellow (Teddy) but his effort to keep them together fell apart on the back straight.

At the second corner, my lead used the 1 (only) for two turns, forcing the others to go around and use more cards and movement. Green took the first finish space and Purple (Eric) used three large cards to get the second from the back straight.

I took the third, and Green took the 4th, leaving him with only 1 chariot on the track. But that chariot was in last place, as he had sprinted the first two. In fact it had not left the first straigt until the turn that he parked his second chariot.

That extreme a sprinting strategy is not efficient, as the last charoit can still only use three cards, leaving a least 3 movement unused each of the remaining turns. In this case, his last was the 15th to set up, and by moving slowly had never been blocked or forced to leave the rail.

There was some tricky movement on the next to last turn, as Eric forced me to use two cards to park my second chariot. This was a tough decision, as three of the other players had a chariot to move before my third chariot and were sure to prevent me from winning that turn. I was on the second row of the straight with my third chariot, so my 2 would give me no more flexibility than my three. If I use both to enter, I would be left with my 1,4, and 5. Good flexibility, but might not be enough to get the first move next turn. I ended up using my 1 and 2 to park.

One of the intervening chariots did block the second row, but the other couldn't block the outside. I used my 3 to swing wide, and the 4 and 5 to get ahead of the blockers. At the end of the turn, we had all parked 2 of our chariots, and only the end finishing space was open. By then, the last Green chariot had caught up, and every one, except me, was within four spaces of the win.

But I moved first. A 3 and a 2 later. The game was over.

This is the first time that I have seen all 11 of the finishing spaces used, and all of the players were within 2 cards of winning.

Edited for spelling and grammer.

Thread: Re: Circus Maximus - Card depletion after each chariot finishes

AllenDoum — 2008-02-16T19:21:46+00:00

Thrylos wrote:
Circus Maximus is a very nice, fun, and fast strategy/racing game. But the player that finishes one of his chariots first gets a somewhat "unfair" advantage. With 2 chariots left he is able to play 3 cards in one chariot and 2 in the other. This gives him both speed and flexibility.

I find the assumtion that the first player to part a chariot will gain an advantage questionable. If the other players are paying attention, they will block his trailing Chariots, to cause them to waste movement.

Your varient would leave a player with only 3 cards for his last chariot, which would leave him with so little flexibility as to make the finish difficult.

Thread: Circus Maximus - Card depletion after each chariot finishes

Thrylos — 2007-11-08T22:18:23+00:00

Circus Maximus is a very nice, fun, and fast strategy/racing game. But the player that finishes one of his chariots first gets a somewhat "unfair" advantage. With 2 chariots left he is able to play 3 cards in one chariot and 2 in the other. This gives him both speed and flexibility.

Here is a rule that actually adds a nice strategy element and makes the game even more exiting at the end:

"When a chariot finishes, the last card that the player used to park his chariot in one of the finish hexagons, is taken out of the game and it is not available anymore to the player for the rest of the race."

Thus, when one of the chariots finishes, you end up with 4 cards to continue from now on. And when your second chariot finishes, you end up with only 3 cards to continue to finish the game. Still the rule "minimum 1 card per chariot and maximum 3 cards per chariot" is followed.

The player needs to think which card will sacrifice for each of his chariots. With a low card you sacrifice maneuverability, with a high card you sacrifice speed. In any case, it results in less options of how to maneuver and adds drama to the end-game, plus it provides an opportunity to the other players to level off the game.

Enjoy,
Paul

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Plush — 2007-11-03T10:38:31+00:00

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Plush — 2007-11-03T10:37:00+00:00

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waterborg — 2007-09-07T05:41:16+00:00

Thread: Re: Circus Maximus - who is in "the lead"?

franchi — 2007-04-02T06:04:38+00:00

From the rules:
ORDER OF MOVEMENT

The circuit is divided into four parts: the two long straights and the two lines of darker transition hexes at the
corners. The Chariots occupying the part of the circuit containing the race leaders are moved first, then the
Chariots in the following area and so on, until all Chariots in all parts of the circuit have moved.

In the long straights, the Chariot that is furthest forward is moved first. When several Chariots are tied (as they are
in the corners), then the Chariot that is closest to the interior of the circuit is moved first.And there is a picture with an example of the order in which the chariots move.

Thread: Circus Maximus - who is in "the lead"?

Waylander1 — 2007-04-01T17:54:02+00:00

We played this for the first time the other evening. Our question - who goes first? The rules say whoever is further ahead goes first, but this is a tough question, especially as you near the corners. Do you use a line parallel to the starting line? Do you just use straight rows perpendicular to the finish area? Something else?

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franchi — 2007-03-04T21:00:26+00:00

My 15 metal chariots (from 6mm IRREGULAR MINIATURES).

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franchi — 2007-03-04T20:58:10+00:00

My home-made Circus Maximus with metal chariots

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GrogGamer — 2007-01-22T19:53:54+00:00

Imperium

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GrogGamer — 2007-01-22T19:53:30+00:00

Imperium

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GrogGamer — 2007-01-22T19:53:04+00:00

Hannibal vs Rome

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GrogGamer — 2007-01-22T19:52:33+00:00

Hannibal vs Rome

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GrogGamer — 2007-01-22T19:52:06+00:00

Circus Max close

Thread: Re: Post rules?

Timw — 2006-10-19T11:03:57+00:00

Rod, I've just typed up the rules from my copy of Rome and uploaded the file. Hope they are of some use.

Tim

Thread: Circus Maximus: Turn-by-Turn Photographic Session Report

Coffeebike — 2006-07-11T00:12:33+00:00

Here's a photographic session report of Circus Maximus. We're playing out in my garden.

Our friend was visiting from another state. The night before, we heard the fatal cry, "One tequila shot before playing Medici!"

The result, of course, was not that we played Medici, but drank 6 shots...let me draw a discrete curtain at this point...

Curtain opens again! Hi there. We were having so much fun (playing euro-games) that she called work and managed to extend her stay. However, after doing so, that night she had an anxious dream in which her boss did a dance with forefingers in the air saying "nyah, nyah, I fired you, I fired you!"

We agreed that the victor of this chariot race would have to pose for a picture doing that wonderful dance.

I also told them that I thought it might take a half hour to play.

Starting Positions

Unfortunately I did not take a picture of the starting positions.

Yellow chariots: me

Red Chariots: Enthusiastic Guest.

Red was so great a guest as to be a gamer-guest. Furthermore, she was really so super-great as to actually read the rules of the games we were madly playing one after another.

Purple Chariots: Knitting Eurogamer.

Purple is someone who was knitting while playing. She was knitting a handbag. In fact, she knitted me a very large bag "in manly colors" in which to carry my games around. At this time, she was mainly still playing euro-games to keep Yellow and Red happy. I told her she chose purple because it was the cutest color, which is what I had been saying all that week when I chose purple.

Turn 1

Red announced that she was choosing the exact strategy that the rule's tips suggested NOT to do--concentrate movement on speed one chariot at the expense of your other chariots.

Privately, I wasn't so sure that it was a bad strategy. I had read reviewers on the Net that they thought it was best strategy, fairly dependably, to the detriment of the game's possibilities.

However, I was determined to move my yellow chariots in the opposite strategy just to give that a try. My main purpose was to see if I thought that the reviewer comments were correct or not.

Purple glanced up from her super-fast knitting. She quickly seemed to choose a move distribution between the Red and Yellow extremes, which meant that her last chariot was blocked its one space movement by Red.

As you can see, only I, mr. moderate-distribution, had no chariot that yet rounded the bend, but on the other hand, my last chariot was third from last.

[end of Turn 1 picture below]

-----
Turn 2

Purple paused in her knitting to fling her lead chariot forward in an inside position. They looked at each other with competitive spirit. I did not say "meow"! I only smiled a very little smile.

I was starting to feel some tension and my jaw clamped shut. I felt that the strategy doomed by the reviewers was indeed going to be my doom.

I was so doggedly moderate that I pushed my last chariot up the fastest, and moved my leading chariots the least, so that all three nice, decent, respectable chariots where nearly joined together around the first curve which I was finally reaching.

A traffic jam was beginning at the first curve. Mindful of other's remaining cards, I tried to position my yellow chariots in the most annoying places. This seems to have forced red's second chariot to take a more outward position as it approached the first curve. If this was a bit of a block on my part, it would be one I would pay for later, more than once.

To my surprise, both Red and Purple started predicting in a monotonous, doomed, predetermined-fate kind of tone that I was going to win. I did not feel that was justified, although possibly a little more justified now that they were saying it.

I replied cleverly with, "Oh come on!" and gave 14 reasons why I wasn't going to win. Was this the beginning of the meta-game? Or did that begin in the bar the night before?

I looked up under my gardening hat... I may be wrong but Red looked truly worried. She muttered something about doing the wrong strategy again. But she didn't lose her nerve yet.

To make things worse, her laptop, which is a constant companion, could no longer pick up our wireless signal out in the garden.

[End of turn 2 picture below]

-----
Turn 3

Purple quickly parked her leading chariot in the first, best end position. We, Red and Purple, congratulated her, with honest feeling because we knew she was only playing to make us happy. That said, I have no idea what Purple was thinking at this point.

Meanwhile, Red was still combustable. Red's lead chariot nearly screeched to a hault as she reserved cards for her other chariots. Now she was doing the reverse strategy--give the most to the least.

Meanwhile, I saw a way to move two of my chariots forward together, side by side, in the inmost lanes of the 2nd straightaway. I chose that, leaving my 3rd chariot at the bend with one card, and a hole in the traffic jam to get past that first bend.

I felt my lead two chariots were decently set for potential blocking power and closer-to-the-end positioning.

That enabled the Red chariots to cut off the hole I had mentally reserved without any sense of risk for my last chariot. Thus blocked, any smugness fallen from my face, the last yellow chariot had to careen outward discouragingly. But not too discouragingly.

I wondered if I had a shot at winning. I had no idea at all. I considered trying to distract my competitors by mentioning certain tequila incidents, but decided I better keep my mouth shut.

[end of turn 3 picture below]

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Turn 4

Red continued her Second Strategy, speeding up her following chariots the most, and lettting the leading chariot inch forward. This allowed purple to look up from her power-knitting and lead her first chariot around the second bend, just one space from the first end point.

Both Red and Purple reemphasized resources to their following chariots, creating a big crush at the first bend.

I managed to move my yellow chariots more or less together in a convoy formation, hogging the inside lanes.

I was pleased with my part in the unfolding of the game, because I felt like I was consistantly able to do what I wanted to do, for the most part. Whether that would deliver the Kudos with a capital K, I really didn't know.

I thought it would be a significant advantage to have delivered a chariot to the endpoint, and thus have more flexibility with cards for the other two. But as I thought about it I saw that it wasn't necessarily more resources for the two remaining chariots, as I had thought. Just flexibility. And card flexibility contests with board positioning. My board positioning seemed OK.

How would it play out?

Click, click, went the knitting needles... Bees buzzed the board.

[end of turn 4 picture below]

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Turn 5

Red continued to put the brakes on her lead chariot. This turned out to have a large impact later in the game.

I very moderatedly and chastely moved my convoy of nicely scrubbed chariots toward the second and last bend of the track. As I looked at them, they seemed hardly to move far at all, but then again, they all moved together, showing team spirit and an orderly mind. And my two lead chariots now stood on that lighter-colored track which effected turn-order. Turn order was very important, for the game ends in "sudden death"! My positioning seemed advantageous.

And yet as Red and Purple moved their other chariots rapidly forward, almost angrily, the curve suddenly became very crowded indeed. It was a mad crush. Yes I was in the advantageous position. But... But...!

I began muttering as I counted the spaces for my next turn. It seemed okay for me... but I wasn't entirely sure.

[end of Turn 5 picture below]

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Turn 6

I continued my nice moderate strategy and wheeled my yellow chariots in a very nice formation around the bend. Aside from the unarguable beauty of my formation, I was trying to make Flying Wall to block any other chariots, or at least make it more difficult for them, more expensive in card-play, to get past my team.

Yet, Purple slipped around and parked her second cute chariot!

And Red slipped around me. She now had two chariots still unfinished, in front of me, in the finish area.

Both Purple and Red had each a chariot some spaces behind the final bend, so I was still unsure if my position was one of advantage, neutral, or disadvantage. Considering flexibility of using my card numbers, it seemed reasonable, but how much so compared to Purple, who only needed to use cards for one chariot?

I checked and couldn't see how she could use her maximum two cards to move that last chariot into an open end space.

I counted spaces repeatedly, hid my face and hoped that I could park two chariots in the next turn... things did not turn out as I hoped.

[end of Turn 6 picture below]

Turn 7

Argh! Red could have driven her lead chariot into an end space. But instead she moved it one space soley to block me.

I thought that was quite a clever move, and all of that cleverness was against me! I had no idea she would do that.

I had to recalculate my moves... I managed to park one of my chariots. But I felt a bit of game panic...

For that was not all. Red easily managed to park not one, but TWO of her OTHER chariots.

Her blocking chariot was quite close to the end.

Finally, Purple's last chariot came whirling around the bend, in striking distance of the end...!

The situation was...

Purple... 2 chariots completed
Red.... 2 chariots completed
Yellow... 1 chariots completed.

However, I had one thing still going for me...

[end of turn 7 photo below]

-----
Turn 8

What I had going for me was lead position.

I was able to move both of my remaining chariots before any Red or Purple chariots could move. That, combined with the sudden-death victory rule, gave me the win.

So the winning moment picture is the same as end of turn 7, except the yellow chariots finished.

The other two finished their turn to see if they could also complete the course that race... It was harder for them, with fewer open positions to park the chariot. But they all did it.

[end of turn 8 photo below]

It seemed an amazingly close game.

It took at least an hour. Purple had knit several inches into her handbag--and then pulled it all out, because the game made her lose a stitch!
-----
What do I think of it? Based on this one play, I found it to be easy to enter into, tense and gripping. As in the "Ben-Hur" chariot race, there was a feel of blocking and jostling. That's 5 good points. But it was super slo-mo blocking and jostling. So, on the negative side, it was excessively mini-maxing, too much a matter of hex-counting and recounting. This may be a common problem with a lot of race games. You may recall that in the deservedly famous chariot scene of "Ben-Hur", there wasn't a lot of hex counting and recounting. Still, it wouldn't be a negative for me if the game really took a half an hour, but I wonder if the benefit of slow hex counting and calculation would tend it to slowness. To end on a positive, I like the board and bits. I would like to try it again with the variants suggested in the rules.

-----
Victory Dance

Okay, I have a picture of me doing my celebratory duty as victor, I'm not sure if that's of value here! Ahem... Hmm... Maybe I should spare you...

Thread: Re: Post rules?

rodvik — 2006-01-27T06:44:50+00:00

Thanks both.

Ah well, maybe they will turn up some day when i am going through some box or other in the garage,

Thread: Re: Post rules?

Sandsquish — 2006-01-19T21:45:33+00:00

riks wrote:
I wrote to GMT [...] The reply [...] was that they themselves no longer have the file for the English version of the rules. His suggestion was to scan and print.
If no one does this, you might still be able to figure out the rules to the three games from reviews and session reports on Rome and New Games in Old Rome.

Thread: Re: Post rules?

riks — 2006-01-19T20:58:07+00:00

I was looking myself for a set of the rules. The publisher (GMT) are usually good at putting copies of the rules on their website. But not in this case.

When I looked I found the rules in Italian, Spanish, French and Japanese, but not in English. So I wrote to GMT in December 2005 to ask if they could post a copy of the rules on their website.

The reply from their Manager, Tony Curtis, was that they themselves no longer have the file for the English version of the rules. His suggestion was to scan and print. Obviously that does not help Rod at the moment, but what I am trying to say is that it looks like the publishers won't be able to help with an electronic version in this case.

Thread: Post rules?

rodvik — 2006-01-19T00:33:22+00:00

As part of my ongoing idiocy I sperated the rules for reading from my box. Now I cannot find my rules. Can someone post them?

My google translation from the Italian ones posted may not be th emost effective

Thanks!

Thread: Re: ear of the emporer card

AllenDoum — 2005-10-07T20:53:22+00:00

Correct. The scoring is sped up by the card, not repeated.

Thread: ear of the emporer card

zzini — 2005-10-07T02:51:44+00:00

in the game imperium when using the card ear of the emporer to score extra regions does the black pawn move to the next region(s) to be scored or does it stay in the current region and the appropiate regions are scored and then it moves to the next region, in effect that region will score twice in a row.

examples:

example a: the black pawn is in region 1 africa, an ear of the emporer card is played, region 1 is scored, the black pawn is moved to region 2, region 2 is scored. players take their cards back. the black pawn is moved to region 3 for the next round of card play.

example b: the black pawn is in region 1 africa, an ear of the emporer card is played, region 1 is scored, region 2 is scored (the black pawn remains in region 1), players take back their cards, the black pawn is moved to region 2 for the next round of card play.

Thread: User Review

TomVasel — 2005-04-25T11:41:05+00:00

Rome (GMT Games, 2001 - Reiner Knizia) is an unusual “Euro game.” This is because the box of Rome contains three distinct games inside it: Imperium, Circus Maximus, and Hannibal vs. Rome. All three of the games share a common theme - that of ancient Rome; but other than that, there’s no pressing reason that all three of them needed to be included in the same box except that Imperium and Hannibal vs. Rome use the same game board. It’s a pretty clever idea, actually. I mean, the chance of a person liking one out of the three games is fairly good, and I’m surprised that more multiple-games-in-one-box aren’t produced. The box came chock full of wooden pieces and cards, and I figured I’d like one of the games.

And fact was, I enjoyed two of them. I had very mediocre to poor feelings about Hannibal vs. Rome, but I thought that Circus Maximus was a very good game, and that Imperium was a truly excellent little game. While I think that there are better chariot racing games than Circus Maximus (Ave Caesar), the fact that it came packaged with one of the fastest area control games I’ve ever played and a pseudo war game (even though I didn’t like it) makes the whole package worth picking up.

Since there are three games in the box, I’ll only briefly summarize each...

Hannibal vs. Rome is a two-player game covering the Second Punic War between the Romans and the Carthaginians. The Roman player gets eight Legion units in Rome and three fleets in the adjacent ocean. The Carthaginian player gets six Legion units in Carthage, led by a special Hannibal legion, and three fleets adjacent. Both players get a hand of cards numbered “1” to “5”. On each turn, players may move a unit, change a legion to a fleet, or pass. If a player moves onto a spot where an opponent has a unit, each player must play a card from their hand face down simultaneously. The player who reveals the lower number must remove one of their units from the board. The battle continues until only one player has units on the spot, and used cards are set aside until a player has gone through all five, at which point they get them all back. All units have the same power, except Hannibal’s legion adds one to the value on their cards. If a player captures the capitol of their enemy, they win, if they accomplish a certain territorial goal outlined in the rules, or if they eliminate the other player. Draws occur if both players pass consecutively.

Circus Maximus is an attempt to recreate the great chariot races of that stadium. Each player gets chariot cards numbered one to five, and three chariots of their color. A large track composed of scores of hexes is placed on the table, and in player order, the chariots are set up on the starting grid. Each player puts their cards in a row in front of them, and the race is ready to begin. On a turn, the chariot in the front goes first, with those behind following. A player slides forward one to three cards and moves one of their chariots that EXACT amount, then flips the cards over. Each chariot must have at least one card assigned to it - even if the chariot cannot move and the card is wasted. When the turn is over, all cards are flipped back over, and another turn begins. When a chariot lands in one of the finish spaces (after one lap), it is out of the race, and the first player to get all three of their chariots to the finish line is the winner!

Imperium uses a map of the Mediterranean area, split into eight provinces. Each player chooses a color and takes eleven cards of that color along with a pawn, which they place on a scoring track - and 14 influence markers. A large black pawn is placed in the first province (Africa), and the game is ready to begin. At the beginning of each turn, players choose three cards from their hand, placing them in a pile face down in front of them. Players then reveal the cards and follow the instructions on them. Most of the cards correspond to one of the provinces on the board - if a player shows one of these cards, they place one of their influence markers in that province. If a player plays a “Bread and Circuses” card, they add two influence markers to the province card directly above it. A couple other special cards (Oracle and Ear of the Emperor) also add a one-time per game effect for the player. After all markers are placed, the province containing the black marker is scored. The player with the most influence markers there gets the first number of points printed on the board, with the second highest getting the next number, etc. All influence markers are then removed, except for one influence marker of the player who has the most influence in the sector. This marker is considered the “Proconsul”, and is placed on the capital city of the sector. A player scores one bonus point for this capitol plus one bonus point for each adjacent capitol they control in adjacent territories (can be a chain.) The black pawn moves to the next province in a clockwise direction, and another turn occurs. The game continues until at least one player reaches forty points, at which points the player with the most points wins!

Some comments on the game...

1.) Components: I’m not normally a fan of the components of GMT games; I think that they are merely okay. But in this game, I’m extremely pleased. The double-sided board looks pretty good. While the Mediterranean map side is pretty standard fair, the chariot arena is extremely impressive, with nice shadows and artwork (the crowd is amazing), lending a very atmospheric touch to the game. Piles of wooden pieces come with the game - much more gratifying than counters. The pieces for Hannibal and Circus are both painted wooden rectangles with stickers pasted onto them. They’re very chunky to the feel and make the game very fun to play. The cards for all the games, while a little generic in their artwork, are of good quality; and the colors are easy to distinguish from each other. I did have to add some plastic bags to the game to help sort between the pieces, as all three games use red and blue pieces, causing some confusion. Still, for the amount of bits one receives, this is a good deal!

2.) Rules: The fifteen pages of rules cover all three games, and all are explained quite easily. I found that all three games were explained simply, and I actually wondered if anything had been left out. But rather, the games actually were that simplistic, and any true depth to them came from tactics. All of them were very easy for me to teach - Imperium and Circus especially were able to be taught in less then three minutes each.

3.) Hannibal vs. Carthage: I personally disliked this game. Knizia + a war game just didn’t really hit me in the right spot. It felt mechanical, solvable, and simply had very few options. The board felt small and constricted; I felt like I had only a few pieces, and all the pieces acted the same. It was almost like playing Chess with one hand tied behind my back. As you can tell, I didn’t like it; although I did play it with a person who was more enthusiastic than I.

4.) Circus Maximus: If I had never played Ave Caesar, I would have been very pleased to play this chariot racing game. Even still, Circus is an excellent racing game, where blocking your opponents is the only real way to get ahead. My only concern is that it seems like the best strategy is to run one of your chariots as fast as you can to the finish lines, then bring in the other two. So far, every game won has been by a person employing this strategy. Still, the game is intriguing enough to play regardless.

5.) Imperium: Imperium is my favorite game of the lot, by far. I like Web of Power, because it’s a fast, simple area-control game - a “filler” with a lot of tactics and strategy. Imperium is the same thing, but for some reason I enjoy it much more. It has much of the same feel as Web of Power, connecting capitols, but adds simultaneous selection to the mix - a feature I heartily enjoy. Every game I’ve played has been fast, fun, and many times down to the wire. I believe that Rome is worth buying on basis of this game alone.

6.) Time and Players: Rome is a nice selection of games, with a two-player game (Hannibal), and some two to five player games (Imperium and Circus). But what is truly nice is how quickly all three games play. Circus Maximus is the longest game of the three (a little over a half hour), while the other two games are extremely quick, lasting about fifteen minutes each. That means that Rome has the option to see a lot of play and is one of those games you can have sitting around to play when you want to fill some time between other games.

7.) Fun Factor: There may be some who find fun in Hannibal, although I found it a tedious math exercise - sort of a Lord of the Rings: Confrontation with all the fun taken out of it. The other two games are a blast to play, however. While Circus Maximus doesn’t have any “stand up on the table and scream Ave Caesar” moments, it’s still fun to play; and Imperium has a lot of “I can’t believe you put your tokens there!” moments when the cards are revealed.

As you can tell, I really liked Imperium, my favorite game of the three - one that I would have thought worth getting even if the game had been packaged alone. Coming with the other two games was an added bonus. Even though I didn’t like Hannibal, I didn’t feel cheated, as the other two games were certainly worth the price of the box. If you think that you’ll like any two of these games, why not get it? We sadly won’t often see three games packaged into one box. It does increase the chances of getting a game you like. Rome may not contain three great games; but it does have two good ones, and that’s better than most packages you buy these days...

Tom Vasel
“Real men play board games.”

Thread: Session Report

Jonathan Degann — 2005-01-29T04:22:09+00:00

This is an old "New Game in Old Rome" resurrected by GMT. In its blazing simplicity and gamesmanship, it screams "Old Knizia".

Each player has 3 chariots that he must advance around an oval race track made up of hexagons, and be the first to complete a lap with all 3. Movement has no luck. A player has 5 cards, numbered 1-5, and when it his turn to move (because it is his chariot that is next from the front of the pack) he assigns up to three of the cards to movement. Each card must be used as a unit, in a straight line. So the game is all about blocking and staying on the inside.

Alan is a good player, and this is his game, so I was a little wary about not always taking his advice, but I started on a path that was designed to give me maximum flexibility over ability to block. I was also very lucky in being able to hew very close to the center on the turns - a tactic which I think others didn't fully appreciate. I was one of the last players to get my first chariot home, but I was easily the first to get my third chariot home, which is what it's all about.

Not enormous variety in this game, but a good 30 minute upper-lightweight filler, which is why I played it. I was lining up my eggs for the main event.

Thread: Session Report

batman — 2004-03-26T19:43:04+00:00

Dave joined us for a race around the coliseum in Rome: Circus Maximus. Everyone sent out their number one chariot to jockey for position at the front. Dave, by virtue of holding the pole position, maintained his lead going into around the first turn. Some tricky maneuvering by Kevin pushed his chariot in front of Dave’s going into the back stretch. The rest of the chariots were bunched up in a sort of peliton. It was the person who managed to avoid losing moves from having their chariots blocked that would win the game.

Kevin was the first to park his chariot in the finish row with Dave, Dustin and then myself following close behind. George’s first chariot was somewhat behind but then his second chariot was right behind that one. George’s 1-2 punch allowed him to be the first to park his second chariot. I had both of my chariots in a reasonable position to get them to the parking lot. I made a unwise choice of pushing my first chariot hard to get to a spot in the finishers row before Dustin could. This caused him to have to use an extra card but I didn’t think that this wouldn’t hurt him at all. He only had two chariots and had to use two cards on that chariot anyway. My miscalculation allowed my lagging chariot to be passed. Dustin was still able to park his second chariot and then move his last chariot into position for the next turn. Nobody had the cards to outmaneuver him for the last spot and the game was his.

This was an enjoyable game. Everyone had parked two of their chariots and it came down to who could get to the last open spot first. It takes a lot more thought than it seems to play your cards for optimum efficiency without getting blocked in.

Thread: Session Report

Henry Rhombus — 2003-11-17T14:44:37+00:00

Rome: Circus Maximus

Phil: winner
Matt: second
Eric: third
Don: fourth

This game gives each player three chariots to race around a track once and park in the center island. Movement is governed by five cards, numbered 1-5, that a player uses once each round. In a round, the lead chariot moves first, using 0-3 cards of its owner's choice, then the next chariot moves, and so forth until each chariot has moved. Then players get back their five cards and the next round starts, with the lead chariot moving first, etc.

We had a rules surprise at the end of the first straightaway. Phil had explained that those in the lead move first with those closest to the center island taking precedence. But we didn't realize how this would actually play out until we were sitting at the end of the straightaway ready to start the new round. Once we figured it out, I'm sure all of us wish that we had played differently.

Gameplay was its usual Kniziainess with players making choices from a limited pool of options. The only problem with the game came in the closing moments when Don was placed in the kingmaker role and could have placed a chariot to stop Phil from winning and thereby give the game to Matt. He honorably declined to do so. I'm not sure whether this would be a problem every time one plays, but the chariots were packed tight at the end, which led to this situation.

Rome: Imperium

Eric: 46
Don: 41
Phil: 41
Matt: 38

The second of the three games in Rome, Imperium's board has a map of the Mediterranean Sea and eight surrouding regions. The regions are numbered from 1-8, and each number is followed by two or three other numbers. So the first region is 1-1-1, the second 2-2-1, and the eighth 8-6-4-2.

Each player has an identical card set, with one card for each of the eight regions and three special cards. On a turn, each player secretly chooses three cards, then all reveal them simultaneously and place colored tokens in the regions they chose. One of the special cards duplicates a region card, thus allowing a player to place two tokens in a region on one turn.

At the end of the first turn, the first region is scored, with the player with the most tokens scoring the first number listed, the player with the second most the second number, and so forth. If there's a tie for majority, the tied players each score the number listed for second place; if there isn't a tie, the player with the majority placed a token in the region's capital and scores an additional point for that token as well as each token e controls in neighboring capitals. All tokens other than the one in the capital are returned to players' stockpiles.

On the next turn, the second region is scored. After the eighth region, the first region is scored again. The game ends when one player who has 40 or more points is in the lead by emself.

So there's a guessing element as to which regions people will concentrate their efforts in, but the guessing becomes less important as the game goes on because you can see who's concentrating in which areas. If two people are stockpiling in one region, as Matt and Don did in region 8, you say forget it, I'll place one token there to grab 2 points and place most of my dudes elsewhere.

The two other special cards, which can be used only once per game, allow for a bit of trickiness. The Oracle lets you see what everyone else plays, then look at your hand and rechoose which cards you want to play. Ear of the Emperor scores an additional region that turn, a card that Phil had turned against him when Don played more tokens in region 7 than Phil thought he would, losing Phil the majority and the capital spot.

I lined up majorities in region 4, then 6, then 1, which go in order counterclockwise, netting me 1, then 2, then 3 bonus points. I ceded 4 to others rather than fight, but retained 6 and thus 2 more points. I seemed to choose regions others didn't want so badly, thus netting me more majority points and a steady climb up the scoring chart. In this game, much as in Taj Mahal, it's sometimes better to switch than fight.

Thread: Session Report

gschloesser — 2003-07-13T02:53:44+00:00

Time for one more game to complete the evening. Several players seemed in the mood for a race, so we opted for Circus Maximus for the GMT set of Rome. The racers were Joey, Ashton, Darren, Keith and I.

Joey opted for a sprint with one of his chariots, racing ahead of the field. I pursued a similar option, keeping close behind him and ahead of everyone else. We did bunch up a bit in the first turn, but Joey continued his lead. He was the first to get a chariot home, followed quickly by me.

The field became very congested on the second turn, as we all jockeyed for position. Ashton managed to be the first player to get two of his chariots home, but his third chariot was far behind in the pack. We all managed to get two chariots home, but I had superior positioning and was able to slide my third chariot in and claim the victory.

Ratings: Joey 7.5, Greg 7.5, Keith 7, Darren 6.5, Ashton 5.5

Thread: Session Report

batman — 2003-04-24T13:53:21+00:00

I grabbed Danny when he walked in the door and we played a game of Rome - Hannibal vs. Carthage. This is one of the three games packaged together under the Rome title. It's very basic, simple and quick. We finished in less than 15 minutes. One person plays Rome and the other plays Carthage. Each player has legions that are used to occupy areas or create battle, and fleets that are used to allow your legions to travel across water. These can also do battle if you feel it necessary to be that aggressive in a war game. The game can end when either side occupies the other's capitol or three select territories or defeat all of their legions. Each player has a hand of five cards numbered 1 to 5. During battle each player selects one of the cards and the higher number wins. Simple. The tricky part, and there's always one of those when playing a Knizia game, is that you don't get the cards you've played back until you've used all five of them.

We both started out by heading directly towards each other's capitol across the water. A couple of skirmishes on Sicily, won by the heathen Carthaginians (Danny) gave him one island away from Rome. I still had my fleet in place to prevent that though. We were both edging around the map trying to gain as much ground as we could. Danny sent his elephants west and up into Spain while I met him partway. I reversed the ploy to the east and sent a few legions across the mediterranean via Greece. Meanwhile the tricky Africans tried to displace my fleet and create an open path to Rome for his legion in Sicily. My fleet was able to hold on long enough for my legions travelling through Greece to enter Carthage and gain victory. The game lasted about as long as it's taken me to write this report. Neither of us had played this before and there were several things we would have done differently had we known how the game plays out. This could have stretched the game out another five to ten minutes maybe. This is a neat little two player with just enough strategy for what it is.

Thread: User Review

Timw — 2003-03-10T18:40:29+00:00

"Rome" includes 3 games, 1 large double-sided board, a well written rule book, over 100 wooden counters, a sheet of graphics to apply to some of the pieces, a hundred or so cards, and not a single die!

All 3 of these games are relatively light, but all rely on players skill rather than luck, as all players have exactly the same set of components for each game (minor difference in Hannibal v Rome), so not even the luck of the card draw can be blamed for losing!

The quickest game is the 2 player 'Hannibal v Rome' - each side starting with several legion counters, a few boats, and for Hannibal, an elephant (adds one to combat but cant use boats). Moving one piece per turn, the object is to get a piece into the opponents capital region. Combat, when opposing pieces occupy the same region, is resolved simply by playing one of 5 cards (numbered 1-5), highest card wins, or a draw removes both pieces. Cards though are not replaced into your hand until after all 5 have been played, so plenty of room for bluffing and tactics as you try and draw out your opponents strong cards while saving yours for more important battles.

'Imperium' is another region based game. For 2-5 players, the idea is to amass points by having the most counters in a region when it is scored. A player may place 3 counters per turn into any of the 8 regions, at the end of each turn the current region is checked and whoever has the most counters in that area gains the relevant number of points, with other points available for 2nd/3rd etc depending upon number of players. Players remove their markers from that region, and the region marker is then moved into the next (numerically ascending from 1-8), and the next turn begins. A couple of other cards allow players to make the region marker score the next region as well before the next turn begins, or wait and see what other players do before they place their markers.

'Circus Maximus' is a quick playing race game for up to 5. Players control 3 chariots, using a hand of cards numbered 1-5. The object though is not simply to be the first to get a chariot to the finish, but to be the first to get all 3 to the finish. Movement is done by playing one, two or three cards for each chariot (must play at least one per chariot), with the restriction that direction must be the full amount on the card and in a single direction. What initially appears a simple straightforward game suddenly becomes a skillful exercise in racing lines and blocking as potentially 15 chariots hit the first corner!

Overall a good value package - 3 games which are relatively quick to set up and play, and which give your brain a bit of exercise rather than just rolling a die and letting the game play you.

Thread: Re:User Review

Timw — 2003-02-05T14:34:53+00:00

Just a quick note Kevin - the initial setup is actually Clockwise, Counter-Clockwise then Counter-Clockwise again (not clockwise as you mentioned)

Thread: User Review

kgnunn — 2003-02-03T05:19:42+00:00

Circus Maximus is one of the three games in the GMT Games Reiner Knizia package deal Rome. Also in this package are the also enjoyable voting game Imperium and the sadly pointless wargame Hannibal versus Rome . Circus Maximus was the last of the three I had the opportunity to try out and overall, I’d say it was worth the wait.

The Circus Maximus board shows a map of the famous coliseum, laid out in hexagons (21 hexes long at the longest and 11 hexes wide at the widest). Each player controls a team of three chariots and the winner is the first one to maneuver their team through one full lap around the board and into the victory lane.

Setup begins in a fashion akin to that of Settlers of Catan as each player takes turns placing one of their three chariots in the starting grid first in clockwise order, then in counter-clockwise order, and then in clockwise order again.

In every round after setup, each player will get three turns—one for each chariot—and the turn order of the chariot is decided by race position, beginning with the section of the board that includes the race leader and working clockwise from there. For those of you unfamiliar with such position-driven racing rules, the instructions include a sample placement of five chariots on the board and explains their turn order in detail. However, even working from that example, we have not been entirely comfortable with the result of this system, as it can trigger some rather strange rounds if the lead chariot has completed its first lap while other chariots are still in the first section of the board. Overall, most players seem willing to accept the rules as written, but notes addressing this issue would have been nice.

To actually move your chariots, Circus Maximus equips you with a set of five cards numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 which you lay face up on the table. As each chariot has its turn, you may assign one, two or three of these cards to moving it. Movement is in straight lines only and must be by exact count however, you’re allowed to change your chariot’s direction of movement between assigned cards. Once each card is used, it is also flipped over to signify that it is out of play for the rest of the round.

For each card, chariot movement must be in a straight line and must be by exact count. However, you’re allowed to change your chariot’s direction of movement between assigned cards. In addition, while moving a chariot is not mandatory, each chariot must still have at least one card assigned to it, so you’re not allowed to assign more than three cards to any one chariot or to use up your last card before your last chariot gets its turn.

It can get a bit difficult—particularly with a full game of five players bringing fifteen chariots onto the track—to keep track of exactly which chariots have and have not moved. While the rules did not address this issue, we resolved it by laying down each chariot down after it moved in the first round, then standing it back up after it moved in the second round, and continuing to alternate between standing them up and laying them down each round thereafter. This practice made it quite easy to tell at a glance who had and had not moved.

It may sometimes happen that your chariot cannot move with any of the cards you have left. In such cases (*grrr*) you must still assign one of your remaining cards to it and flip that card out of play for the rest of the round. Blocking opponents and preventing them from using one of their cards can be difficult, but it is definitely a crucial element of the game as each player attempts to jockey their team into a better position. In particular, occupying the inside corners of the turns and forcing your opponents to swing wide can have a major effect on the outcome of the race.

At the end of each round, every chariot will have either been moved, been blocked from moving, or opted not to move. At that time, all players reset their cards face up and the race continues. The race ends immediately when one player’s entire team has successfully completed the race and parked in the victory zone (the white band in the middle of the board).

So that’s how you play Circus Maximus . The next natural questions are of course “how well does it play?” and “is it fun?”

Whenever asked to judge a racing game, I always consider four criteria. (1) Is it fast? (2) Is player interaction present? (3) Is strategy a factor? (4) Does strategy outweigh the random elements? I’d have to say that Circus Maximus can respond to all four of these in the affirmative.

(1) It’s fast—no more than thirty minutes.

(2) It has high player interaction—every decision will be based on your position relative to your opponents, how you can affect them and how they can affect you.

(3) It’s strategic—success depends almost entirely on your ability to read the board and make the right move at the right time. In addition, since victory is claimed by the player whose entire team first completes the race, it forces you to adopt a balanced strategy.

(4) Strategy outweighs all random elements—in this particular case, the only random element is selection of the player to begin the setup round and this seems to carry very little impact over the course of the game.

I’d say it plays well.

Of course, that still leaves the question “is it fun?” Well, I enjoyed playing it. I have fond memories of playing it. I want to play it again. I think that’s fun. And if the four criteria above are things that appeal to you in a racing game, you’ll think it’s fun too.

Thread: Re:Session Report

AllenDoum — 2003-01-25T21:41:48+00:00

The Victory conditions on the board agree with the ones in the rules; if you satisfy the board conditions, you will also win by the rules. Essentially, you must have a unit in a more advanced position than your opponent on all three of the routes between Catrage and Rome.

Thread: Session Report

Deleted User 1 — 2003-01-13T20:53:52+00:00

Patrick took his leave of us to head home for some Tylenol and rest. That left Andrew, Ryan and I to try a new game that had landed on my doorstep earlier in the day – the long awaited GMT game, Reiner Knizia’s Rome.

Rome is actually three games in one – Hannibal versus Rome, Imperium and Circus Maximum (no relation to the Avalon Hill game). We went for a game of Imperium. We were all newbies.

The game is a fairly simple influence game where you are trying to have the most pieces in an area when it is scored (sound familiar?). The gameplay and scoring is classic Knizia – very number oriented. It’s interesting though, and before long we started to figure out what the strategies were.

At the beginning, Andrew zoomed into a big lead by scoring many of the early areas. I held back on the early areas and concentrated myself on the larger scoring areas that were to come later. Towards the end of the game we were all extremely close, but I was able to break away and win the game with 44 points.

Score:

*Rick* - 44
Ryan – 41
Andrew – 39

Ratings:

Rick – 6
Ryan – 7
Andrew – 7

Middling ratings. I thought the game was very dry and too Knizia-mathematical. Ryan and Andrew liked it, though, and thought it would be improved with more players.

Thread: Session Report

yudp — 2003-01-13T20:53:52+00:00

JP d. Dale – landed in Carthage

After dinner, we sat down to try John’s new Rome set of games from GMT. After paying for them about 2 years ago, they were finally released this month. Rome is a collection of three small games – Hannibal vs. Rome, Imperium, and Circus Maximus. These three come from a larger collection, New Games in Old Rome, which had been released by Piatnik. Strangely, I had just been reading the rules to my copy of New Games in Old Rome during the week, so I was familiar with the rules as well.

We started with Hannibal vs. Rome, a very light war-gamette. I was the Carthaginians and John was the Romans. The game is played over a small map of the Mediterranean and the surrounding lands. The Romans start with 9 legions and 3 ships. The Carthaginians get 8 legions (though one was a special elephant legion) and three ships as well. (I think those numbers are right – in any event, the Romans get one more physical unit than the Carthiginians, but the Carthigians get the special elephant unit). This is a slight change from the original rules as there are more pieces on the board in the Rome ruleset than the New Games in Old Rome set. In addition to your pieces, each player gets a set of five cards, numbered 1 to 5.

On your turn, you can move one unit. Legions move one space on land, and they can use sea-lanes to cross areas over water as long as they have a ship of their color occupying the sea-lane. Then, if there are opposing units in the same region or sea-lane, you resolve conflict. Conflict resolution is done with the five numbered cards. Each player chooses one of their cards and places it face-down. They are compared, and the player with the lower number loses a unit. If there is a tie, both players lose a unit. And, if you are Carthage and are using your special Elephant unit, you get an automatic +1 added to your card play during that battle. You place your used cards aside until all five have been used – then you take them all back into your hand to use again.

This continues until one of the win conditions is met. Rome wins if they have a unit enter Carthage. They don’t need to win any battles there, but they just have to have a unit enter the area. Likewise, Carthage wins if a unit enters Rome. Either side can also win if they control a majority of the land areas on the board – I think each needs to have control of 4 land areas. The problem with this is that the printed rules do not correspond with the illustration on the board. It was unclear which instructions to follow, so we followed the rules printed in the rulebook as they were identical to the older ruleset as well.

Our game went quickly, only about 10 minutes. John quickly took control of the entire sea as he knocked out two of my ships in the first 3 rounds! This allowed him to start sending legions eastward and down towards Zama. I took the more central approach and used my last remaining ship to send legions directly north to try to directly invade via Corsica and Sicily. But, I didn’t have enough time as I was spending a good deal of time trying to fend off his eastward impulse. In the end, I didn’t have enough firepower to stop his legions from walking into Carthage from the east and winning the game.

Afterwards, I think John and I both agreed that the best thing about the game was that it was quick. It may, in fact, have taken us longer to set up the game and resolve the rule conflicts that arose from reading the rules than the actual playing. We both decided that GMT most likely added the game to the box because it was played on the same board as Imperium, one of the other games in the Rome collection.

Thread: Session Report

yudp — 2003-01-13T20:53:52+00:00

JP 46 – Dale 33

Next we tried the area control game called Imperium. Again, I thought that I remembered all the rules to this game from my New Games in Old Rome, but it appears that the good Doctor (Knizia) or GMT felt the game could be improved, so there were again new rules to digest.

Imperium is a simple game where each player plays up to three control markers to the board on each turn. The board has 8 different regions on it with differing point values on them. In the two player game, the regions are simply worth 1 point to 8 points for the winner of the region (with the loser getting nothing). In the multi-player game, the winner still gets 1 to 8 points for winning, but there are some values for coming in second and third place.

Each player has a hand of cards – 1 card for each of the 8 provinces and three special cards. On your turn, you choose three cards and once everyone has chosen, you reveal the cards and do the corresponding actions. When you play any province card, you place one of your 14 markers on that area. There is one special card that allows you to place a second piece in an area on a turn – you can use this over and over – it’s just a tool to allow you to distribute your markers 2 and 1 rather than 1-1-1. Another special card allows you to see where everyone plays their pieces and then allows you to play any three cards you wish. You only get to use this card once per game, though. After all players have placed their pieces, there is a scoring round.

Scoring goes around the board by value. So after the first round, you score the region that gives 1 point to the winner – and in the second round, you score the region that gives 2 points to the winner – and so on until the 8th round where you score the region that gives 8 points to the winner. This order can be changed by the final special card, which can only be used once, and causes you to score the next two regions on this turn instead of just the next region.

When you win a region, you must leave a marker behind in the region to show your consulship. You also score one point for this consul. Finally, you then look to see if you have any adjacent connected regions with consuls in them – and if you do – you get one extra point per consul in adjacent strings. If the game continues around, the consul will also act as an additional marker in that space the next time it is scored! The game continues on in this fashion until someone scores 40 points to win the game.

Our game was hard-fought, and our similar personalities led to very similar strategies from the start. After the first round, we were still tied, because we had both chosen to play in the 2 and 3 regions! As the game progressed, we were neck and neck for awhile as we traded winning regions – however, I had forgotten about the adjacent consul rule and was not as organized as John was about controlling adjacent areas. These bonus points started to loom large as John was getting three and four bonus points with each area that he won. And to compound problems, since he had a consul in these areas already, when we made our second circuit of the board, he already had an inherent advantage to keep control of these areas and then re-score all the bonus points. In the end, I was unable to break his string of four contiguous areas on the eastern side of the board and lost 46-33.

Still one of my favorite games of the set, but I’m not sure how much I like the new rule changes. I do like the score two regions card, but I miss being able to play two banner cards so that I could play all three markers in one region if I wanted. I also didn’t like the consul scoring. They definitely made scoring more interesting and added a little more strategy to where you would try to win, but since the total allotment of markers is still just 14 – we both found that we were running out of control markers by the end of the first revolution. But, all longlasting opinions of this one will have to wait until we can play it with multiple players – where I think this can be a great tense 20 minute filler.

Thread: Session Report

yudp — 2003-01-13T20:53:52+00:00

Rome: Circus Maximus 1/11/03
Dale 3 – JP 2

Finally, we played the final game in the Rome gameset: Circus Maximus. To my relief, this one had not been changed from the original version. This is a simple chariot racing game – much simpler than the AH game of the same name. Each player has three chariots, and you win when all three of your chariots get to the finish area. Movement is accomplished via a set of 5 cards numbered 1 through 5.

Turn order is decided like many other racing games – the chariots move in order from first place (closest to the finish line) to last place. If there is a tie for closest to the finish line, the chariot closer to the center of the track (i.e. the one on the inside line) goes first. When you move a chariot, you choose from your cards. Each card represents a movement of the number of spaces equal to the number on the card. The movement from a card must be taken in full (can’t burn some of the card) and must be in a straight line. If you choose to use multiple cards to move a chariot, you can “turn” or change direction between cards – just not during movement from a single card. In each round, you must assign at least one card to each chariot. Thus, you can at most assign three cards to a single chariot (so that you keep one card each for the other two!).

In a two player game, the race really boils down to just not finishing last. I took this strategy to heart! John and I had out first two chariots each bust out of the gate and they were quickly down the front straight in about 2 turns. There was a little jockeying at the turn, but these front four chariots basically tore around the track. The final two (one each from us) were only a few hexes behind the others at any given time, but I spent most of the race just trying to block the movement of John’s final chariot. I think I managed to get him to burn cards in three different rounds as he was not able to use the cards he had kept for that chariot due to my rolling roadblock. Near the end of the game, I had already brought my first two chariots to the finish line, and a 5-4-3 move got me around the final bend and into the finish area for the win.