I’ve not posted many reviews on this site, partly because I’m relatively new to the hobby and many of the games I’ve played are either a) classics that don’t need yet another glowing review or b) “hot” new games that don’t need yet another glowing review. In the interest of avoiding posting the 417th review of Small World or Dominion, I’m trying to review some of the older games I’ve played instead. That said, let’s take a look at Antike:

Overview

This is an older game, so I’m not going to rehash all the rules and gameplay, just the mechanics I think are important. Antike is a game with multiple ways to score points—building temples to augment your cities, destroying your opponents temples, expanding your empire and establishing new cities, expanding your navy to rule the seas, and advancing your civilization’s technological expertise—but dominance of a single category will not be enough to win the game. The actions you can take on your turn are determined by a roundel, and essentially boil down to gathering resources, spending resources (to build military, techs, or temples), and maneuvers (either attacking or reinforcing with your military.)

The combat is a very simple attrition mechanism, where units kill each other off one to one. This makes conquering a region a simple question of bringing a superior force, but also makes it impossible to simply maintain a huge standing army—either you use them and sacrifice them in the process, or you pile them up to make a show of force, but they earn you no points until you use them.

The balance between the multiple ways to score points is pulled off really nicely. The simplest paths to victory involve somehow putting yourself in position to score efficiently, without having to commit multiple actions to one aspect over the others. Strategically, it’s key to remember that this is not a wargame—taking and holding a strategic position is not as important as timing things to score at the first opportunity rather than a slow build. If you telegraph your intentions, it’s far too easy for your opponents to throw a wrench in your plans. For example, getting the VPs for having three temples is easier if you can position yourself to build two temples on one turn. If you lose a temple on your next turn, you don’t lose the point—but if you take multiple turns to continue the strategy you started, it’s all but guaranteed that someone will mess with your plans.

Impressions

I really enjoy the multiple victory point conditions and the way the mechanics make you feel constantly under pressure to do things that you’re one or two resources shy of being able to optimize…do you wait another trip around the roundel of doom, or do you suck it up and take an action inefficiently because someone is going to mess with a totally separate part of your game? Every decision is crucial. There is no hidden information, so anticipating your opponent’s strategies is also key. Pick the right time to strike while an opponent is focused on someone else, and you can set someone back a turn or two with a devastating attack. Tip your hand, though, and your “devastating attack” turns into an epic disaster as another opponent brutalizes you out of nowhere.

My biggest concern with the game is the pre-determined starting regions. With 3 or 5 players it seems like someone is always stuck in middle of the board, fighting on two fronts while the other players are left with a little more uncontested room for expansion. That player in both of our games so far has been in big trouble from just a couple turns in, and they’re forced to play a much more reactive strategy. I am inclined to dislike games that force a prescribed strategy on a certain player by turn order or board position, and I fear that the starting region setups may cause such a problem here. Also, the game plays a little slow, partly due to the huge analysis-paralysis potential as you try to figure out which of your opponents is looking to hose you and how to respond.

Overall, I would rate Antike a 6.5-7. It’s a tense game with a lot of different ways to approach the strategies, but it probably wouldn’t be my first choice to hit the table every night.

Again, as I am one of Dave's usual opponents in these games, let me fill in my own two cents.

It's very true that starting position can in some ways determine strategy, but I think one way out of this "problem" is to choose the right side of the game board for the number of players that you have. The "Oriental" board has much more open water, which allows for a more dynamic system of attacking players. The "middle" of the board is relatively open to all, and there's nowhere for the folks on the left and right edges to hide. A well-equipped navy is never more than two turns away from going from one end to the other.

Also, it helps to think of board position as just another way to have imbalanced start conditions. Your "choice" of strategies could just as easily be in choosing start position on the board.

A more concerning element of the game for me is in the relatively small amount of granularity in scoring. Each "point" is a significant percentage of the winning total, and at the same time is a limited resource (each element of the civ strategy will only net you so many points) and thus with players who are vigilant and effective at preventing "sneaky" wins, this game can easily get bogged down in a turtle-fest of civilizations that are struggling to destroy one more temple (while simultaneously pumping gobs of units into defending their own), since these tend to be the only points available or reasonable in the end game. At this point, the game may grind to a halt, or at least become a painful back and forth struggle to break that final barrier.

Certaintly not perfect, but it is not a bad game as you stated in the nice review.
I am rather annoyed that the Almanac is in German. The one side of the board being in German does not affect the game play, but I cannot see the point of it if the company exports it to English-speaking people ! If they include the rules in three languages, why not add the Almanac in these languages, too ?
The simple battle system is certaintly unusual, to say thel east, and the Rondella can slow things down but overall I would give it a 6.0
The boats and "armies" are meeples and that is not too bad (providing you have not had enough of seeing them in so many recent games :laugh; the board is nice and attractive. I just wished they had added wooden temples istead of white cubes !
Makes a change from a hard slog of S.P.Q.R because it does not take long to finish a stint and that may be an attraction to some who are looking for a battle game without complexities ala Risk etc.