Description

Players control city-states in Ancient Greece, and vie for control of other cities in the Greek mainland.

Players acquire power through the form of four influence types: Military, Diplomatic, Cultural, and Economic. Each type has unique ways of counteracting the others, and players must be adaptable to succeed. Multiple winners are possible, so forging alliances and well-timed betrayals can help players end the game among the victors.

The main goal of the game is to gain the most Glory, and the game ends when the pool of Glory Tokens is depleted. Players may erect monuments, which provide alternate paths to victory once the game has ended.

GAMEPLAY OVERVIEW

Players start by selecting a city state, each which has two advantages and a disadvantage, and two focus influence types; there's also a jack-of-all-trades city which doesn't have a focus, but its advantages let it switch among the influence types more easily. Each city is not a specialization, but more of a slight nudge off center. If a city needs to switch tactics based on the situation, they are each able to gain cards and influence of other types to meet the challenge. Each player city contains three districts, which can be developed using building and tradesmen cards; other cities only have 1 district each.

Influence is gained in mainly two ways. Players may select what influence to gain each turn (with extra cards if for each focus type chosen), but this happens at the end of each turn, so players must plan ahead for what they will do. The second way is at the start of each turn, but is more randomized. The buildings and tradesmen used to develop a district each have a production number, and gain an influence if that number is rolled. Players may also trade influence and cards on their turn; trading has the extra benefit of making a one-round truce between the trading players, which gives some measure of safety and ensures the traded items won't be immediately used against them.

For those influence-gaining rolls, the current player rolls two 8-sided dice: one applies to all players, and the other only to the rolling player. If a rolled number matches a production number the district the card is on gains an influence; however, there is a limit to the influence each district can store, so the same number getting rolled repeatedly doesn't grant extra influence. Also, the game setup makes it so at the start of the game each player has access to cards with the same numbers on them, so players gain influence at the same rate; later cards are needed to diversify their numbers. The starting cards have a 1, 2, or 5 on them (the 8 is only for rare cards, so will mostly be unavailable for players), so 50% of the values are already matching at the beginning. Furthermore, the values 1-4 are only on buildings, and 5-7 are only on tradesmen; since tradesmen must be added onto buildings, the higher numbers are less accessible.

Each district can perform one action every turn, so the more cities you control the more you can do. Since most actions cost influence, it's often best to not use all your actions to save your influence for later. Actions allow players to use abilities, which mainly come from two sources: a set of basic abilities available at all times, and event cards a player draws to their hand. The event cards correspond to the four influence types, and usually require influence of that type to use.

Victory points, called "Glory" in the game, are gained by placing your pawns (called "Officials") on the board, as well as by winning special events called Contention Rolls. Contention rolls represent things like battles and votes, and utilize a push-your-luck mechanic to determine the outcome.

Each influence type has a contention roll, and are the main way officials are added (there is a basic ability to add an official to a neutral tile; the contention rolls are used mainly against other players). First, the player who initiated the roll allocates all their resources, plays abilities, gets allies, and rolls; then once their value is determined, the targeted player does the same. This allows for a player to defend with few or no resources if the odds are too stacked against them; they can always use the influence they saved for their own contention roll later). The player who initiated the roll has the added benefit of rerolling their die before the targeted player allocates any resources; however, doing so costs some of the influence allocated to the contention roll, so their total potential value will weaken with each reroll.

Turns start with drawing an Adversity Card, which is the "bad stuff happens" card. Based on the officials and buildings a player controls, it's more or less likely that one of their cities will revolt. A city under revolt more or less returns it to a neutral state, and makes it more vulnerable to contention rolls. There is also the Olympics card, which makes a universal truce for a round, which is great if you need a breather in the game to consolidate your gains, but can be disruptive if you've been preparing a big move which now has to wait another round. The setup also makes sure the Olympics is on the first round, so it has somewhat of a built-in tutorial to allow players to get the gist of a turn before targeting one another.

The four influence types counteract one another, but not in a rock-paper-scissors way: instead they have unique ways of interacting with the board and other players. Diplomatic influence deals mostly with how cities are connected to one another, and a disconnected city cannot use the influence or actions available to it; this influence can strike anywhere and limit the options available to other players. Economic influence doesn't gain more influence, but does allow it to be moved to where it's most effective, making it more efficient; furthermore they allow players to take the influence of others as well as being a requirement for each building card. Cultural influence is more defensive in nature, and helps defend against both contention rolls and adversity cards; on the flip side, players can use it against opponents to get more revolt tokens, and is the only type which can modify rolls due to adversity cards, acting as an alternative to contention rolls. Finally, military influence is able to remove effects from all influence types from a city, but its gains are the most vulnerable from all influence types as well, making it have a more easy-come-easy-go effect.

Players will need to select which influence types to focus on as the game goes on, and might need to change based on the available resources and actions of other players. Trying to focus on all four types will generally just mean you're weak in all four, whereas focusing exclusively on one leaves you very vulnerable to the other three types. Most of the time focusing on two and dabbling in a third is the way to go; stockpiling the influence type not being used can help defending against contention rolls of that type. Since up to half of the players can win a game, cooperating with other players and trading for the influence you need is the best way to make sure you're prepared for what comes up next.

The instruction manual is set up in a learn-as-you-go format, so you perform steps as you read them rather than having to read the whole thing before starting the game. Relevant rules are referenced as you go through a section, so you know what to read when. A quick-reference sheet is on the back of the manual, the setups for the various maps are in the first opened page, and the rules for how Contention Rolls affect the game board are in a distinctly styled page where the staples are, so the frequently referenced rules have quick access. There is also an appendix which gives an example of each game component, some historical context, as well as suggestions on how the game components interact with one another.

-description from designer