This Game Is… …:
A card game about rebuilding Rome after the great fire of 64AD. Whilst the game’s theme appears to permeate through the mechanics of the game itself, during play I didn’t really feel as if I was a Roman Patrician rebuilding Rome to its glorious state or even feel like a Roman Patrician at all for that matter. And perhaps this is because I’m distracted by the depth of strategy required to play this game where even on the cover it says “The SERIOUSLY strategic strategy card game".
Glory To Rome is for 2 – 5 Players and is supposed to take 60 minutes to play. I say “supposed" because this game is an AP (Analysis Paralysis) trap, so try to encourage your fellow gamer along if he/she is prone to AP otherwise you may experience games taking 120 minutes. The box says that the game is playable by anyone above the age of 12, I think they should add about 6 years to that minimum age as this is a really difficult game to even just do well in let alone excel at.
What Do You Get In The Box?
Glory To Rome comes with a Rulebook, 193 Cards, 5 Player Mats & 1 Square “Rome Demands" Card.
It should be noted that Glory To Rome comes in a plastic box that could be mistaken for those takeaway sushi containers like this: 
How Is It Played? Whilst Glory To Rome is one those brain burning games, the turn order of the game is actually quite simple. On each turn, the Leader (after the first Leader is determined, the Leader role is passed to the next Player at the end of each turn) for that turn chooses to Lead or Think. All other Players simply choose to Think or Follow (whatever the Leader chooses to do).
Thinking is simply the act of replenishing your hand with cards from the draw pile in the centre. Or the Leader can choose to lead by playing a card from his hand and performing the role depicted on the card played. If so inclined, the other Players then can play a card with a similar role to Follow the Leader’s action. There are 6 different roles available in the game depicted by 6 different coloured cards:
Laborer (Yellow), Craftsman (Brown), Architect (Grey), Legionary (Red), Patron (Purple) and Merchant (Blue)
The roles allow the Player to perform an action and the roles are quite self explanatory really. The Laborer brings back building materials, the Craftsman and Architect both build buildings, the Legionary goes around demanding building materials, the Patron gets to employ skilled workers (called Clientele) from the 6 roles, so that on a given turn, you can execute more actions of the same role and the Merchant simply sells building materials.
Glory To Rome is a Victory Point (VP) game and Players earn these VPs by completing buildings and selling building materials. In a special twist, the more VPs a Player earns during the course of the game increases the Players’ limit on the number of Clientele he can have and the limit on number of building materials able to be sold. I haven’t seen anything like this in the Eurogames I’ve played so far and have been caught out by my fellow gamers a few times for trying to play above the limit by accident. But like any other Eurogame, the Player with the most VPs when the game ends (either the draw pile finishes or no more building sites are available) wins.
What I Think About The Game?
Gameplay:
If you have played RFTG then the roles and multiple use of cards mechanic should not be foreign to you. Otherwise there is a bit of a learning curve because a single card can be used as a role, a building material or a building and the building abilities break all the rules & conventions of the game itself.
The gameplay itself is intriguing although I do feel as if I’m still missing something. It’s a very similar feeling to when I first learned how to play RFTG and just couldn’t understand how to get a Produce / Consume engine going. I suspect this will be cured with more plays.
I should also highlight that the game will eventually come down to trying to get building combos. Once a Player familiarizes himself with most of the buildings’ abilities, it’s a matter of finding the killer combo and putting it into devastating play. In a way, this makes the game exciting if Players are on the same level of skill, anticipating and denying other Players each step of the way.
Quality:
Quality is a very hotly debated topic when it comes to how big a factor does it play in how good a particular boardgame is. Let me just share my opinion on the matter.
I like eye candy. I think boardgames should look good and last long because these are the items that will still be playable down the ages without any compatibility issues. I can still appreciate a game that plays great but may not appeal visually however I think in the increasingly competitive market, quality is something publishers & developers should not be stingy on. It’s hard enough to come up with a concept for a really great game and to have it be hampered by quality issues is just such a shame. Does a visually great looking game make a sub-par game better? Probably only by a little bit but let me say that I was asking my local FLGWS (Friendly Local Gaming Webstore) about Eminent Domain and Alien Frontiers before I even did my full thesis research on these games. What can I say? I like eye candy.
The art of Glory To Rome certainly won’t appeal to everybody. It is cartoonish and nearly every person’s honker depicted in the cards are larger than life, sort of reminiscent of Asterix the Gaul. But I can live with the art, whatever style it may be. It’s the mechanic of sliding stuff under your Player Mat that I have a problem with. You see, whenever you do something (i.e. complete a building, gather building materials, employ clientele, sell materials) you usually have to slide it under your Player Mat (it’s something of a trademark of the designer, Carl Chudyk which is also seen in his latest game, Innovation). Trying to do this without having to rearrange cards that are already slotted under your mat is actually harder than pulling a tablecloth out from under dishes.
There are some really innovative solutions to this problem which you can find on BGG but I think I will simply just sleeve my cards and laminate my Player Mats to solve all my problems. Even after six plays I can see the wear on my cards already. Affordability:
I got Glory To Rome at about RM102. It’s an odd number because I picked it up in Singapore for SGD45.90 when the exchange rate was particularly high, but I did get a discount because it was an open box (cards still shrink wrapped) and to be honest this is a really hard game to find (my search took me approximately 18 months and to three different countries) so it was very satisfying to finally own a copy. But enough of my sentimental gushing, here’s the trusty old formula!
Price ÷ Recommended No. of Players ÷ [Game Length (hour) x No. Times Game is Played in a year]
RM102 ÷ 2 Players ÷ [1.5 hours x 12 times a year] = RM2.80 / hour per player
To be honest I didn’t realize that it would be this low. In fact my estimated times a year is probably off since we played 6 games (three 2 Player and three 3 Player games) in a single day on the first day I introduced it to the group. I think cybercafés still charge about RM2.50 / hour these days, so yes for the same amount of money you can play a deeply engaging and rich strategy game. I suppose Starcraft 2 qualifies as that as well.
Is This Game For You? The definition of a person who will like Glory To Rome is going to be somewhat specific I’m afraid. First off, you have got to be okay with the art and the packaging. Yes, some people will bash you for being “superficial" but I am not one of those people. If you really cannot get over it, there is a very, very, very small light at the end of the tunnel. There is word (again it is just a word) that a reprint, complete with design makeover, is in the works. I have waited for this word to come true for 18 months but you may have more patience than I have.
Once you’re past that hurdle, the rest is easy peasy. If you love strategy, killer combos, eagle eye watching your opponents, breaking rules with special abilities and chaining a sick, sick move to take the win…… this is the game for you! Your only problem now is probably finding a copy to buy (I pulled the last one of the rack in Singapore) or play with (I personally only know of one other person who has a copy).
I must mention that some groups, including mine, have encountered this strange phenomenon called the “Dry Pool" whereby there is nothing in the Pool to gather building materials / hire clientele from because Players are so cautious they refuse to throw anything into the Pool OR they have acquired the dastardly powerful ability of gathering and hiring straight from their hand! This has really slowed the game down for us and whilst I think I have figured out a way past this problem whilst typing this review, I have yet to put it to the test. I shall refrain from commenting further on this strategy I have thought of, as the competition (i.e. fellow gaming group members) maybe reading this post.
But really if your group is like my group where at the end of our last game, one of the guys tells me, “I think I’ve discovered something and no I’m not sharing it with you, you’ll just have to find out at the next game" then you have got to pick this up. It turns all sorts of cogs and wheels inside your head playing Glory To Rome.
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