From: Richard Heli Subject: r.g.b review from a decade ago From farrell@sirius.cis.ohio-state.edu (christopher k farrell) Newsgroups: rec.games.board Subject: Republic of Rome Summary: Awesome game Keywords: multi-player AH board game References: <1990Nov26.031857.14897@magnus.ircc.ohio-state.edu> Reply-To: christopher k farrell Lines: 141 OK, I have just bought my hot new copy of Republic of Rome, and after having played 3 games I think I am now at least somewhat qualified to share some of the details with you. Just to let you know where I stand, I believe this is the best new multi-player game I've played since Civilization (which I think is nice, but I eagerly await the new rules). First, the hard data. Each player controls a faction vieing (sp?) to become the most influential in Rome. Each faction consists of three families at start, although this can be augmented by "persuading" others to join you. In addition, some of the families can give rise to outstanding individuals - Julius Caesar, Cato, Scipio, etc. The actual play of the game proceeds: I. Mortality phase - one (or maybe more) senators may die. A family who dies is lost, except if he is a faction leader, in which case the faction retains him. The family will come back although he will join with the faction who persuades him first. II. Income phase - Rome makes money each year, and can make money on any provinces they have aquired. The senators make money in two ways. The only "legal" way is through their yearly senatorial income. In addition, governors can take money from their provinces, and certain concessions exist, such as army and navy kickbacks (you get money for each legion/fleet built), and grain concessions (which you can make a killing of of during droughts). All of these are minor illegalities, though, and can get you procecuted. III. Forum phase - the first "real" phase. Each faction takes an "initiative". First, they will trigger either a random event or a card draw. Random events are certain "generic" disasters ranging from natural disasters which cost you scads of money and can just generally ruin the chance of the Rupublic surviving to contributions from allies. Card draws result in either an intrigue card, which the faction keeps, or an event or war, which gets placed in the forum for the senate to debate later. Each faction then can attempt to persuade one other senator to join them, then try to atrtract a knight (which provides income & votes). 6 initiatives must be takes, so if there are fewer than 6 players, any additional initiatives are auctioned off. IV. Population Phase - The current ranking officer of the Republic gives his state of the Republic speech. Based on his popularity and the current unrest level, a variety of things can happen, from the Senator quelling the disquiet (don't count on it) to mobbing the forum resulting in deaths for about 6 senators (also not terribly likely, but bad things do seem to happen more often) - all the way up to a revolt, which means all the players lose. V. Senate Phase - This is the huge phase. A couple things happen automaticly - the outgoing Rome Consul presides over the election of a pair of new consuls, one of whom becomes the Rome Consul and takes over the proceedings, and one of whom becomes the Field Consul and is eligable to procecute the various wars. If Rome is in really dire straits than they can elect a Dictator, but if you don't really need it (i.e., you aren't facing down three or more powerful foreign wars) don't do it. The new Rome Consul then presides over the election of a Censor, who presides over the trials of anybody who did all those nasty things in phase two, or anybody who held an office last year. The Censor only gets one Major and two minor trials, though. After the election of officials, then all other matters are open to discussion - the prosecution of wars, building of fleets, filling of governorships, assignment of concessions, and passing land bills, primarily. Only the Rome Consul can propose measures, however, and he also decides on the order of voting - which can be critical, as votes can be bought. Also, there are a number of "Tribune" intrigue cards that allow anyone to propose a measure, or to veto any measure proposed (except by a dictator). VI. War Phase - Kill those nasty enemies of Rome. Unless it's providing you with a drought and you have the Sicilian and Egyptian Grain concessions, in which case you are making a killing on it. VII. Revolution Phase - Intrigue cards are played in this phase, and any victorious Field Consul or Dictator can march on Rome and try to achieve a military victory. The game comes with three scenarios - Early, Middle and Late Republic. They go from being having most of your problems as being outside affairs (Early) to most of your problems being other senators (Late). The early one is the easiest to play, since you very rarely have to worry about revolutions and really nasty things, but most difficult to get the Republic through (I can't stress enough how important it is to kill the First Punic War right away). As for my evaluation - first, don't expect to master, or even be competant, at this game right away. The details of the game are too complex. Play the Early scenario until you feel comfortable with the game before you jump into the really nasty middle and late republic scenarios. However, once you've played the game, it's awesome. It's got Civilization beat hands down, and even 1830 too (1830 has too many arbitrary aspects for my taste. I hate being blocked because I need either a tile that's already been played or a straight and someone else lays a perverse brown tile with everything but a straight just to spite me. Call it strategy, but it's not the sort of strategy I enjoy.) It's very interactive - not like Titan, where you can wait 20 minutes for your turn, and the concept of everybody having to work together to a certain degree so Rome doesn't fall adds a lot of spice. Also, the game is, in Don Greenwood's words, "hip-deep in chrome". The historical flavour is excellent, something which I value highly in a game. And, the player interaction is continuous. The designer's hints in the back of the manual say that the game was designed for people who "found Diplomacy a little tame". Nobody can accomplish anything without the aid of someone else. Also, the game length is ideal - should be no longer than 4 hours, possibly shorter, between relatively experienced players. I only have a two gripes with the game. Firstly, between novice players, the game can easily be decided by luck. The die rolls for persuasion, knights, and wars can seem arbitrary, and for critical things the dice can decide your fate, never mind the large number of options that can easily swamp a novice. However, I believe a little experiance will easily allow you to win despite all but the worst turns in fate, if you play a better game than your opponents. Secondly, if you want to play a game that's more casual, you're better off with 1830 or Civ. Both can be played without too much doublecrossing and/or bloodletting, and novices can put in a decent showing. Alliances can't be too lethal, except maybe a PRR-B&O alliance, and the emphasis is mainly on how well _you_ do. Republic of Rome is an _EXTREMELY_ competitive game. The first game I played had two players who formed a rock-solid permanent alliance on turn one, and the game was no real contest from there on out - they wouldn't betray each other, even to win the game. This will make the game _EXTREMELY_ boring. Comparing it to Kingmaker and Kremlin, both games with comparativly little strategy and player interaction (at least compared to Republic of Rome), does the game a great injustice. Looking back at my article, I really can't do justice to the incredible itricicies of this game. It's definately not for everyone, but if you enjoy and have always wanted a wild, free-for-all game of political intrigue, THIS IS IT! TELEPORT, don't run, to your nearest hobby shop. As a final piece of advice, don't play the extended game (Early and Middle, and possibly Late as well, depending on the level of masochism) unless you have a really close game going into the second/third stage. And don't play with the optional rules until you're pretty good. And even though it is the toughest to win, play the Early scenario first. It's a killer, but it's not nearly as nasty or complex as the later ones. Chris Farrell farrell@cis.ohio-state.edu