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The land of Cardis has been ruled for many years by King Rhodrig. Cardis is a rich and powerful kingdom controlling all neighboring provinces, which provide valuable resources. All this wealth attracts warlords and raiding parties who more than often launch attacks against the kingdom. So far Cardis has stood against such attacks but with heavy casualties. Thanks to the support of wealthy Archons, the kingdom gets rebuilt so that Science and Arts can flourish once again. At the same time new soldiers are recruited and the army prepares for the inevitable moment when the kingdom will need to be defended once again.
In Archon: Glory & Machination, players are powerful Archons who support Cardis in order to win King's favor. Players use their influence on their Courtiers and on various figures of authority (Magisters).
Each game consists of three Seasons. For each of these Seasons, the King issues different demands that players must fulfill in order to score Victory Points. Each season consists of 3 rounds during which players use a card-driven worker placement mechanism to perform various actions that will allow them to gather resources and income, recruit soldiers and, rebuild the city, and acquire scoring cards (Science & Arts). They will also have the chance to train Elite Warriors to assist in the city's defense. After nine rounds, the game ends and the player with the most Victory Points wins.
- cool worker placement idea
- solid mechanics
- beautiful art and awesome components
- board is extremely busy
- very confusing with multiple similar resource colors
- building that negates two of the four roles reduces variety
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- card-driven worker types in a worker placement framework — Play regular workers, then use a card to define the type of worker; four kinds of workers implied.
- Worker Placement — Play regular workers, then use a card to define the type of worker; four kinds of workers implied.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- it's just too random too quick
- the game played itself
- I bought it because of the crazy art and you've got that crazy cover and it's just wonderful stuff and ideas in the box
- it's so busy
- the four player colors are gray black tan and brown they're the same colors so you're like is that a player color is that a resource
- backstabby
- incredibly abstract and really not engaging for me at all
- the idea of this just totally blew my socks off
- but ultimately it is a big old area majority game
- I've actually just posted before this video a full run through of this game, including that run through I played it three times and I'm just really into it
- grabbed it for only $20.9 bucks