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"Architects of the Eternal City".
Rivalry in old Rome for the most spectacular buildings and dominance in the Roman prefectures. Whoever uses the 90 blocks and 40 roofs best will win. There are four rounds to a game: Each round has a building phase, an auction phase, a scoring phase and a card drawing phase. In the building phase, players decide on the height of the buildings and build them at the side of the board; if they have the necessary permit, they can build on the board itself. A building is finished when it has a roof; the first roof in a prefecture determines the shape of all other roofs. In the auction phase players can auction for temples, wells and amphitheaters, earning extra points. This is a beautiful production.
This game by Alan R. Moon and Aaron Weissblum is a mix of territory acquisition, resource management and even a little auctioning thrown in for good measure. So-called "Architects of the Eternal City", compete in old Rome for the most spectacular buildings and dominance in the Roman prefectures. Whoever uses the 90 blocks and 40 roofs most effectively to secure points will win.
- interesting concept; strong cover art
- original scoring system was flawed
- city-building and tower construction
- Clock Towers
- Skyline 3000
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Layer Building — cards drive construction of towers
- tower-building with cards — cards drive construction of towers
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Escape, on the other hand, I love this game.
- One Night Ultimate Alien is one I liked because I felt like it had some really weird powers.
- Soviet Kitchen is not as great because it doesn't work as good for kids.
References (from this video)
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- It's incredibly exhausting and in terms of buying games well that's what Essen is designed for
- I had an amazing time at Essen Spiel and I've spent this entire week since thinking about how I'm going to do it better next year
- the atmosphere is what you go for
References (from this video)
- simple core rule-set with surprising depth
- beautiful tile art and satisfying placement decisions
- interesting tension between timing and adjacency scoring
- may require careful teach to avoid confusion around quadrant rules
- some players may wish for more theme integration
- urban planning and district development
- City of Wara across multiple epochs
- tiles representing districts with epoch-driven changes
- Carcassonne
- Quadropolis
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- epoch-based scoring and powers — End-of-epoch buildings grant powers; players compete for district control to earn bonuses
- quadrant tile design — Tiles are split into four quadrants; rotation and adjacency affect scoring
- tile drafting — Draft four tiles per round and place them on a 3x4 grid
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- this is my favorite game from Essen
- it's just such a clever idea
- it's up there with fake artist goes to New York or mysterium
- the blindfold they're clueless
- it's really a cool game that people are going to want to be playing
- I was really surprised by how much I like this one
- the box is massive it's far too big for what's in there
- it's a very simple party game