The Roman Empire. An Empire so large and powerful its fame remains still today. In order to keep its vast territories under control, the Roman Empire sent out state managers to exercise its policies.
The players are one of these managers, in charge of one of the Roman cities, all aiming to become a prosperous and important city, like Rome, the glorious capital. Only the player who develops his city best, will earn the favour of the goddess Minerva and win the game.
The player who has the most Victory Points (VP) at the end of the game wins.
In order to gain VPs, the players will build military facilities to earn military fame, develop cultural facilities to assist cultural activities, and construct temples and layout the city so that it is worthy of its temples.
But all of this requires resources and gold. And only building impressive buildings won't get anyone far without any inhabitants. The players will have to build living quarters so that the other buildings can have an effect.
- Beautiful, thematic art and strong spatial mechanics
- Deep strategic depth with multiple viable strategies
- Deluxe edition adds value with exclusive content
- Heavy for new players; may require a longer onboarding
- Session length can stretch toward the 90-minute mark
- Urban planning and empire development
- Roman Empire city-building
- Competitive, puzzle-driven city optimization
- Yokohama
- Reigns
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Spatial Puzzle — Strategic placement to maximize adjacency and resource efficiency.
- tile-laying / resource management — Place buildings to develop cities and manage resident flow.
- Timing-based action selection — Players compete for optimal action timing against rivals.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- "it's a two-player game but you can also play solo and it's rather quick"
- "not collectible; it recreates the Battle of Hastings and all the events of 1066"
- "it's a beautiful and strategic Carcassonne style game for two to four players"
- "Minerva is a unique tiling resource management strategy game that relies on cunning spatial strategy and intense competition for timing of actions"
- "the main system is formed by a sandbox of Fighters bosses rivals allies and stages for the players to mix and match"
- "arcade mode for a quick game with a lot of variety and story mode which links your games together"
- "art is beautiful especially the different tribes each tribe is unique"
- "unique dice pushing mechanic which activates two actions per turn"
- "you could say maybe it's like a very very light Dominant Species"
- "it's an atmospheric adventure and it's inspired by 80s fantasy nostalgia"
- "it is a cooperative board game for 1 to 6 players where players control a party of medieval fantasy survivors"