Concordia

If Concordia had come out without pre-orders and ads, I probably wouldn’t have paid attention to it. In appearance, the game is similar to those Eurogames that I usually bypass. These are dry “buy-change products, master the playing field” board that makes me yawn. On the other hand, the hype brought its disadvantage to my first impressions. You are waiting for a fan of the cosmic level, but you get quite earthly sensations. Therefore, I decided to take a break, then to re-take the game in hand, calming down after the mega-epic reviews, and look at Concordia in a different way. It took me over a year on the second attempt …

The playing field is a map of ancient states (in particular in the Mediterranean and Roman Empire bases). On the map, we see large cities connected by land and sea routes. You can travel between cities, build houses in cities, which allows you to receive goods that can be stacked on our warehouse tablets. All players receive the same set of character cards containing basic actions. The gameplay is extremely simple – on your turn, you play a card from your hand and perform its action. The whole tsimus of the game is what cards you play and what cards you buy into your hand during the game. Further I will tell you in more detail about each type of cards (and there are not very many of them in fact;):

Architect. Allows you to move colonists (land and sea) across the field between cities, as well as build houses in those cities between which your colonists stand and where your houses do not yet exist. You can build houses as much as you like during this turn (but in different cities), as long as there are enough resources (coins and goods) to pay.

Prefect. The player either activates a province in which all players with houses receive resources produced in the cities of this province, or collects coins from all provinces.

Colonist. The player can choose to hire a new colonist for dropping food and tools, or receive 5 coins and 1 more coin for each of his colonists on the field.

Dealer. After receiving 3 coins, the player can buy or sell 2 different types of goods.

Diplomat. Any player’s top card action can be played.

Senator. You can buy yourself up to 2 character cards from the market by dropping the required amount of goods.

Consul. You can purchase one character card from the market, but on more favorable terms.

Specialists. All cities with certain types of goods, in which the player’s houses are located, produce the corresponding goods.

Tribune. Returns all played cards back to the hand, plus gives coins if there are more than three cards returned. The game ends either when the last card from the market is taken, or when someone has put all 15 of their houses on the field. Then the scoring begins. Each card in the player’s deck is your loyalty to a certain ancient god, who gives points for certain conditions. The more cards of the same type, the more points you get for the condition. Vesta gives points for the remaining coins, Jupiter – for houses in cities that do not produce bricks, Saturn – for different provinces with at least one of your houses, Mercury – for unique types of goods produced by your houses, Mars – for each colonist on the field, Minerva – for houses in cities that produce certain types of goods.