This is premise behind Glory to Rome, a strategy card game
published by Cambridge Games. Originally published in 2005, in 2012 it was
redesigned with all new artwork and a new box and funded through Kickstarter.
Known as the “Black Box” edition, this is the version being reviewed here.
Designed to be played by between two and five players, aged twelve and up, it
is a card-based city building and resource management game with a novel mechanism.
Most of the cards are Order cards that can be used not in one or two different
ways, but in four different ways. Each Order card can be built as a building,
used as a raw material in the construction of a building, hired as a patron, or
sold for its material value. Each Order card can only be used the once, so a
player will need to choose carefully if he is to gain the winning benefit from
it.
Each Order card is first and foremost a building that a
player can construct and then gain the special ability that the building
grants. Each Order card is also a material that could be used to construct
buildings, though if a player uses it as the material to construct part of
another building, he cannot construct the building on the card. There are
multiple copies of the buildings in Glory to Rome, so if a card is used for
material in another building, another copy might pass into a player’s hand
enabling him to try and build it. Each and every building grants its builder a
special ability that will help him win the game.
Each Order card is also marked with one, two, or three
coins. Once the building on an Order card has been built, these have a dual
purpose. First, they indicate the Victory Points scored at game’s end for
having constructed the building. Second, they indicate the player’s Influence.
By increasing his Influence, a player increases both his capacity to hire more
Clients and store material in his Vault.
Lastly, each Order card is marked with one of six Client
types and an associated material. These are the grey Architects, which can also
serve as Concrete; the green Craftsman, which also serve as Wood; the yellow
Labourers, which also work as Rubble; the red Legionaries, which also serve as
Brick; the blue Merchants, which also serve as Stone; and the purple Patrons,
which also serve as Marble. Each of the six Client types performs a particular
role or function in the game. The Architect can lay the foundation of a
building or add material to its construction from a player’s Stockpile. The
Craftsman can lay the foundation of a building or add material to its
construction from a player’s hand of cards. The Labourer takes material from
the game’s central pool and adds it to a player’s Stockpile. The Legionary
demands material from both the game’s central pool and the hands of
neighbouring players. The Merchant allows a player to move material from his
Stockpile to his Vault. Lastly, a Patron hires a Client from the game’s central
pool and adds it to a player’s Clientele.
So for example, the Market card serves as a Craftsman if
used as a Client, as Wood in the construction of a building, but if built does
two things. First, its single coin increases both the player’s Victory Point
total and his Influence. Second, it grants a special ability, in this case, an
increase in size of the player’s Vault above the limit set by his current
Influence. Whereas the Archway serves as
a Legionary if used as a Client, as Brick for constructing a building, and it
increases a player’s Victory Point total and Influence both by two. The special
ability that the Archway grants lets a player take material from the central
pool of cards instead of his Stockpile.
Glory to Rome consists of three other card types. One is the
Jack, a wild card that can be used instead of a Client on an Order card.
Another is the Foundation card, which come in the game’s six material types –
Brick, Concrete, Marble, Rubble, Stone, and Wood – with a Foundation card being
required to be laid before construction can begin on a building. Thus a Wood
Foundation card must be laid before construction can be begun on the Market.
The last card type is the Merchant Bonus, there being one of these for each
material. Each is awarded to the player who the most of the corresponding
material in his Vault at game’s end.
In addition to beginning the game with a hand of five Order
cards, a player also has a Player Camp heavy card mat. The Player Camp serves
as a reference for the players, providing a brief description of what each of
the Order cards does when used as Clients. Primarily though, a Player Camp mat
is used to organise a player’s cards once they have been played. Order cards
are tucked face up under the top of the Player Camp so that only their
Influence values are visible; face down under the right hand side in the
player’s Vault; face up under the bottom of the Player Camp in the player’s
Stockpile; and face up with only the Client type visible under the left hand
side of the Player Camp in Clientele section. This neatly organises the cards
that a player has so far played. Constructed buildings or buildings under
construction are kept separate from each Player Camp. There is also another
card mat called the “Rome Demands” which is used with the Legionary Order card.
At its core, Glory to Rome is simple to play. On each turn
one player is the Leader (there is a Leader card which is passed round the
table as the leadership changes). As Leader a player chooses an Order card from
his hand and announces his intention to play its Client as an action. So for
example, as Leader, Dave chooses to play the Ludus Magnus card as his Order
card and use its Patron action so that he can take an Order card from the pool
and add its Client to his Clientele. Now each of Dave’s rivals can do one of
two things. If they decide to “Follow” Dave as their Leader, then they must
also play an Order card with a Patron action from their hand, play a Jack card
from their hand, or Petition. The latter allows a Patrician to play to two or
three (depending upon the variant of Glory to Rome being played) identical
Client cards of another type to serve as a Jack. So for example, Anthony has
neither a Patron card that he can play to follow Dave, nor does he have a Jack,
but he does have two Legionary cards that he can play as a Jack.
If a player does not Follow the Leader, he can instead “Think.”
In which case, he draws cards up to his hand limit, a single card if he has
more cards than his hand limit, or he takes a Jack. If a Leader decides not to lead,
but instead to “Think,” he takes a single “Think” action and then the
Leadership changes to the next player. Similarly, once everyone has followed a
Leader or decided to Think, then the leadership also changes hands.
Normally, only single actions are possible from one turn to
the next, but multiple actions become possible when a player has Clients placed
in the Clientele section of his Player Camp. Actions for a player’s Clientele
can be taken when either the player or another player Leads with the particular
Client type. A player can decide to “Think” rather than “Follow” the current
Leader and still have his Client take an action as long as the Client matches
the Order card played by the Leader. So for example, when Dave used the Patron
action of the Ludus Magnus card, he managed to take the Market card from the
central Pool and add its Craftsman to his Clientele. On a subsequent turn, he
managed to add an Architect to his Clientele, giving him two Clients. On a
later turn, Anthony is the Leader and plays a Palisade Order card to make use
its Craftsman action. Dave can choose to “Follow” Anthony and play a card that
would give him the Craftsman action, so giving him two Craftsman actions – one
for the card he is playing and the other for the card he has in his Clientele.
Or if he does not have an Order card with a Craftsman, he can “Think,” draw
cards or a Jack, and still gain a Craftsman action from the Client because
Anthony Lead with a Craftsman.
Once each and every player has played an Order card, that
card is not out of the game. Rather it goes into the central pool of cards from
which cards are drawn as material, using either the Labourer or Legionary
actions (the Legionary action also steals from a player’s neighbours as well as
taking from the central pool). To an extent it is possible to deny rival
players the materials that they want by not playing certain types of Order
cards and thus not discarding them to this pool. Plus it is easy to track what
materials that a player wants from the buildings that he has under
construction. For example, Dave knows that Anthony requires Concrete because he
is building a Vomitorium. As long as Dave or another player does not Lead or
Follow with an Architect action, the Concrete that is on all Architect Order
cards is not discarded to the pool where Anthony might be able to get it later
with a Labourer or Legionary action. Anthony is, instead, forced to rely upon
the Architect/Concrete Order cards that he might draw when he “Thinks.”
During the initial stages of the game, constructing
buildings will take several turns, as will moving material into a player’s
Vault. As a player adds Clients to his Clientele, he increases the number of
possible actions that he can conduct on a turn, either as Leader or a follower.
Further, completing the construction of buildings not only adds towards a
player’s Influence and Victory Point total, they also provide him with a
special ability or benefit that will help him on subsequent turns. For example,
when constructed, the Circus Maximus doubles the ability of a player’s
Clientele by letting each one act twice. Thus each time that Dave uses his
Architect or Craftsman clients, they take two actions rather than one.
Essentially, the more buildings that a player can construct, the more he is
able to do, and what he can do, he is better at.
Glory to Rome ends when the draw pile has been exhausted or
there are no Foundation cards available to lay without the use of two Architect or Craftsman Order cards, at which point the player with the
most Victory Points wins. Victory Points are scored by constructing buildings
and by getting materials into a player’s Vault. Both of these objectives take
several actions to complete. To construct a building, a player must use an
Architect or a Craftsman action to lay its Foundation card and then add material
to the building either from his hand (with a Craftsman action) or from his
Stockpile (with an Architect action). Getting material into his Stockpile
requires a Labourer action and there has to be the right material available in
the central pool. To get material in his Vault, a player must use a Merchant
action and the material must come from his Stockpile – so a player needs to
decide whether to use a material card in his Stockpile as part of a building or
to add directly to his Victory Point total in his Vault.
This is a medium weight, strategic card game with a light
theme, one with plenty of replay value because of the variety of buildings and
their special abilities available for construction. It offers replay value
because although there are only two ways of achieving victory – constructing
buildings and squirreling away material in a player’s Vault – there are
multiple means to support those two ways, and those means are the special
abilities granted by each building. It can be played in in an hour and it fits
neatly in a surprisingly small box given the number of components in the game.
Physically, Glory to Rome is well done. The Player Camps and
the Rome Demands mats are done in sturdy card. The cards are neatly designed
and attractive. The previous edition had cartoon-style illustrations, but the
updated “Black Box” edition opts for an elegant art style that echoes that of
the classic board game, Civilisation. One issue with the cards is that they do
get a lot of handling, so my advice would be to sleeve all of them.
As enjoyable as Glory to Rome is, it is far from perfect.
Physically, the cards are not quite sturdy enough for the degree of handling
that the game calls for – thus the suggestion above to sleeve them. A primary
issue is with the rules which are underwritten and thus not easy to learn or
comprehend. This has an effect on the teaching of the game because the multiple
uses that the Order cards is not easily nor necessarily immediately grasped. Nor
is this helped by the numerous special abilities that the buildings on the
Order cards grant – reading them slows the game play down and understanding how
a special ability works with the game’s mechanics is one further to learning
the game. Thus learning to play Glory to Rome is a challenge in itself, but once
grasped, the game just motors along. Experienced board game players will have
less of a problem, especially if they have played games such as Puerto Rico,
San Juan, or Race for the Galaxy.
Once mastered, Glory to Rome is an enjoyable game to play. The
game play is simpler than it first looks and it offers plenty of replay value
as the number of buildings to construct means that no two games will be alike. Indeed,
I enjoyed it so much that after my first play I purchased a copy for myself.
