First game of Antike
Today, we also brought Antike to the table. It's been a long time since I had bought it from Essen. In the meantime, both Mikko and Chris had given their opinions on the game and I was ancious to try it myself. So we made it part of the Christmas gaming sessions. Since two fellow players had to leave "early" (at 11 p.m.) we started a three player game. Raven played the Romans, Shelak the Greek and I was in charge of the Germans (God forbid!).
The short summary: I love Antike.
It is a really really good game, although it probably works better with four or more players. In our session, the endgame became a rather long military battle for the last remaining victory points.
But first things first. The rules were explained relatively quickly, since we postponed the explanation of the combat rules until after the first few turns. This allowed us to get a feel for the regular mechanisms of producing resources and using them to develop our civilization (i.e. temples, military units and civilizing progress). After we had expanded a little bit, we then took a deeper look at the combat rules.
It was interesting how each player went for a slightly different strategy. The Romans quickly build a little fleet that was used to claim important cities at the doorsteps of their neighbours. This worked quite well, as the Romans then earned plenty of resources and put even more ships onto the board. Very nasty, very nasty. I think the Romans where ahead of everyone else all the time (except for one or two turns perhaps) and apparently the nations in the middle are said to have a certain advantage.
The Greek tried a mixed strategy of using both ships to cover the Mediterranean and infantry to hold off the German troops in Asia. The Germans went for a Marble strategy as they tried to build more and more temples. I was hoping to gain a strategic long-term advantage but interestingly Antike is not too long-term.
All nations had access to the eastern Italian coast and secured this line with temples quickly. The Romans eventually captured one German city and also got hold of the yet unclaimed Paris. As a trade-off the Germans took an unoccupied stronghold in mainland Spain, that the Romans could not reach. The Greek and the Romans also fought in Alexandria with a happier ending for the Romans, I guess.
The game was very, very close. The Romans and Germans were a little bit ahead of the Greek. In the endgame the Greek attacked German temples to gain more ancient personalities and went even. I think we all had 10 or so points when the bigger battles started. The Romans were attacking the German north coast with ships and brought fresh infantry units in from their capital. In a long long battle, the German troops lost and the last temple went to the Romans. Shelak, as the Greek player would have won on the next turn as I could not defend on two fronts.
A very thrilling and close game that was a lot of fun! I am really looking forward to the next game...
Note: After this session, I noticed that Eggertspiele had already published an addendum to the German rules which is supposed to correct the "long three-player endgame"-problem. For beginners, they recommend to restrict play to ten instead of twelve victory points to avoid this longer endgame. I guess this would have worked perfectly for our session as well!