Mare Nostrum -What they never told you in History Class

jopm

In Mare Nostrum you are one of up to 6 Ancient Civilizations attempting to become preeminent in the world by either building great wonders and attracting great heroes to your civilization or alternatively by building the Pyramids. Each of the Civilizations has advantages/disadvantages whether they are totally balanced is hard to say but they seem to work reasonably well. Rome for example gets cheaper legions whereas Egypt is a tax collecting machine.

The two main currencies in the game are resources and taxes. You start off with control of 3 territories and 45 resources to build your initial empire. You can build cities where sites are available and place caravans on resource sites .Cities give you taxes and caravans give you the resources they are placed on. Temples and markets can also be bought which double the values of cities and resources respectively. You may also buy armies and triremes plus a specific mythological creature associated with your Civilization. You also have a specific hero which only you can acquire.

Just a quick point about currencies. There are 13 resources in the game some of which are very rare. In order to buy anything with resources you must pay with 1 of each type –for example to build a legion costs 3 resources they must all be different. To recruit a hero /build a wonder you must have 9 different resources and for the pyramids you need all 13! Not only that but you must use all you resources on the turn you earn them otherwise they are lost. Taxes are also currency and for example you can use 3 taxes to build the legion or 13 for the Pyramids.

There are four “roles” in the game Director of Commerce, High Priest, Political Leader and Military Leader. These are allocated at the start of each turn eg the Civilization with the most military units get the military role. Control of these can be vital as whoever has the role determines the order in which Civilizations act in that particular phase of the turn.

The turn has four phases. The first is the commerce phase where each Civilization collects their resources for the turn. There is also a trade element to this phase where the Director of Commerce determines how many resources each player must put up for auction –this is one of the main ways of getting resources you do not produce yourself.

The second phase is Offerings to the Gods where each player has the opportunity to pay to use the power of one of the 8 gods in the game. Some of these powers include destroying buildings or helping you in battles.

In the third phase Civilizations trade in resources and taxes to build and ultimately this is the phase where the game is won as on their turn a Civilization gets their 5th hero/wonder or has the 13 resources to build the Pyramids. Each Hero/Wonder also have a special power which you can use when acquired

The fourth phase is movement and military actions. Here again being the military leader for the turn allows you to determine the sequence of events in this phase.

These 4 phases are repeated until there is a winner.

History Confounded

Last night was a six player game featuring;

Dean (Rome)
Kieron(Greece)
Trevor(Babylon)
Edgar(Egypt)
Andy(Carthage)
Jimmy(Atlantis)

Early negotiations saw a couple of non aggression pacts being agreed Rome with Greece and Cartage with Atlantis. Babylon and Egypt basically ignored each other. A very early aggressive play was made by Rome when they saw that a very resource rich area (which included gold a very rare resource) had been left unguarded by Carthage. This had quite a fundamental long term impact on Carthage even though they did eventually recover the resources late in the game. Egypt sat quietly in the corner churning out taxes and building defences to deter would be aggressors. Atlantis made an early play to control the flow of commerce and they kept that control for the entire game. Greece initially built up its navy forces and made threatening noises at Egypt which at least early on was a smoke screen as they quietly went about acquiring plenty of resources of their own. Babylon got off to a relatively slow start and with Carthage in trouble this allowed Egypt to proceed unhindered to generate large tax revenues and rapidly acquire heroes and wonders.

During the mid game Egypt continued to lead the race for heroes and wonders with their strong tax revenue base. Rome with their conquered lands were also generating strong resources and with cheap military costs they were both acquiring heroes and legions. Greece was also profiting from the non aggression pact and had taken advantage of non aggressive Babylon and Egypt to also be in a strong position. Atlantis was generating large no of resources but was significantly behind in heroes and wonders as most of the resources were used to acquire additional military units to keep a buffer between themselves and Rome. Babylon was also lagging behind but was now beginning to expand particularly as they now had their mythological beast Pegasus in play which gave them considerable additional mobility. Poor Cartage was still resource starved but was slowly building an army to try and regain their lost territory. As the game moved towards the latter stages both Rome and Greece came close to acquiring the necessary resources to build the Pyramids but both fell short.

At this point the action got even hotter. Greece finally decided to act against Egypt and had some success which stalled the Egyptian tax machine. Carthage retook their territory from Rome in bloody fighting and Atlantis destroyed the Roman navy with the use of the Kraken. On this basis Rome looked towards Greece to acquire replacement resources. This incensed Greece who saw it as a total betrayal of trust and attacked Roman units as a matter of honour causing major casualties on both sides. Babylon in the meantime was also moving towards Egyptian territories. Atlantis saw an opportunity to acquire the resources recently recaptured by Carthage but the attack ended in stalemate.

The battle between Rome and Greece allowed Atlantis to become Military Leader as well as Director of Commerce a very powerful combination. Making a final push for victory Atlantis invoked the use of the God Isis and also using the special power of the Temple of Artemis Wonder gained two of the very rare resources. This left four to be acquired in the trade. As these were not rare resources the hope was that they would come up for trade so using the Director of Commerce power each player was required to present 6 goods for trade. As luck would have it the resources were put up for trade and Atlantis was able to trade for the resources though it was a close run thing.

Thus it was that Atlantis not Egypt who built the Pyramids. Sadly this knowledge was lost/conveniently forgotten when Atlantis disappeared beneath the sea.


As they say never believe what the history books tell you!

Please note the game referred to above includes The Mythology Expansion.

South Dublin BoardGamers can be found here;
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/SouthDublinBoardgamers/post

Paddy Samurai

Damn you! jopm..................now there's another game on my wish list.:D

Heading for fifty,running out of room...........:D:o:):cool::(:eek:

jopm

The bad news is it really only works well with The Mythology Expansion so 1 more for your collection.:P:).

Jim

TrickyWarlord

Nice write-up!

jopm

Many Thanks:)

Paddy Samurai

Looks like I will finally be able to get myself a copy.:D
They are also updating the rules with a couple of new ways to win.Not sure about the legion pieces ,but I do like the look of the board and cardboard pieces.