Petr Divis
Australia
West Hobart
Tasmania
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I’m hoping that forum members may have some useful advice to offer in light of my experiences with Mare Nostrum to date. Over the last couple of years I’ve played 5 games, all with the Mythology Expansion. All of my fellow players are excellent gamers, but seem to focus on consolidating their empires rather than employing military moves. And it works! As a result, there is a whole element of MN that doesn’t get explored in our games.
I’ll use our game from a few days ago to illustrate this. We played a 5 player game with neutral Babylon and 4 heroes/wonders or a 12-card Pyramids build required to win. I played Greece, Atlantis was a first time MN player (who is, nevertheless, an experienced player of war/strategy games), and Egypt, Carthage and Rome had all previously played 3 or 4 games of MN. Since I am usually the only aggressive player, I decided to change strategy this time: I would play their game of keeping to myself in the hope that I could get an early lead and force some of them into military action against me.
The first turn was unsurprising: a trade of 3 initiated by Carthage (Director of Commerce), followed by all powers exclusively constructing buildings to increase their production capacity. In turn 2, Carthage called a trade of 9 "just to see what would happen". The end result, oddly, was that I was the only player to realise a set of 9 cards. I built my second wonder/hero and was now in the leading position I’d hoped for. Would my rival players target me?
Well...not directly. There followed a succession of rounds in which Carthage called very high trades; always at least 7, and I think even 11 at one point. During trade I became "least favoured", usually only getting in on the action towards the end. The net result of this was that I was unable to get another set of 9, while Egypt built a second hero (Imhotep) and Carthage and Atlantis each built two more, putting them both in the lead with three each. Rome didn’t build any - even when she had a set of 9 during one turn - and seemed to be playing a strategy to simply increase her influence and production capacity; I realised she was going for a Pyramids win.
At the start of the final turn Rome took over the Director of Commerce role from Carthage. I pointed out to everyone that Egypt would produce 8 taxes this turn and had retained 2 from the previous turn. With Cleopatra and Imhotep, he would build the Pyramids unless enough tax was wrested away from him. I also pointed out that Carthage and Atlantis both had lots of resource production (Atlantis was additionally going to get 3 extra commodities from his purchase of Hermes the previous turn) and both would be a in a strong position to build their fourth wonder or hero. In my case, I had 2 tax retained from the previous round and production of 6 more. My only chance of victory was to pick up 4 more taxes in trade so I could build the Pyramids.
Rome chose a trade of 9. I guess her only option to win was to get a set of 12 commodities, so she went with that. The high trade denied Egypt the taxes he needed to win. On the other hand, I picked up the 4 extra taxes I required, and Carthage and Atlantis both got sets of 12 commodities. Rome fell one short of her goal, only mustering 11 different commodities. Since Egypt was unable to win but was still Political Leader, he became King-Maker. In those circumstances we agreed it was fairest to award a joint win to Carthage, Atlantis and Greece, as we all could have built the Pyramids that turn.
This brings up some problems. While happy to be a winner, it’s somewhat less satisfactory in a non-cooperative game to have 3 out of the 5 players win, and only a minority fail to share victory.
Worse, there was not a single instance of combat in the entire game! The only military builds were a few fortresses, an extra legion for Carthage (which later became a Circe-powered caravan), an extra trireme for Greece (spare change of 2 commodities I’d had) and a phoenix for Egypt (essentially for lack of anything else to build during one turn). In the penultimate turn the Phoenix entered an undefended Carthage province and sat on a caravan, but that was just on a whim; it didn’t help Egypt, and hardly dented Carthage’s resource production at that point.
Unfortunately, the game demonstrated that military action was unnecessary. This is disappointing, since it means that a whole section of the rules became irrelevant, as well as many God/hero powers. Why would you choose to waste your resources on military units when they don’t advance you towards victory? All of the powers were able to build up sufficient resource production without having to encroach on each other’s territory (I only acquired one new province) or fight for the building supply. It was then just a matter of getting the right trade outcomes.
So...does anyone have any useful observations or suggestions for how the military aspect of the game could become more relevant?
Next time I’ll suggest playing to 5 heroes/wonders or a 13-card Pyramids win, but even with those conditions it would just have delayed victory for Carthage and Atlantis (and possibly me) by one turn without requiring them to abandon their pacifist strategy.
We could, of course, change the rules (eg further limit the building supply, or require that you convert at least one province of a rival before you can claim victory). But this seems like an acknowledgement that there’s something broken in the game, which I’m loathe to do.
I could find a different set of players who are more inclined to use military tactics. But that would simply mean I’m taking advantage of players who haven’t yet experienced how effective a pacifist strategy can be.
In essence, I don’t want people to be artificially forced into a military strategy, or adopt one because they don’t know any better. I want there to be a good reason to build military units and to use the combat mechanics in the game.
Help!
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Jason Reid
United States
New York
New York
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Mare Nostrum is more of a race than a wargame. If nobody ever tries to slow anybody else down militarily, the race will eventually be won economically. It's true...military isn't strictly necessary.
However, if someone does attack me, the wrong thing for me to do is engage them in a war. Once he strikes, he's slowed me down in the race. That's unfortunate, but on the plus side by spending efforts to slow me down, he's also slowed himself down! I could launch a massive counter-attack against the dog, but all I'll basically be assuring myself of is that neither of us is going to win. No that won't do.
Doing nothing won't do, either, b/c like it or not, he has slowed me down. If I stay stoic, I'm not going to win.
No, no. What I need to do is slow someone else down, and hope that a ripple effect of war cascades throughout the Mediterranean. Once someone attacks me, it's my only hope for victory.
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Petr Divis
Australia
West Hobart
Tasmania
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Good points, and thanks for your early response.
Unfortunately, there still doesn't appear to be much incentive to initiate military action in the first place, particularly if by doing so I'm going to be slowing my own progress.
And if there's more than one leader - for example, Carthage and Atlantis from my recent game - I either have to divide my forces between them or convince another power to share the attack with me. Not easy if no-one else has been bothering to build up a military force.
To have the miltary forces necessary to have an impact, you really need to establish them before the problem arises - the game accelerates so quickly that there's little time to react. But if you do that early in anticipation of a problem, you're putting yourself towards the back of the pack in the race towards victory...
Would conflict be more likely in a 6 player game? Or a 5 player game with a neutral Atlantis rather than Babylon?
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Mike Forrey
United States
Yoe
Pennsylvania
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Your game is actually pretty typical for Mare Nostrum in my experience. We have played numerous games trying various strategies and even all out war and still it is the person who fights the least that almost always comes out on top. Take the game for what it is. It's just a race of resource management.
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Jason Reid
United States
New York
New York
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FarSouth wrote: Would conflict be more likely in a 6 player game?
Yes, b/c resources in the game are finite. Also, despite your experience in the last game, building to 5 heroes / 13 pyramids should make conflict more likely (or at least shared victories less likely).
One variant I've seen posted and tried is to have the pyramids count as 2 wonders for purposes of the race, rather than an instant win condition. This has also encouraged a little bit more separation between players' positions, at least for my group of beginners.
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Dan Rivera
United States
Fountain
Colorado
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Without the maximum number of players Mara Nostrum almost always plays out how you described. The board is laid out so that every civ has access to most but not all of the resources they need to win. Usually there are 2 resources that each civ needs that are in another Civs area. This is were the conquest aspect comes in and it forces the civs to fight for those last resoure or two. With a nuetral player this conflict doesnt arise and then Mara Nostrum becomes a race game.
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John Clark
Australia
Canberra
ACT
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FarSouth wrote:
In turn 2, Carthage called a trade of 9 "just to see what would happen".
There followed a succession of rounds in which Carthage called very high trades; always at least 7, and I think even 11 at one point.
At the start of the final turn ... Rome chose a trade of 9.
OK, here is your problem. Yesterday I played a 5-player game where Carthage often chose a trade of zero. We had a LOT of combat and a lot of military tension.
If there are big trades then the honders will come out very fast. But this is a silly strategy for Carthage, for two reasons:
1. Big trades are very likely to result in someone building the pyramids with tax. That player is unlikely to be Carthage - its most likely to be Egypt or Greece.
2. Carthage has the second best myth unit in the game (behind the Greek Centaur) and the best legions. Therefore, with a military advantage over the other players Carthage should trade small numbers and use that advantage.
I know that it fun to trade a ton of cards, but it really introduces a lot of randomness into the game, mostly to the disadvantage of Carthage.
Here is how Carthage should approach the game.
Initially expand to produce the close resources:
Slaves
Gold
Perfume
Fruit
Fish
Win battles against Egypt and Rome (on the island) for three more resources:
Metal
Papyrus
Gems
Now with eight resources, trade ONE resource and grab the ninth resource for the honder. If you are not being attacked, then simply grab Temple of Artemis so you can always get the ninth resource, or Imhotep so you don't need it. Then just trade zero and build a honder every turn. If you are being attacked, then grab Helen of Troy or Statue of Zeus (good defence against Centaur). ALWAYS hold Poseidon if you can to stop the trireme attacks from Greece and Rome.
Of course, it often does not work out like that but that's a solid base strategy for Carthage, which should never involve trading lots of cards.
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