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David Marie
United States
Cleveland
Tennessee
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Glory to Rome
Intro:
Glory to Rome takes place after the great fire of 64 AD that spread through the city of Rome and burned for five and a half days. You play a young Patrician who views the tragedy as an opportunity to help mold a new Rome. So when Nero seeks those who would help in the rebuilding efforts you eagerly volunteer your services.
Components:
This is a card game and that’s exactly what you get here, cards. One hundred and eighty seven cards to be more precise. The cards in Glory to Rome are some of the brightest colored cards you’ll ever see. You’ll recognize card types in seconds which is important when you need to access the available cards on the table. The decks of cards are tightly packed in some cool tuck boxes. While these boxes are nice they most certainly do not have enough room for sleeved cards.
There are a few different card types in the game.
144 Order cards- The main card type. They can all be used in four different ways.
1. They can be built as a structure
2. They can be used to play a role
3. They can represent a material
4. They can be cashed in for victory points.
36 Site cards- These are what you place behind cards that you decide to build.
6 Jacks- These are wild cards which can be played as any order in lead or follow situations. They are kept separate from other cards. You may not use these as materials or clients.
1 Leader card- Whoever holds this card shall lead all others for one turn or think.
You get five player camps which are player reference cards explaining all the actions of the six different orders while also acting as a place to tuck the multi use order cards (showing only a portion of the card). There is another big red card that says “Rome demands” on it and you use that exclusively for the “Legionary” action. Depending on the version you have you may get some extra chips or cards (or both) to mark the merchant bonuses counted at the end of a game.
Quick points:
- GtR comes in a plastic clamshell
- 144 cards are hard to shuffle
- Easy on the wallet
Set up:
Everyone gets one of those handy player camp mats and places it in front of them. You stack the site cards face down in six piles according to their type and only expose (flip) as many as you have players. The cards not exposed (flipped) are considered out of town and cost more to build ((2) two craftsman or (2) two architect actions instead of one). Shuffle the order cards and deal out (4) four cards to each player then stack the rest within easy reach of everyone. Then you deal out order cards to form a player pool. This takes the place of what would normally be a discard pile in most games. You deal one order card in front every person playing and alphabetically choose who is going to lead first depending on the card name in front of them. Finally every player gets a jack and the game begins.
Quick points:
- Get a camp
- Set your sites
- Shuffle and deal cards
- Pool it up
- Grab a jack
Game play:
To really understand how to play Glory to Rome you must first learn how to read and process the different roles of the order cards so I’ll start with how those work. Order cards come in six different types (roles).
- Architect
- Craftsman
- Laborer
- Legionary
- Merchant
- Patron
1. The architect and craftsman help you build structures.
2. The laborer helps you acquire materials for those structures.
3. The legionary helps you steal materials from other players and the pool.
4. The merchant helps you store victory points
5. The patron helps you hire clientele.
Turns will usually start with two options. If you’re the leader those options are lead or think (think is always drawing a card or cards). If you lead then you look at the cards in your hand and choose one whose role you would like to use for that turn and place it on your player camp. All other players must then decide if they want to think or follow. Following is playing a card with the same role as the leader by laying it on your player camp. For example if you decide to lead and play a laborer all other players must either think (draw a card) or
follow by playing a laborer as well.
When you play a role you get to take the action of that particular role. Let’s say you’re the leader and you choose to play the “patron” role. You would take a purple card with the “patron” role printed on the left side of the card and place it on your player mat. If you are leading you wait until all other players have announced their intention to follow or think. Once everyone has declared their roles you take the role’s action. In this case the “patron” action lets you hire a client, so you would take a card from the player pool and tuck it under your player camp so only the left side (the side with the cards role) is showing. That cards role is now your client and you can take that role’s action anytime you or someone else plays that role even if you don’t have that particular role in hand on someone else’s turn.
That is just an example of how one role works. The rules are excellent in GtR and the player camps tell you exactly how each role works so I won’t waste your time covering every rule.
Quick points:
- Leader – lead or think ( draw cards or take one jack)
- (1) role = (1) role action
- (1) role + (x) clients of same type= (1) role action + (x) number of role actions
- Non-leaders – follow or think ( draw cards or take one jack)
- (1) role = (1) role action
- (1) role + (x) clients of same type = (1) role action + (x) number of role actions
- Think + (x) clients that match the leaders role = draw cards + (x) number of role actions
End of game:
You end the game by using all the site cards (in town/flipped), depleting the draw deck, some one builds the Catacomb, some one builds the Forum and has all six client types, or all players surrender to one player. Most of my games ended with the site cards being depleted but with 4 or more that draw pile can go pretty quickly. Then it’s just a matter of tallying your victory points.
Quick points:
- Games end in about 20-30 min (if that)
- How long was the fastest game you’ve ever played? (time or turns)
- “Cogito ergo sum”
Final thoughts:
When I read through the instructions I was blown away at how quickly I was able to process and play the game. The player camps are a great idea but after a few turns I rarely even needed to read them anymore, the game play is just that intuitive. Turns move quickly, so quickly in fact that games usually end before you want them to which is a sign of a good game. Always leave them wanting more right? The only time you’ll need to stop and think is when deciding what role to play (and what to build). After that it’s just a matter of completing the role’s action then it’s on to the next turn.
Glory to Rome is easy to learn but don’t let that make you think there is no strategy involved, far from it. There is in fact deep strategy involved in every player role you choose and every structure you decide to build. I’ve played a few other civilization or city building games with dozens of player actions and complicated iconography and Glory to Rome gives you the same depth at a fraction of the commitment needed to learn. It’s a fantastic game with fantastic rules. GtR is certainly in the ranks of my current go to games when casual company arrives (Dominion, Glory to Rome & 7 Wonders). I wouldn’t call it a casual game or filler though it is much more than that.
What’s the verdict? Glory to Rome is a superb city builder with an ocean of strategic depth and simple organic rules. Find a copy and buy it.
Website:http://thecardgamer.com
Geeklist:The Card Gamer's reviews
Twitter: http://twitter.com/thecardgamer
Email: thecardgamer2000@gmail.com
Video review:
http://youtu.be/_F1eDsQSIXc
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Andy Andersen
United States
Newark
Delaware
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I was kind of warned off by those who thought it was hard to learn, but got a copy anyway. I'm glad I did, this is a fantastic card game. Good review.
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J Wire
United States
Castle Rock
Colorado
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Excellent review. I introduced this game to my gf's parents, who are not gamers and by the end of the first game they were flying across their decisions (and winning).
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All we are is
United States
Lake Forest
Click to Select (if applicable)
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Great review! I too am a card (board) gamer, and you are hitting all the games in my collection. Keep up the good work!
You should review Summoner Wars when the Master Set comes out this summer 
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David Marie
United States
Cleveland
Tennessee
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dustinthewind wrote: Great review! I too am a card (board) gamer, and you are hitting all the games in my collection. Keep up the good work! You should review Summoner Wars when the Master Set comes out this summer
Hmm...sounds like a good idea. I definitely have Summoner Wars on my short list and it seems like a great time to do a review on it.
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David Marie
United States
Cleveland
Tennessee
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My video review is up.
http://boardgamegeek.com/video/7000/glory-to-rome/the-card-g...
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Posted Sat May 7, 2011 7:47 pm
