Chris
United States
Marysville
Pennsylvania
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Originally posted on menwithdice.com. Used with forgiveness, since that was easier to get than permission.
Mare Nostrum is a beautifully epic strategic experience that has high potential to deliver a great time. When it delivers, the tension and glory is delicious. What prevents Mare Nostrum from cosmic levels of awesome is that it doesn’t produce those results on a consistent basis.
It should be noted that this review is from the perspective of someone who has played exclusively with the Mythology expansion to one degree or another.
I’m not going to assume you know everything about Mare Nostrum, nor am I going to regurgitate the entire rules document. Instead I’ll go over what you should know about what you can expect to do during a Mare Nostrum session.
Mare Nostrum is about of a bunch of ancient civilizations such as Rome and Babylon trying to be the most dominant empire in the Mediterranean neighborhood. Nations amass dudes that can kill other dudes, build ships that destroy other ships, and creatures that will eat other dudes. Meanwhile, the nations are developing their economy, by building markets to produce resources and planting cities that produces a tax revenue.
Ultimately, what brings a nation victory is buying heroes and/or wonders. A hero and a wonder are equivalent; they’re just called two different things for thematic reasons. A herowonder is a represented by a card and it grants you a special power. The standard rules are that whoever first purchases 4 heroes plus wonders wins. The other route to victory is to construct the pyramids, which is simply a wonder with a higher price tag.
In each round of Mare Nostrum, the first step is trading. Nations will collect all of the resources and taxes they are entitled to based on the buildings they own. Then these resources are traded. There’s one powerful role that grants a player the ability to pick a number, and all nations have to trade that number of resources. Trading follows a “Tag-you’re-it” sequence, with players selecting a resource from another player, and the selectee becomes the selector to pick another resource. The trading continues until there are no more legal trades available (which normally means all cards have been traded).
The trading system isn’t open ended like Catan. It only allows for minimal negotiation along the lines of “If you take from me I promise I’ll take something from you”. It is interesting, and makes hand management a complicated affair as you plan what resources you’ll end up with as you try to also keep an eye on what other players are collecting. It takes some thoughtful planning to determine which resources you won’t need, and prioritize which ones you will select as you trade.
So after everyone’s gotten their piles of riches and redistributed the wealth among each other, its time to spend yourself into oblivion in the construction phase. This is where the nations can build new military units, build new buildings that will increase their economy, and purchase heroes and wonders (remember, those are the things you need in order to win).
The construction phase is where some tough decisions are made, and can make or break a game. You need to erect buildings to grow your economy, but you need military units to defend them, but you need heroes and wonders to win the game. Striking the winning balance can be difficult.
At this point, if you’re playing the Mythology expansion, you can now make an offering to the gods, to get a once per turn bonus. While many others enjoy this expansion element, I found it to be a poor return on time invested. You have to go around the table one more time, everyone has to read and examine a small stack of god powers, all this just to make one extra decision. Personally, I found the extra time it took to make the god selection did not have a good enough payoff in interesting decisions, so my group usually skips this expansion element.
Now the fun begins, the military phase. Nations clash on land and sea. Simple combat involves each side rolling dice equal to the number of units. You then sum the total dice and divide by 5 (round down). The result is the number of opposing warriors you have successfully bludgeoned. For example if you have 3 dudes and roll a 3, 4, and a 5, the sum is 12, and your opponent has to lose 2 dudes.
I find the military component of this game very enjoyable. Combat is simple, and there’s just enough special units and different powers throughout the game to make it interesting. Ignoring military lets you ramp up your economy quickly but leaves you highly vulnerable to plundering. Heavily focusing on conquest can potentially leave you with a revenue problem, but you’ll have lots of potential to reap the benefits of buildings other players paid to construct.
Resolving combat is straight forward, but after you’ve entirely massacred your opponent’s units you are then faced with another interesting decision on how you wish to rape and pillage the plush territory you’re enemy worked so hard to develop. You can try to convert the territory into part of your empire. This option has the most benefits, but they are long term, and for a turn your opponent will still collect the resources produced there. You can try to occupy the buildings, which means your opponent still owns the territory, but you get an immediate economic boost. Or, you can sack and destroy one building, which only hurts your opponent, but gives you the warm feeling you only get when you’ve really screwed your fiends. I really enjoy how short term vs long term decisions is built into every battle.
One of my favorite aspects of Mare Nostrum is how turn order is decided. Turn order is always decided by you or your fellow players. Each phase has a corresponding title that gives that player the power to decide the player sequence. For a game about ancient empires, Mare Nostrum is very progressive, for obtaining these titles is not from heredity, nay, it is tied to achievement. These titles are gained by things like having the most military units, having the most cities plus temples, or having the most markets plus caravans.
And once you’ve earned one of these titles, the strategic implications of deciding the turn order is fascinating. To decide the turn order of construction gives you the power to either make sure you get first dibs on a finite supply of buildings shared by all players, OR, it can allow you to let your enemies go first, see what they construct, and allow you to respond in kind (or as I prefer, respond in malice). A particularly astute player will even notice the feuds and conflicts of nations far off, and devise a turn order that drives them into an expensive arms race.
To be able to decide the order in which players take their military actions is tons of fun for the same reason. To optimize the sequence so that two enemies hurt each other and then to walk in and steal the wealth of your opponents gives diabolical satisfaction.
Mare Nostrum scratches an often re-occurring itch I have: resource management combined with direct conflict. Mare Nostrum could be described as a resource management game. You need resources to build heroes and wonders, and you need heroes and wonders in order to win. In this game, the purpose of the military is to either increase your economy, defend your economy, or hurt your opponent’s economy. Attacking just for attacking sake, while fun and cathartic, will not produce successful results.
A part of Mare Nostrum that keeps it refreshing and interesting is the unique capabilities of each nation. First, each nation has a unique hero, which gives that nation its own flavor. On top of that, with the expansion, each nation has a mythological creature. The mythological critter is the most powerful military unit that has a special power unique to that nation. In addition, as each nation buys more heroes and wonders, they get further equipped with unique abilities. You start off with a unique nation, and you can further customize your set of special powers with the hero/wonders you buy. This lets you put together fun combos and make interesting strategic level decisions. Each nation is a different play experience and the way the nation's strengths and weaknesses interact is interesting.
With all these asymmetrical powers, is Mare Nostrum balanced? Mostly. The expansion fixes some balance issues. The game in a way is also self balancing. There are many opportunities for leader bashing, so the powerful nations tend to be targeted. In my 15 plays, there has been no trend observed for a nation winning a disproportionate amount of time.
All of these elements come together in a delicious blend of epic tension. The stakes are high, the decisions are tough, the thematic scope is large, the choices are interesting, and the payoff is exciting. All of this results in being emotionally invested in the outcome of the game, which creates a wonderful dose of tension injected directly into your blood stream.
It should also be noted that Mare Nostrum allows players to identify Greek city states. At every session, without fail, someone asks to identify the below city.
To which there is but one answer: THIS IS SPARTA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So after all that gushing, let me explain why I could never rate Mare Nostrum a 10. While many sessions I’ve had were everything I’ve ever wanted in a gaming session, Mare Nostrum’s weakness is that it does not produce those sessions every time. Mare Nostrum does need a perfect storm of the right elements in order to create epic tension.
First of all, you should consider the expansion mandatory. There is a broad consensus that the expansion fixes a lot of problems and really completes the game. The drawback is the higher threshold of rules and complexity for newbies, and a higher initial investment in cost, especially for a currently out of print game.
One of the essential elements of the expansion is that it lets you play up to 6 players. The base game says it can support 3-5. I would never even consider playing a session with 3 folks. 4 I probably won’t ever try again. 5 is good, but I’ll probably suggest playing something else. 6 is no doubt the sweetest spot, and where you’re most likely to get the awesome potential out of Mare Nostrum. With fewer players, you have less conflict, too much elbow room, and you don’t have the full gamut of 6 unique special powers of nations interacting.
The enjoyment of Mare Nostrum also drastically increases with experience, and playing the game with others who are likewise experienced. Without familiarity with all of the unique powers of each nation, their mythological creature, and the stack of hero/wonders, a lot of the interesting decision possibilities is going to be lost.
Another essential ingredient to have the perfect storm for a great Mare Nostrum session is to play the epic variant, again, something only possible with the expansion. The Epic variant is that Pyramids cost 13 instead of 12, and you need 5 heroes plus wonders instead of 4. I consider this mandatory, and the only way to play. Otherwise, you can bet the game will be over before it reaches the tense denouement. We had one session where all nations were mustering for war and all hell was about to break loose around the Mediterranean and then...someone bought the pyramids and ended it. Even the winner was disappointed we didn't get to see what happened. We’ve always played the epic variant ever since. The drawback to that alternate rule is that it will for sure increase the duration of the game.
A Mare Nostrum session, like a good story, has incrementally escalating levels of excitement and tension. As nations grow and expand, they start bumping into each other. As their economy grows, so does their ability to produce a significant attack force. As nations get hero/wonders, the stakes get higher. If you only play to 4 hero/wonders and 12 cost pyramids, the game is very likely to end before things can reach their full potential. Playing the epic variant will help ensure you get to the point were multiple nations are on the brink of war, and tension reaches its highest.
When Mare Nostrum delivers, it delivers big. The hard part is getting the right conditions to get the right results. But once you do, the payoff is worth it. For Mare Nostrum, depending on conditions, it can either be the best of times, or the mediocre of times. Once you get the ingredients in place, you’ll find yourself in the groove and enjoying the best of times each session.
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Anthony DuLac
United States
Minnesota
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Really nice review, great pics and analysis. Well done.
I ended up being very disappointed with the game overall, even with the expansion, as it's just over too quickly nearly all the time - just when combat and expansion gets intriguing it seems - and we felt that the Trading "Title" that someone can get is pretty much broken (it's been a while so I forget what I wrote in my review but feel free to check it out, there was some interesting discussion about it but none of it really changed my mind or convinced me that we were wrong in our thoughts about it).
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Betty Egan
Canada
Kingston
Ontario
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Very nice narrative. An easy read and gives a good idea of what to expect from the game. What I take from this is that it is a great game when played with six players with the epic variant. I hope to play this one sometime soon.
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