This is a four player game where each player represents one
of the families. The game is comprised
of four phases and each phase is completed by each player starting with the
Host and going clockwise around the table.
They all then move to the next phase.
Phase 1: Upkeep – Player collect gold from slaves and pay
gold for gladiators in an attempt to balance their books. Extra gold is kept and owed gold is paid to
the bank. If unable to pay for
gladiators, you must discard them until you are no longer negative.
Phase 2: Intrigue – Players draw three cards. Card hands cannot exceed six. They then play schemes using their Influence
score and can ask another player for assistance by combining influence to play
the scheme.
Phase 3: The Market – Four market cards are flipped one at a
time and the players have a silent auction to determine who buys the card. All ties are resolved by additional auctions
adding to the original amount from previous ties.
They can also barter for slaves, gladiators, guard cards, equipment
and other items before the market itself opens.
At the end of the market phase, the title of host is
auctioned.
Phase 4: The Arena – The host gets to choose a house to
compete in the arena. That house may
choose to enter a gladiator of their choosing or loose an influence and not
enter. The host then continues choosing
houses until two gladiators are chosen.
Once chosen, the gladiators and any items they are using are
set on the board and players place bets with a 1:1 return on either gladiator
or 2:1 on an injury or decapitation.
Battle dice are determined by attributes on the cards for
Attack, Defense, and Speed. The number
of attack is the number of dice rolled in attack, Defense for defense, and
speed is the amount of hexagon spaces in the arena the gladiator can move.
The battles are Risk style with the top dice from each
player matched up to determine if the attacker wins or the defender keeps from
being hit. Then the second highest are
matched, and so on. If the attacker has
more dice than the defender, any unmatched dice must be a three or higher to
hit.
One wounds are counted, the defending player loses that many
dice of their choice from their dice pool, but can only get rid of their last
dice of one of the three types when all other dice are at one.
Once a player has zero dice of a type the battle is over with
the following results.
2 dice types remaining – The gladiator yields and loses the
match.
1 dice type remaining – The gladiator is injured and gets
and Injury token. During upkeep, the
player rolls a die and on a 4-6 the gladiator is healed, 2-3 is still injured,
and 1 is dies.
If the gladiator loses all dice of each type, they are decapitated.
All bets won are paid out and the phase goes back to upkeep.
Bartering – Some bartering can be done at any time in the
game, but others must be done at specific times. When this occurs, players can try to make
deals with other players. The player
accepting the deal is bound by their acceptance, while it is the choice of the
original offerer of the trade whether or not to follow through with their
offer.
Also, as much or as little of their intentions or true
actions can be stated as they like. So,
they can in effect steal gold, slaves, gladiators, influence, etc. and give up
nothing for it. However, this will tend
to make you a target for that player as the game progresses.
End Phase – The first person to reach 12 influence wins the
game. This can occur in many ways
throughout the game. I assume that for
shorter games, players can agree on a smaller influence level to reach in order
to win.
Final Thoughts:
Spartacus: A Game of Blood and Treachery was a good game, but seemed
quite long for what it was. A quicker
way to gain influence or lower overall total to reach would seem to make sense
for me.
We played at least 2 ½ hours and the final tally came to:
House Glaber (Bob) – 8
House Solonius (Jeff) – 7
House Batiatus (Me) – 7
House Tullus (Jason) – 5
The game was fun with gladiator battles really starting to
heat up as we pulled some better ones from the Market and gave them some equipment. I had a starting gladiator pick up two early
wins, then “Goldilocks”, Mr. 5/5/2 dominated the middle section of the game,
and Spartacus actually won his only 2 matches towards the end.
I would probably play this one again, and with the right
group, a 4 hour game could be fun, but normally, I would think you would want
to lower the influence goal a bit.
Overall, though, still good fun.
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