Attending to overview video games is an immense privilege that I’ve at all times cherished; nonetheless, attending to overview tried-and-true classics with the intention to carry a number of the greatest video games to new audiences is the head of authorship.
Concordia has been a revered recreation since its publication in 2013, and even with the recency bias of the interest and its fixed innovation, it nonetheless sits at an General Rank on BoardGameGeek of 26. Does this title nonetheless deserve this rating in 2025, or has its age began to point out?
Gameplay Overview:
In Concordia, gamers management a Roman dynasty aiming to solidify their foothold within the map’s given territories. Via using playing cards, gamers will full sure actions: transferring their colonists and setting up homes; producing items or amassing Sesterii (cash); putting new colonists or amassing Sesterii; promoting items for Sesterii; and so forth. All of those actions are achieved by using beginning playing cards that every participant receives. As the sport progresses, although, gamers will start to buy different playing cards for his or her deck.
These newly bought playing cards are the meat of Concordia. Every card bought not solely has a very new motion related to it (or an improved motion primarily based in your beginning playing cards), but it surely additionally incorporates a brand new manner for the participant to achieve Victory Factors. As an illustration, if a participant purchases a card with the Saturnus tag on it, then that participant will obtain one Victory Level (on the finish of the sport) for every province containing certainly one of their homes.
The sport is a mix of motion effectivity and correct card drafting. As the sport progresses, the final path you must take to attain factors turns into clearer and clearer, and but to realize victory, you might have to buy some playing cards with Victory Level situations that don’t rating you as many factors as others. Plan properly, be environment friendly, and punctiliously navigate the map’s area to win at Concordia.
Recreation Expertise:
In my view, even in in the present day’s crowded Euro panorama, Concordia stands on a pedestal of excellence all by itself. It rivals the very best titles within the Euro area, surpassing even the likes of Ark Nova, Dune: Imperium, Terraforming Mars, and Nice Western Path. Its simplicity and intricacy of design parallel the likes of the very best Reiner Knizia titles, and the tightness of its effectivity makes Terra Mystica seem to be a free design. On prime of all of that, its freshness and selection on every play is unparalleled in a recreation this rules-light.
Let’s begin by discussing the simplicity of the foundations. Every card gamers have of their beginning deck and that they draft later within the recreation has the motion written out in plain English. Sure, the Mercator card merely says “Mercator” on the prime, however as an alternative of filling the cardboard with generic service provider artwork, the cardboard as an alternative spells out what the motion does, making reference sheets utterly unneeded. Even the scoring situations of the playing cards are accompanied by a reminder image. At worst, these symbols have to be seemed up as soon as a recreation, and at greatest, they’re intuitive sufficient for seasoned players to internalize on their first play.
Subsequent, the tightness and intricacy of design. As I alluded to within the guidelines overview, this recreation teeters between two conflicting concepts: buying playing cards that improve the facility and worth of your actions, and buying playing cards that gives you probably the most factors on the finish of the sport. Once more, wanting on the Mercator card, scoring two factors for every home you have got on a given useful resource sort doesn’t instantly tie itself to buying and selling items. However, as a result of every card performs into each other so properly, and every scoring alternative requires (practically) each motion with the intention to be best, these design philosophies that appear conflicting with each other aren’t at odds in any respect: the truth is, they reinforce one another, simply not in a black-and-white manner.
Lastly, the variability offered within the recreation. Upon set-up, every metropolis on the board shall be given a semi-random useful resource. As well as, the purchasable playing cards are additionally shuffled in a semi-random manner. The semi-randomness right here is vital: it prevents game-breaking playing cards from popping out too early, and it prevents sure areas on the board from being “locked out of”, thus stopping a chokehold on a specific useful resource. Whereas this may occasionally not seem to be a ton of randomness at setup, these few tweaks maintain every recreation feeling recent in methods few different video games can seize.
My greatest frustration with the sport is the proposed first participant expertise. All the scoring of Concordia occurs on the finish of the sport; nonetheless, the foundations counsel that when new gamers are on the desk, after a sure variety of turns, an intermediate, short-term scoring part occurs so gamers can gauge how they’re doing. This technique is flawed in some ways: it slows the sport down; it offers gamers an inaccurate chief to aim to bash; and it can provide gamers a false sense of confidence or failure of their present trajectory and/or the efficacy of specific scoring situations.
Closing Ideas:
Concordia deserves to be on the Mount Rushmore of board gaming. It’s a nice entry-level recreation, and an exceptional recreation at high-level play. Its guidelines are easy, and its strategic depth is unmatched at this degree of guidelines complexity. When you’ve got by no means tried Concordia, you must give it an opportunity. It might not have the flashiest artwork or deluxified parts, however you’ll by no means discover a recreation with this a lot magnificence in its design.
Closing Rating: 5 Stars – Mediterranean Beige Buying and selling at its very best.
Hits:
• Easy guidelines, intricate design
• Extremely variable set-up
• Low luck, excessive talent
Misses:
• Artwork is subjectively boring
• First recreation weird scoring situation
• Why a scoring monitor?
