Welcome to the “Asmodee US” website. This company is part of the Asmodee Group
A review of Cyclades by Richard Martin.
You can see the complete review here: Boardgamegeek, A review of Cyclades by Richard Martin.
Sometime in April, I was loitering around on BGG trying to figure out what my next game would be. At that point (and even now), Chaos in the Old World was my favorite game, so I was looking for something along those lines. So in one of those searches, I stumbled upon Cyclades. There weren't that many reviews of the game and I couldn't get a good feel of the game play from what information there was. I did however, learn how to pronounce the name correctly
.Anyway,
there was something about that game that appealed to me. From what I
gathered, it was one of those "hybrid" games - with a mixture of
different mechanics and a solid theme - and that sounded great!!
Eventually, I took the plunge and bought it. Here is an overview of my
experience with the game so far, with some review comments added where
appropriate.
Components:
So after the game arrived, I began the sacred ritual of "unboxing" (oooooh). I thought the box looked really neat. It has some nice artwork and gives you a good idea of the theme of the game. First out of the box, was the rule book and summary sheet (more on that later). Then came the game boards. These look really nice. The board is double sided and modular, allowing you to have a different board depending on the number of players.
I then got to punch out a bunch (hey, that rhymes!!) of tokens. There are tokens to represent gold pieces, tokens for each of 5 different types of buildings (fortress, port, temple, unversity and metropolis), and tokens for 4 different gods which grant you various actions through out the game.
Next were the player screens. There is some really cool art on the backs of the screens, but the insides are very, very cramped. They tried to put down almost ALL of the rules of the game pictorially on these small screens and this resulted in them being totally unusable as reference sheets IMO.
Moving on, we have two decks of cards representing philosphers and priets. Nothing special here. They are just regular cards with the same picture on either side. There is another deck of cards to represent mythological creatures. Each card has a drawing of the creature along with a picture depicting their ability.
Finally, out came the miniatures. Each player color has a set of figures to represent their troops and fleets. The quality of these miniatures is about average I think, but the cool part is that the figures for every color are different from each other. So the yellow ships are different from the blue ships and the red soldiers are different from the black ones. There are also four figures to represent four mythological creatures that have slightly different abilities than the rest of the creatures.
So overall the components are of good quality and serve their purpose very well during the game. However, I will say this - apart from the board, the rest of the components are not as nice and shiny and exciting as some other games that I've seen (for example, Chaos in the Old World or Runewars etc).
Rulebook and Complexity:
OK, So I've got the box open and a rule book just waiting to be read. Later that evening, I got down to it. The rules of this game are relatively simple and I was pleasantly surprised to see that I understood almost all the rules with one simple read-through. We even played our first game without any mistakes (except for a couple of minor things). The rulebook also contains initial setup scenarios for each player (varies based on the number of players). The summary sheet has an overview of a game turn, the actions each god can provide and the abilities of each of the mythological creatures. Speaking of the creatures, this can be a little confusing at first, since the cards only have a pictorial representation of the ability and you have to refer to the summary sheet to read the details. When playing with new players, this sheet gets passed around a lot. If the reference screens had been done better, it would have made things a lot easier.
Gameplay and Theme:
Once I felt comfortable enough with the rules, I decided to try it out. My first game was a 2 player game with my girlfriend. We got it setup pretty quickly and I found the game easy to teach as well. In Cyclades, each player represetnts a different civilization, vying for territory in an ancient Greek archipelago called - you guessed it - Cyclades!! Throughout the game, you will try to expand your civilation by building different types of buildings and conquering other players' territory. This theme is present ALL through the game - from the components to the gameplay.
The objective is the game is to build two metropolises (a type of building) on islands that you control. The first player to do so at the end of a round wins.
You gain a metropolis in one of three ways.
- Any time you acquire at least one of each type of building (fortress, port, temple and university), you immediately exchange all four for a metropolis
- Any time you acquire four philosopher cards, you immediately exchange all four for a metropolis
- If you conquer an opponent’s island which contains a metropolis, you automatically gain that metropolis
So how do you play? The game is basically a series of rounds, with each round consisting of a set of actions. Without going into the details, here is an overview
In each round, you do the following
1. Reveal cards from the mythological creatures deck to show what creatures are available to purchase this round
2. Each player receives gold depending on the number of revenue-generating-spaces on the board he controls. The number and location of these spaces changes throughout the game.
3. The players collectively bid to win the favor of a certain god. The bidding phase is not a straightforward auction. Each time you get outbid, you immediately HAVE to move your bid to another god. If you outbid someone else in the process, they immediately move somewhere else. This goes on for a while until each player settles on different gods. Because of your limited income, sometimes, auction rounds can be pretty intense.
4. Perform the actions granted by your god in player order and summon mythological creatures, if desired.
5. If two players ever land on the same space on the board, a battle ensues, which is resolved by a relatively simple dice rolling mechanic.
There are 5 gods available. Each god grants you certain privileges
- Athena: acquire philosophers (no action) and build universities (no action)
- Zeus: manipulate the availability of creatures, acquire priests and build temples (reduces the cost of mythological creatures)
- Ares: manipulate troops and build fortresses (increases your defense in a land battle)
- Poseidon: manipulate fleets and build ports (increases your defense in a sea battle)
- Apollo: Does not allow any actions, but gives you free gold.
So what happened in our first game? Well, things were going pretty smoothly for both of us. We were building our troops and fleets, moving to empty spaces and gaining revenue and buildings. My girlfriend had built her first metropolis and was pretty pleased with the situation as it seemed like I was lagging far behind. At that point, I decided it was time to attack! So I gathered up my troops and moved to an island occupied by my girlfriend. A few lucky dice rolls later, I had wiped out more than 3/4th of her troops on the board AND captured her metropolis!! Boy, was she mad
!! She almost walked away from the game! I myself did not realize that I could do that much damage in one turn
.So that’s how I came to realize that this game is VERY confrontational. If you're going to be all gung-ho about getting your metropolises built, you better be well prepared with your defenses because sooner or later, someone WILL attack! Some people (myself included) really like this style of play, while others don't, so choose your players accordingly.
And by the way, we eventually did resume the game and what do you know, she ended up winning!!
Scalability:
Since then, I've had the opportunity to play it a number of times and with different numbers of players. The game supports 2 to 5 players and I found that it scales really well for all numbers in that range. The 2 player version is definitely more cut-throat since there is only one person to attack. With more players, you need to consistently keep an eye on the other players and keep track of how close they are to winning. Again, this is another aspect that some people really like and others don't.
A couple of session reports:
A couple of games I've played have really highlighted different features of the gameplay, which is why I feel that adding some brief sessions reports might help illustrate my opinions about the game.
Session I:
In one 5 player game, everyone was really close. All of the players except for one had built one metropolis and 3 people were on the verge of building their second. What followed was one of the most fun gaming experiences I've had recent memory.
It was what turned out to be the final round of the game. In the auction phase, each player had a good idea of what the other players needed to do to win the game. Because of this, everyone was trying to outbid each other. Finally, after a pretty intense auction phase we all seemed to have gotten the god of our choice, but we all paid a high price for it.
Player 1 (me) began the round first with Poseidon. I had my first metropolis and all buildings except for a university and figured I had an excellent chance of winning. I bought a second port with Poseidon and then summoned a creature which allowed me to exchange one building for another (other players failed to notice this creature come up). I exchanged my second port for a university and built my second metropolis. With that, I thought I won!
Player 2 started his turn next with Ares. At this point he did not have a single metropolis!! But he had some money left over. He built a fortress and acquired his first metropolis (he had the other buildings already). He then built a sizeable army, moved halfway across the board to my island, defeated me in an epic battle and captured his second metropolis!!
We all thought HE had now won the game. Player 3 had Athena and couldn’t do much.
Player 4 then came in with Zeus. He spent most of his previous turns collecting gold and stashed quite a bit. He paid some gold to manipulate the creatures track and summoned a Chimera - who has the ability to go through previously discarded creatures and use them. He performed this action and got the Pegasus. The pegasus is the only way to move your troops to any other island without using the powers of Ares. So he gathered a few troops and swooped down on to a weaker opponents island won the battle (and a second metropolis) and literally snatched victory from Player 2!!
Session II:Another session that I would like to mention here went quite the opposite way. There were 4 players and again things were going pretty well for everyone after the first few rounds. Each player was focusing on their own armies and buildings and auctions and battles were being performed with relatively less tension and interaction between us.
One player (my sneaky girlfriend again!!) kept avoiding battle, by going to apollo and was quite rich!! She was the last person to build her first metropolis, well after everyone else. Suddenly, out of nowhere, she grabs athena for a very low price, buys two philosophers in a single turn, builds her second metropolis and its all over!
Observations:
The first session shows that there are multiple paths to victory and even though it seems that someone might be leading, there are always ways to shake things up and turn the game around. In a single turn, the leader changed 3 times and the whole momentum shifted. This, in my opinion, is one of the best features of the game.
On the other hand, the session also showed how the randomness of drawing the creature cards affects the game. In this example, drawing the chimera and being able to use it with pegasus was pure luck and that enabled one player to win the game. Overall, I don't think this randomness causes any problems (in fact I like it!), but in some instances it makes the game too chaotic and I can see it turning some people off.
The second session shows that the game can sometimes be anti-climactic. You spend a bunch of rounds gathering your troops and fleets, battling opponents, building a metropolis and yet once in a while, the end of the game creeps up on you really quick and the game is over before you really got a chance to settle in.
Potential Improvements (In my opinion, of course):
If I were to add some elements to the game, they would be as follows
- Add some new gods to give players more variety. Each game could have a different set of gods available. Similarly new creatures can be added too, but I think new gods will add more value.
- Add some new 'goals' that could affect victory besides having 2 metropolises. That would help in situations where the game end comes up too quickly. Plus it would give players additional options during the game
Summary:
So to wrap things up, this is a game I really enjoy a lot. Sometimes (very rarely, but it does happen), the game doesn't quite come together, but I guess that is true of any game! Either way, I would almost always agree to play this game and in the end I am glad I purchased it!
Theme: Great theme, well incorporated into the components and gameplay (9/10)
Components: Good quality components, but I've seen better in other games. Reference sheets not very helpful (8/10)
Complexity of rules and rulebook: Easy to learn, play and teach. Rulebook is good too (9/10)
Gameplay: Fun and exciting most of the time. Once in a while, can feel too chaotic (9/10)
Interaction: Lots of player interaction (battles/auction). Players need to constantly be aware of the other players' strategies (9/10)
Overall rating: 9/10
- Home | News | Games| companies
- Contact | Legale Notice
> List of retailers- Copyright © 2009 Asmodee. Copyright © 2009 Asmodée. All rights reserved. Any form of copying is strictly prohibited.