Glory To Rome Board Game Review

Everyone today we got to play Glory to Rome. Now this is definitely a grill game for more than one person. Two people we already know that. So we were very fortunate to be able to find a copy that was created or reproduced. Well reproduced in a much nicer format. Right. So we were able to find that and we wanted to play the game and show you guys the awesomeness. But before we get started don't forget to hit the subscribe button and the notification bell because board games are amazing and you want to see grill games come across our table. See if they're actually worth it or not. Now Rob can you tell us a little bit more about Glory to Rome. So I'm not for sure the copy that we got here when he recreated. So these are only the stats for the original version of the black box version of the game. So this is Glory to Rome. Originally came out in 2005. The overall rank is 237. It's rated at 7.5. Designed by Ed Carter and Carl Chudik. Art by Ed Carter, Valerio Sioni, Clemens Franz, Felix Gerth. Published by Cambridge Games Factory. Way out of print. Good luck trying to find a copy. I found two on Board Game Geek. Long story on that too. If you're willing to pay for it there is one I think in Italy for 120 euro but I don't look like they'll ship it to the United States. And then 375 dollars for the United States copy of the black box version. So the reason this is so is out of print because 2005 isn't typically considered way out of print. But the company that made this, the two guys that designed it, now hate each other right. They're complete absolutely do not, won't work with one another. The last shipment of this when the Kickstarter finished it sat on a boat in the harbor. So one of the ways you can tell that if you got a original Glory to Rome is the box is water damaged. Because there was almost all the black box ones were water damaged from sitting on the boat so long. They finally made it out to the Kickstarter backers but after that basically things got worse. It's been trying to reprint twice. Montenay was one of the reprints and there was another one that was, it was an attempt to reprint it. Both times a lawsuit was involved. The game had to be substantially altered in order to release it. Acronia, that was the other one. Those two were both variants of this game but they're nowhere near this game. I think Montenay is the closest but it's a way simplified game. Yeah every time I've tried to find a copy they're always like well you can't get Glory to Rome, try Montenay instead. Yeah so it's the closest alternative but yeah. Don't give any spoilers away now. All the files and all the data to create these is now up on BoardGameGeek to self-print because people love this game so much that they allow it. It's out there to print for yourself and that's what has happened is we had a person, kudos to Jake thank you so much, who had taken the time and care to print this lovely version of it. 3D printed the box. Well he didn't, he purchased it. Right but I mean it's a 3D printed box, really cool logo that they had 3D printed on there. Yeah it's one of those things. It's really nice. So groupies to get together and maybe do a couple more. Magnetic lid. Yeah pretty awesome. All right so let's actually, we can't really talk about quality pieces because we do not have the original game. We can't talk about what's in the, if you were to find the black box edition of the game, that's not what you're going to get here. We can talk about what we got though. Right yeah so but even then it's not really comparative. Like they said that it was a magnetic box. This is actually, the first player marker actually comes out as well so that's actually really nifty. And then everything is linen. Everything is linen finish. It is super nice. So we were actually very fortunate to get a really upgraded version of this game. Yeah. I don't think it's fair to rate it because this is basically a work of art that someone was able to create. It's a work of love. Yeah it is a work of love. It's a work of love. It's a work of love. It's such a beloved game and it's so hard to get and which is unfortunate because more people should be able to play this game. It's that good. Yes. Spoiler! We'll talk about that. We'll find out. I really like the game. I agree as far as I don't think any of our scores should be relevant to the black box edition. Right. That said I'm going to go ahead and give this version a 9. Yeah. Because I love the card quality, the cards. The only thing I didn't like is this is supposed to be the Rome Demands card. It's supposed to be an oversized card. It's definitely not. It's a standard sized card. It didn't come with a rule book. It just was a printed copy and it's missing a few pages. But I mean you can print it yourself. That's what he did was he printed it off board. Yeah. So but yeah I mean apart from that this is just an excellent version of this game. It's just a card game. That's all it is. It's nothing but cards and just very basic art. All right so let's talk about theme. So theme this I think is probably the only category that this particular version is lacking because the art is very very basic. This does have to do with Rome and you have some Roman terminology but it's not strong or heavy I believe in that. Well this is the favored art of the game because it's been released in three different versions during the time that it was produced. This was the favorite version. There was a standard white box. There was the black box was the final version. There was one in between that was a cartoonish Roman art and no one liked that art style. This is the one that everybody wants. Not this plastic version that we've got here but the standard black box. Well I still think it's lame. So for me you know theme wise it's still not very strong. I'm going to give that five and a half there. I mean there's some there's some stuff going on but it's not all that great. I mean it's it's basic. I'll give you that. It's very basic art but I like the simplicity of it because the the use of the cards is it varies how you play the card what side you play it on. It has to be fairly basic to allow for that flexibility. I'm probably going to give the art of this probably because based on the overall theme I love Roman themed games. But it's really light. I mean come on this could have been anything. I mean yes no the cards could be anything but the actual function of the cards makes sense. No but Merchant doesn't have anything specifically with Rome. Architect doesn't have necessarily this is just you know you're building buildings this could be anything. The only thing that is actually thematic to that is the legion. Well there's a lot of card specifics that would be Roman like Insula you wouldn't see that in most non-Roman things. Yeah but it's very light. I'm going to give it a 6.5. I like the Roman theme. I like the simplicity of the art. I don't think it's you know stellar art but it's definitely I think what's appropriate for this kind of game. Right. I'm being transparent. This is a real game to me. I've wanted this game forever. So my opinion is biased. I'm a 7. Just because I wanted the game so bad. All right so now let's move on to the rulebook. So again we're you know we can't really I mean it is the original rulebook pre-printed on you know I'll tell you that the font of it is very small. I'm not a big fan of this the font. It's laid out about as well as you can get for this kind of game. This game is deceptively complex. It's not super complex. I'd say it's a medium level game but when you look at these basic cards and you get them out there's a lot of things you can do with those cards and that's what makes this game special. So the rulebook itself is pretty simple because it just basically tells you how to play a role and what those roles will do. But it's with the combinations that you can end up triggering with all that it makes this deceptively complex. And some of the cards you have to think about when you read all your flavor text and when everything not flavor text but what the card actually can trigger if you play it as a building. Yes. So you can get some unique combos and that's why everyone likes this game. Well it's one of the, if not the very first, one of the very first multi-use card games out there. And so that's where the complexity is. Do I do this or do I do this or do I do that? And they all have that functionality. So that's where the complexity comes in. So I'm going to rate the rulebook given the fact that it's a fairly complex rulebook and granted I don't have a good copy of it. It's just paper. I'm going to probably go ahead and give it a 7.5. I think it does a good job as it can with what this material is and conveying it. I just wish the font were bigger and obviously it's printed in crummy paper. I had a hard time following along with the rulebook but once we got into it and reading the cards it became pretty self-explanatory. I mean up front it tells you it's a complex game to pick up. Trying to learn it from the rulebook is difficult and it tells you some suggestions on how to best learn using the rulebook. So I can appreciate that. Yeah. Because yeah, once you get in it starts making sense really quick. It really did. So let's get into the actual gameplay. So everyone's gonna take five cards. Now there's two ways to play this depending on which version you have because there was the the Empyrean version you actually have four cards and a wild joker, the jack. But in this case we played with the standard version with five cards. All right so basically if I'm starting first player I'm gonna be what we call the leader. So I'm gonna end up leading. I'm So I'm gonna lay it out and so I'm gonna end up building, let's see, I'm going to finish building this. So I'm gonna take a card and actually slide it underneath. Now when you go to build a building this is kind of very relevant is when you initially play the building. So instead of trying to complete a building I would actually play a building. I would grab a foundation from this top row here. I place the building that I want to build. Those are actually sites. The card you're playing from your hand is the foundation. Okay so you place that there and then so that's one build action. So I have another crafter action so then I would end up putting this down. The same color material. Yes now the if you're playing the crafter it comes from your hand. Now here's the thing though. I have one crafter here but I also have a crafter in my clientele. Now we'll talk about that on different actions. So if that's the case I get to actually take that action again. So I will do that. Now it says foundation plus three materials. Now that I have three materials over there all right I'm going to remove the site. I'm gonna finish the building and I'm gonna put the coins underneath that influence. Okay influence restricts how many volts and how much clientele I can take. So that's very important that as you build that through that game kind of being aware because your volt is actually where most of your victory points will end up lying as well as your built buildings. All right so now I get to trigger that ability. Each of my clients may perform its action twice when you lead or follow from this role. So moving forward that makes it a little bit more powerful. It doesn't trigger immediately but in the future. Right so okay so I played the crafter. Are you going to follow? I am. I have a craftsman as well so I can play from my hand the craftsman and I then can build a foundation. So the foundation is from my hand as well. So I'm going to then play a castra where if I think at the end of a round which I lost at least a card from my hand to the legionary I get a free think action. So I'm going to play that there and I take a yellow foundation to go under because it's a yellow card and it's going to now be in play or in development for the future. I need in this case one yellow card to complete it but since I only have the green one action I don't have anything underneath my clientele. I can only put one card. It's down there that's how much you need to go. Yeah it's on each one of these sites. All right now are you going to follow? Although I have a green card which would allow me to follow I'm not going to because I'm looking for specific actions so that maybe I could do other things. So instead I can choose to draw one card. So there's a couple of things it's called the think action. I could either draw back up to my full hand size or I draw one card. Or you can draw the jack. Yeah so I'm drawing a card because I'm hoping to pull the card I really want. Well I mean if you're looking for an action taking the jack guarantees you you'll get an action because you can play it. The only thing is it only performs that function so you can only play it as an action whereas you know the other card has multiple functions. Yeah all right so then my turns ends. All of these get collected and they go to the middle pile here and then the leader goes to Randy and so we'll keep going around until the game's in. But before we do we're going to kind of go over a few more actions. So the yellow cards are the laborer. So if you were to play a laborer you are basically taking from the center pool taking material from the pool into your stockpile. So okay the only there's only one thing available to me they're both green so I'm going to put this under my stockpile if that was the case. Now if I played a legionary that's a little bit different. So I'm going to if you play that you're going to expose a color green. Now if you guys have greens pass them on. I do not so I have to yell out glory to Rome. All right but because he gave me one and there's one in the center I get one from the center one in here. Now when you do that it's only from your players from your left to your right. Now in this particular instance there's only three players so that's everybody. But normally when that happens it's only from your left to your right so just be aware of it. Okay now then I'm going to slide these back into my stockpile. Now the other thing that I can do is take a patron. So if I have enough slots in my clientele I can play a patron card go into the center pile. Okay there's nothing right now but there's some cards over here we'll just pretend. The patrons are the purple cards. Yeah so if I were to play this card I would end up looking through the deck and deciding okay you know what I want another architect I'm going to slide that under and that's going to be my clientele. Now again those are the cards that allow you if you play a similar card it increases your actions when you take that action. All right the next one is the architect. Now if I were to play the architect which is the gray building right here all right I can build a foundation like I normally would with something that's in my hand I play it out or I can actually take the resources from my stockpile to build the actual building instead of my hand. So it's a little bit different than craftsman but actually very very relevant because if you notice a lot of these cards are about getting stuff into your stockpile and so architect is very beneficial from getting them on to the board and being useful to you. Now the other thing that putting it in the stockpile you can use a merchant. So it's one of these blue cards here so if I were to be able to use this I could then take one card right and you want to get the highest level one right that's level three and you get put it in your vault. Now everything in your vault is upside down but like for example if I put this one it's worth three victory points at the end of the game. The vault is pretty much where most of your victory points will end up being but again it's very limited based on the current influence you have at the top of your board. And once it's in your vault you can't look at it again. Nobody's allowed to look at it you don't remember yeah if you don't remember you'll find out at the end of the game. Yeah I had a card to let me add cards to the vault from blind from the deck which was a double-edged sword because I might be putting a one pointer in right but I'm not wasting one of my cards from my stockpile to do it but you know I kept putting three pointers into my stockpile so I was like losing points if I used it so I didn't use it very often. And then just remember we were just playing cards for basically the color and the action. When you build these cards buildings they have a plethora of other actions. Almost every card. I mean just yeah there's so much. Well there's some things that bend the rules a little bit or um you know most of it's a little bit. There's two that end the game outright. Yeah I they cheated I almost won the game because they kept stealing cards that I needed out of the pool. Listen. But I have an instant win card and but they but they cheated so. No. Yeah that that's that's how I rationalize it so. Okay well you rationalize it that way. So that is the most of the concepts. Yeah very basic. Very basic. But that does cover the game a little bit. So overall so I have found that I really like the games and you said that this was the first game that did this to have. Well Rob said that. I don't know if it's 100% if it's the first. It's one of the earliest ways. That each card like depending on the side you play and I have found that I really enjoy games that are like that because it's like oh which way is the best way to use this card. So I can appreciate that portion of the gameplay especially if this is one of the first. Good thinking. All right. And then the other thing that I can appreciate is that you're kind of building on your own level. There's some player interaction but it's very minimal. The legendary action can really. Yeah it's kind of like a monologue in Catan where you're taking all the stuff from everybody else. In some cases it helped me because they got rid of stuff which let me draw my hand back up and I followed. But that's really the extent of the player interaction. Right. And so except for like the following and stuff like that. So I thought overall that that actually was a really good dynamic for me because I'm not a huge attack player. So this one actually fits really well for what I kind of like. It's not too brutal. I will say I think they did a fantastic job. I think this is a one of one of I think the most strategic guard card games I have ever played the strictly cards. Right. And so I think they did a very very good job. And I think there's a reason why it's a girl girl game for a lot of people. So with that I am probably going to give this. I'm probably going to give this a nine just because for what it is it's pretty top notch on gameplay. So straight up card game with strategy. I'm going to give this a nine. What about you guys. I'm a nine and a half one. Again my opinion is biased. I've been wanting this for a very long time and finally got to play it. So it just kind of it felt really good. But the reason why I'm so high excuse me so high is because it's very satisfying. Lots of card combos which I always like. And I would. And all the reason why it's not a 10 is because of the limited art and the light theme. If I had just a little bit more art a little bit more thing to it would be a 10 in my opinion. I like this game. What about you Randy. The art doesn't bother me. I like the art being as simplistic as it is. I honestly there's nothing about this game I don't like. It's an engine builder. You can build it many ways you want. You can score lots of different ways. I mean yes you're limited to how many points you score based on what you put into your vault. But you can expand the vault. You can and you can trigger combos. I had two cards that helped me get basically rush cards into my vault. My biggest problem was trying to get points you know the influence I needed to build my vault up so I could put them in faster. So I kept hitting walls and I was building buildings just to get enough influence. So I was burning the deck as quickly as possible so you guys didn't catch up and trying to get the game over while I was burying cards. And I had that engine going for quite a while in the game. I don't think you all picked up on it for most of the game. It was a sneaky kind of point thing. But you could have undone it at any point by playing that card that you've got to end the game with like you said. So there's counters to everything in this. I was there one card away. And then at the end you get awarded bonus points for having the most of categories of different colors in your vault. So there's bonuses that counteract some of that because some of the card suits are more valuable than others to get in your vault. So you know putting a lot of blues and purples in there is great. But if somebody else puts some yellows and greens and reds and grays in there they can counter those points with three point bonus cards at the end of the game and potentially still win the game too. So there's lots of varieties of ways that you can end up winning even though it's a very simplistic scoring system. And I appreciate that. I think this someone put a lot of thought into this game. I mean this is an incredible game. Yes. And again I feel bad for people who don't get to play this game. It's really the biggest shame is that this game is not more available and it doesn't look like it ever will be. And that's too bad. I mean it took us both years to track this down. And Jake I really appreciate you getting given up your copies. Yes. We have been really wanting this game. I'm giving it a 10 because of that because the history behind it the fact that everyone does love this game as much as they do. And there's a reason for it. There really is. It's it's an amazing game. And I didn't know how amazing it was. I never had to play. I just knew I love Roman themed games. We went on the cruise ship. I really wanted to hate this game. I didn't want to like it anyway because I knew it was almost impossible that I was ever going to get a copy. And you got lucky that year. Same year. So I go on the cruise ship. I played it and I came back. Darn I like that game a lot. And then I ended up managing at Gen Con to get it. My sister told me about it. So kudos Rhonda. Thanks Rhonda. You're always pointing out that if I don't call you out I'm calling you out now. Thank you for letting connecting me with Jake. And really thank you to Jake as well again because you know you did an amazing job printing this. You know getting this done. And then letting those two copies go. Yeah. Yeah. Well he and his friend pool all gathered together and got a bulk discount printing it because of that. Right. And you know he basically sold it at cost. You know he didn't like try to make a profit on this. So. So well anyway so we're awesome. I love it. Absolutely. Now if you want to play this and you want to come hang out with us we'll be more than happy to open up our homes. But until then come join us again on this channel. We'll catch you guys later. Bye.