Antiquity is anther resource management game from Splotter Spellen. It comes in the same size box as Roads & Boats, which is just as well as there are over 1500 pieces in the game. The pieces are well illustrated and are in keeping with the medieval feel of the game. Before breaking out the pieces, and getting on with the review, may I suggest that you get hold of some larger size grip-top bags. The game comes with 11 small bags, ideal for holding the produce and the explorer counters. When breaking out the rest, I put each set of buildings into their own bag, one set for each of the four players. This made playing the first game much easier to find the various pieces. The pollution chits and field hexes also went into bags. My set has 4 Famine tracks, only one is needed to play. The player aid sheet, although large, is well designed, contains the plan for the first city, a grid 7 squares by 7 into which the buildings fit, 'tetris-style'. Players of Princes of Florence will know what I mean. However, unlike PoF, these pieces are not rotationally symmetrical nor can they be turned over.
The rules suggest placing all the houses and men on the housing grid. I would recommend keeping these to one side so that you can see the costs of the houses more easily. The game plays like a 'zoomed-out' Roads and Boats. The game is played on large hexagonal tiles, which is then sub-divided into 61 smaller hexes which depict forests, fields, lakes and mountains. To my mind, these small hexes are the large hexes in R&B

The rulebook is quite well written. It is 28 pages long, with half in English and half in German. Six pages contain the core of the rules.
Each player starts with a city and 6 wood to begin their building. There are ten phases in each round, with the city building and country building phases the most involved.

Phase 1: All Rise - All men in the city are placed by the city map ready for the turns activities.

Phase 2: City Building - Players place new buildings and man them if necessary. The buildings are different sizes and different shapes, so planning is necessary to fit them into the grid in the best way. They cannot be turned over, remember. Only one of each type can be built by each player, except for stores, cart shops, fountains and houses, (which is why its useful to make 4 sets of buildings, 1 set for each player). Each building has a specific function, houses bring men into the city, cart shops take those men out into the fields, etc.

Phase 3: Order of Play is determined by checking how many cart shops and explorer each player has.

Phase 4: Country Building. Each manned cart shop lets a player build a building in the country. Woodcutters bring in wood to build buildings, mines bring in stone (or gold), Farms bring in food (or luxuries), fisheries bring in food (or luxuries). These can only be built within a city's zone of control, which extends for two hexes out from each city, or inn. (Stables make this 3 hexes). Inns need a brewery to be built in the city.

Phase 5: Store Goods. Any left over goods after building are stored in your Stores, if it is manned, else they are lost.

Phase 6: Harvest. Country buildings produce one good. When a building is built in the country, say a miner in the mountains, the hex the miner is in and the surrounding hexes of stone all produce 1 good. However, once the hex the stone is in is depleted, it becomes polluted and cannot be used again to produce(until the pollution is removed). Once the miners area is depleted, he returns to the city to be employed somewhere else.

Phase 7: Explore. During setup, explore chits are placed on the large hexes. If you have built an explorer, he goes out in this phase to explore what these chits are, but only if they are within a zone of control.

Phase 8: Famine. The famine level is checked and each player gets that many graves, less one for each food he has, less 3 if a Granary has been built. Graves take up space in a city and cannot be built on. If all spaces in a city are full, the graves start filling up the buildings and its original use cannot be used anymore. (A Hospital does clear up the graves, however).

Phase 9: Pollution. Each player has to place 3 pollution per city, (a player can have up to 4 cities). This is reduced by having a Dump and/or fountains.
Pollution spreads through the countryside in a cities zone of control, making the land unusable, mostly, until the pollution is cleaned up.

Phase 10: Check Victory. Victory conditions are decided when a Cathedral is built in honour of one of 5 patron saints. Each saint has very different victory conditions, which will determine a players strategy during the game.

For example, San Nicolo requires 20 people in play, while Santa Barbara requires one of each building is built.

My son and I spent a very enjoyable 3 hours playing this. At first, the rules seem overwhelming, but after 2 or 3 rounds the game started falling into place. There a lots of decisions to be made each turn as to what to build and when, and once famine and pollution start to rise, keeping that under control while still keeping your victory conditions on track keeps you busy. The terrain we were in was very different, his was mainly forest and mountain, while mine was forest and water, which forced me to build a harbour to use the sea. Yes, you do end up with a lot of chits on the board, but the mechanic of placing pollution, product, then removing the product to leave the pollution works well.
Once the Famine level starts to rise, its all too easy for the graves to fill up the city and the game is very unforgiving. If you do not manage your resources well, then famine and pollution will prevent your city from growing, which can lead to a slow and painful loss.
My son eventually won. he had built a cathedral early and so had a victory condition to meet. I somehow never got around to building my cathedral, and still hadn't built it when he won!!

SUMMARY:
If you enjoy resource management games, then the hefty asking price is well worth paying, and if you enjoy Roads & Boats, then you will also enjoy this as well. I now have both in my collection and Antiquity is a welcome addition to my collection.

Review by Brian