The rules booklet is surprisingly small for a game of this scale, but, thanks to the rondel on the board, this helps to easily get into the game.

The rondel is a circular area divided into six segments, each segment being the action a player can take that turn. Each round you move your token around the rondel - 1 to 3 spaces the movement is free, but if you want to move further it costs 1 resource per extra space moved.

The actions involved with each space are mostly straightforward.
Gold, iron and marble allows the player to take that resource from the bank.
Know-how lets a player pay gold to advance on the technologies tracks.
Arming lets a player spend iron to build legions or fleets.
Temple allows a player to spend marble to build a temple.
Maneuver allows a player to move all of their legions and/or fleets on the board.
Making good use of the rondel is therefore quite an important part of the game and works surprisingly well.

VPs can be earned in various ways, such as owning cities or building temples. At some point combat will occur between players as they expand their empires and this is done quite simply and neatly by an equal number of each player’s units being removed from the board on a one for one basis. The technologies I mentioned earlier bring the player that has them varying advantages such as extra movement or resource production.

Antike is an excellent game which is easy to learn to play and the rondel has since appeared in Imperial and Hamburgum where it is also used to good effect.

Review by Brian