Roman Emperors – Turn Summary
Build a Wonder
One of the many legacies of Rome was their monumental architecture and engineering feats. The Emperors conceived their great projects as part of their heritage to the history of Rome. The building of a wonder for the city is a great part of the Roman Emperors game; it scores you a large bonus to your Legacy Points.
But to build that precious wonder you require many resources, which can be obtained in the provinces (once you subdue them in your military campaigns). Although the building part is actually performed at the end of your turn, picking your wonder project will guide your actions right from the beginning of it. Even before that, the other players will try to figure out which wonder you’ll be trying to build and play events (Parcae cards) to make it harder for you to do so. On the other hand, you will have your patron God to help you with your quest.
The strategic choices here are also many. But they may be narrowed to: will you risk having to succeed in all your military campaigns so you can get enough resources to build a great wonder? Or will you be cautious and go for a project that doesn’t demand you such a large effort? You have to bear in mind that expanding the frontiers of the Empire also helps other players get resources for their projects, but winning military campaigns and building great wonders score you many points. In my case, I just go for the great prize whatever the cost (I would have made a great megalomaniac roman emperor!), but other players avoid recklessness and build up the basics, upgrading the provinces and using the resources already available to them. That grants them the support of the Senate and the people of Rome (SPQR). Yuk!
I’m attaching a picture of the wonders available. Same as with the patron god’s cards, the art is all public domain. Because the names are in Latin and the icons are fairly intuitive, they are effectively multilingual. You can see the amount of resources required to build them and the amount of Legacy Points they grant you when built in the different stages of the game.
Again, if you are a publisher and want to know more about this design, feel free to contact me. More to come.
Keep thinking!
