Nova Roma Review

boardgamequest.com:

We review Nova Roma, an area control and worker placement game published by 25th Century Games. Nova Roma should appeal to euro game fans as it offers a lot of familiar mechanics.

One thing that designers, and subsequently board game players, have come to rely on regularly are design patterns for games. How often have you seen a card row for card selection similar to Ticket to Ride? How often have you seen a player board that tracks the number of resources of different types? How often have you moved a token up a track to gain points? How often have you paid resources to fulfill a contract? If you responded with a non-zero number to more than one of these questions, you’re definitely immersed in the hobby enough to recognize the mechanisms that make for fun decisions while players scramble for a smorgasbord of points as fed by designers such as Uwe Rosenberg or Stefan Feld.

Also, depending on what games you’ve played as your interest in the gaming hobby has progressed, you’ve likely also encountered a few themes that seem to reappear from game to game. Perhaps you’ve built an ancient civilization similar to those that flourished around the Mediterranean Sea. Maybe you’ve gathered clues trying to defeat a dark elder god from conquering the world. Maybe you’ve been a medieval noble intent on expanding their lands, a captain of industrial revolutionizing business, a leader of settlers in a new land settling an island? Ok, maybe you haven’t been a Roman patrician trying to impress the Emperor. You can’t remember? That’s probably because for many Euro games with a buffet of points, the theme du jour gets lost, and you can’t tell if it was a Roman noble or medieval landlord for that last game.

Well, just in case you don’t care what culture it was, and you just need some pasted on conceit to motivate your point grabbing, Nova Roma, a new title from 25th Century Games has got you covered. It plays 60-120 minutes and it’s for 1-4 players with an optimal configuration for