Time of Crisis
A game for 2-4 players by <PERSON> and <PERSON>
"The Crisis of the Third Century, also known as Military Anarchy or the Imperial Crisis (AD 235–284), was a period in which the Roman Empire nearly collapsed under the combined pressures of invasion, civil war, plague, and economic depression. The crisis began with the assassination of Emperor <PERSON> by his own troops in 235, initiating a 50-year period in which there were at least 26 claimants to the title of Emperor, mostly prominent Roman army generals, who assumed imperial power over all or part of the Empire. The same number of men became accepted by the Roman Senate as emperor during this period and so became legitimate emperors."
- so says the Wikipedia entry
Introduction
Time of Crisis is a game for 2-4 players taking on the role of one of the Roman factions during the third century when, to say the least, times were interesting in the Roman empire.
Components
The game comes with a mounted map board, counters for the different factions including governors and generals, outside forces such as the Franks (among several others), and various legion counters.
Photo by BGG user <PERSON> (<PERSON>)
There are also cards in four sets of nine (three each blue, yellow, and red) plus cards players can purchase on their turn, and six dice, three of them black, and three of them white.
Photo by BGG user <PERSON>)
The cards are of the usual thick and sturdy kind we've come to know and expect from GMT.
Rules & Game Play
The game is played in a series of turns with every player following the same sequence each turn. Every player will...
- remove temporary markers in the upkeep phase
- roll 2d6 on the events table to see whether an event happens (on a 7) or which set of barbarians cause potential trouble (anything else)
- play their cards in hand to take actions (more on that below)
- check support in their provinces
- expand your empire (if your pretender merits it)
- gain legacy (victory points!)
- buy/trash cards
- end of turn clean up
The event dice will either cause an event that can last multiple turns if nobody rolls a 7 for a while, or causes some barbarians to activate and start causing trouble at the fringes of the empire. They are, however, handy sources of legacy points as you can go into those lands and quell them at the source.
The core of the game centres around your deck of available cards. You begin with nine cards, three each of the 1 value blue, red, and yellow cards. You select 5 of your available cards and perform actions with them.
Red cards are useful for military actions, such as removing a mob, attacking barbarians, attacking another player, or recruiting a general. Blue cards are used for senate actions, hiring governors and placing them being the main two uses.
Yellow cards give you populace actions, which is where you get to boost your support in regions you (temporarily) control, hold games to appease mobs, build improvements to the region (which grant legacy points), and place militia.
Managing how you use these points is the key to success in the game. 597
As you buy more and better cards, your deck with grow. Unlike most deck building games though, you always get to select your hand of five from the available deck rather than just drawing the top five. This is a good thing because it allows you to plan ahead for your next turn. Keep in mind that you're likely going to have turns where all you're left with is the dross you decided not to pick earlier in order to do something better, so there will be turns where you may not get to do much of use - a lull turn.
Once you've taken your actions, you tot up your legacy points and add them to your total. You get points for the number of regions you control and also for any improvements in those areas. If you've managed to get a Pretender in play, you also get points for the provinces that believe in that one true Emperor. There are also points to be gained for winning battles (against barbarians or your fellow players) and a game end bonus for being the (real) emperor the most turns.
Once you've used your cards to do your actions, you then have an opportunity to buy better cards. You get build points based on your support level in the provinces you control, and you can buy cards up to the number of areas you control - so both numbers are important. For instance, you may have 10 points to buy cards, but only control 3 areas, so the 4 cards aren't available to you.
The bigger cards are better not only for the extra points they give you to take actions, but also because when you play them you also get to execute the event on them. 629