By Rick Teverbaugh
The Herald Bulletin
ANDERSON, Ind. —
In the tabletop gaming world, not all games can be played to their fullest with just two players. It is a bit rare to find a full-featured game that not only can be played with two players but was really designed with just that number in mind.
"Roma" and its successor, "Arena: Roma II," are creative and enjoyable games made for a two-player experience. The games are published by Queen Games and were created by Stefan Feld.
The setting of the game is during the revolt in Rome. Players vie for dominance by playing cards from a shared deck. The cards represent characters and buildings the player can use to establish dominance and win the game. This dominance is demonstrated through the winning of victory points. Sometimes the gamer takes them from his opponent and sometimes from an unclaimed pool of points. When either player is out of victory points or when the unclaimed pool is exhausted, the game ends and the player with the most points wins.
The thing that is most clever about the game is the way the cards and deployed and activated. There are a couple of slight differences between the way this is handled in the two games so this description will use the rules as they are put forth in "Arena: Roma II."
There are seven slots on each side of the game area where players can put down cards from their hand. The first six match the sides of a six-sided die. The seventh is a bribery icon. Once a card has been paid for and put into one of those slots, it can only be used when as dice roll by that player produces that number on one of the three six-sided dice that are rolled each turn.
The dice can be put on any of the seven slots or on two other spots. One is a money spot to give the player extra coin of the realm known as Sestertii. The other is to put one or more dice on a cards icon to enable the player to draw that many cards off the top of the community deck and pick the one he or she wants.
What makes this game shine is the strategy involved, having to decide how to use the dice and how to make due if the number associated with their most powerful card goes several turns without being rolled.
The game options are substantial. Either of the two games can be played by themselves. The decks from the two games can be combined into one large deck. Or each player can take one of the decks. Game time is from 20 to 40 minutes. The game play is swift without a lot of down time while the other person is making decisions and playing.
There is no word for the publisher is there is another game coming in this line or perhaps just another set of cards for even greater variety. The list price is $24.95 and it is recommended for gamers age 8 and above.
