Rating: 6.4 Fair
Popularity:3
Difficulty:Medium
Year:2010
Players: 3-5 players
Playing time: 60-120 minutes
Age:14+

Official Site: Game site (English) - Fantasy Flight Games


Created by: Andrea Chiarvesio, Luca Iennaco, Antonio Dessi

Published by: Fantasy Flight Games, Heidelberger Spieleverlag, Stratelibri

Description:

In the Ancient Greece, the poleis (city-states) thrived increasing their population and culture, occasionally waging war against each other, erecting buildings and celebrating ceremonies to get the favor of the deities abiding on Mount Olympus.

The players will lead one of these city-states (like Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Thebes, Argos and others) expanding it and worshipping the various gods in order to become the hegemonic power of the Peloponnesus!

Olympus is a deterministic (i.e., non-random) strategy game, based on worker-placement, resource management and building an efficient engine to score victory points (VPs).

It also features a few more aggressive options than the average game based on the same premises (but the savvy player knows how to defend against them, if he prefers to quietly develop his own position).

Each player leads a city-state that is defined by six values representing population, culture, military and productivity of the three resources (grain, venison and fish).

During your turn, you send one of your three priests to worship one of the ten deities (Zeus, Hera, Demetra, Artemis, Poseidon, Athena, Aphrodite, Ares, Hephaestus or Apollo). Each opponent can now send one of his priests to celebrate the ceremony with you.

After that, the deity grants his favor to whoever has sent a worshipper: the favor is larger for the leading priest (the one of the active player) and smaller for all the others (for example, Athena boosts culture by two points for the city of leading priest and by one point for the others; of course no boost is given to those who refused to send a priest to worship her). That deity cannot be chosen again in the current turn.

Since almost all deities are specialized in a certain field, the players must choose which ones they prefer to worship sooner (also guessing which ones may be of interest for the opponents and which ones are safer to skip as they will not be chosen until later) and when it is better to get a smaller benefit following the priest of another player rather than saving a priest to get a greater boon but in a field that may not interest them as much (sort of quality over quantity).

The resources your city produces (worshipping the correct deities) can be spent (worshipping other deities) to create buildings giving a variety of effects (and VPs), thus offering a lot of different strategic approaches to the game. Victory can be achieved with a plethora of buildings but also with very few ones.

these awards are claimed, the game ends. Each player receives bonus points based on how developed his city is and the highest score wins.

Prices:
Retail Price:$46
Amazon:$29
Awards:
Ludoteca Ideale Official Selection Winner 2011
Lucca Games Best Boardgame 2010

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In Olympus, three to five players take on the roles of the leaders of Greek city-states and must guide their city-states to supremacy.

Players use their priests to obtain the favor of the Greek gods on behalf of their city-states. With this favor, players can advance the material and cultural progress of their city-states or bring war and pestilence upon their enemies. …



During the game, players use their resources to build a variety of buildings, represented by Building cards.

Each player has his own set of Common Building cards, which only he can use during the game. Each player's deck of Common Building cards is identical.

However, 12 Unique Building cards are placed on the game board at the beginning of the game. Each Unique Building card can be built by only one player during the game.

Unique Building cards are treated like Common Building cards in all other ways, but their benefits are generally more powerful. …



These symbols represent the six progress tracks on the city-state sheet. A squared symbol by itself indicates the player must advance his progress marker one space on the corresponding track.


This is a "wild" symbol, and it indicates the player must advance one of the production progress markers of his choice (agriculture, hunting, or fishing) one space.

These symbols represent the three types of resources: grain, meat, and fish.

When they are on the left side of a Building card, they represent the cost of that building (the number near the symbol is the quantity of that type of goods that must be paid). …




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