Board Game: Colosseum
Yesterday at Waffles 'n Games Morning, I played the board game Colosseum for the first time, and thought of comparisons to Settlers of Catan. You have resources, a menu of things to do with the resources, trading, and dice-rolling. However, you get resources through an auction.
Imagine if instead of the five resources of Settlers, there are twelve "show assets": gladiators, lions, horses, chariots, musicians, comedians, priests, ships, torches, cages, scenery, and decorations. They are in the form of cardboard tokens.
Imagine if the menu card from Settlers had thirty items instead of four. Those items are show programs-- each show uses a different combination of assets, as few as three or as many as sixteen. But you must buy the show program with the game's cardboard money tokens in order to be eligible to perform that show, even if you already have the asset tokens.
After buying a show program, several random assets are available for auction. Players bid on them with money tokens in the hopes of completing the optimal collections for their show programs. Then there is a lively phase where anyone may trade asset tokens or money tokens. Then you roll dice to move dignitaries around a track to get them to land in your Colosseum for bonus points when you perform your show.
Although the score for your show is paid in money tokens which you can accumulate, that number does not accumulate on the scoring track. Rather, the game is scored based on each player's single highest-scoring show. Therefore, Colosseum's challenge is in long-term planning and predicting the plans of others. You hope to buy the right assets with which be able to put on a small show now, and re-use them for a larger show in a later round. But in my first game, I didn't see many clear paths of progression like that. When I found one, another player bought the programs for each of the larger shows I wanted, and there was no plan B.
It's not for the easily frustrated. It may be necessary to try it in an extremely cooperative mode-- one in which you players make plans together for mutually advantageous trades for everyone to gain as high a score as possible. I have the right attitude with which to do that, but not everyone does. Overall, I am undecided on this game until I replay it and see if some strategies emerge.
Comments
cjfringe on Aug. 11, 2009 3:17 AM
I like this game, but I don't play it much anymore since there is essentially one strategy to win, and the first person to manage to do so usually does. There's chance with the dice and a bit with the auction, but usually by turn 4 you can see the pattern, and if one person manages to get it and the others don't that's pretty much it.
(I don't want to give spoilers but if you want the strategy let me know.)
matt-arnold on Aug. 11, 2009 3:37 AM
If that's the case then I probably won't seek it out much to play; but I'm curious to know it.
cjfringe on Aug. 11, 2009 5:20 AM
Skip doing the level 3 show. If you can get synergy with your tiles and get the money, don't waste money buying a level 3 show. Instead, skip right to performing a level 4 show. You'll save money which you can use to outbid your opponents or buy a higher scoring show. Depending on how well your first 3 rounds go, you may even be able to put on a level 4 show twice, maximizing your chances to score highly.
When we've played, the people who skip the level 3 shows always do much better in the end, and the person who started with the level 1 and 2 shows that match his starting tiles usually wins. We play now with a house rule actually, where you bid on your starting shows. Otherwise one or two people often get stuck with 2 shows that don't match each other or their tiles, and they are screwed for later in the game.
Don't get me wrong; I like the game a lot. It's just that once you play with this strategy it's hard to beat.
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