Caligula

Customer Reviews

Misleading Theme Review by Myranda

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Value
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Although both the theme and the description of Caligula imply backstabbing and conflict, this is actually a worker placement game in disguise.

During the first phase there are 5 decks of 'civitas' cards, and each player has tokens with which they can 'bet' on the face up civitas cards. During the next phase the cards are then 'resolved' and everybody collects their rewards (or penalties) from the cards that they bet on.

Next a conspiracy can be started. There is a small deck of emperor cards and players first use conspiracy cards from their hand to 'vote' on weather or not to start a conspiracy against the current emperor, and next use assassination cards from their hand (all of these cards are acquired by winning the civitas card bets) to either support the assassination or defend the emperor. If he dies he is discarded and replaced. This is all to gain victory points, and then back to phase one and collecting cards.

Although this is not a typical warm and fuzzy themed worker placement game, and some aspects such as the penalties make it a bit more interesting, in the end it is not really the way it seems at first glance.

HOWEVER, if you are by chance interested in both murder plots against Roman emperors AND worker placement, you will probably love it. Otherwise, this game was not incredibly impressive. (Posted on 5/17/12)