In the world of strategy board games, Concordia shines bright. Few games blend the best aspects of some of our favorite genres as well as this game. Resource management for you Eurogame fans? Check. The all-important “stuff in a box” (deck-building) for you folks who have to have the latest thing? Check. Tactical maneuvering, like in any good wargame? You’re maneuvering to “win space” on the board, after all. And when all of these combine, they make for a strategic Roman Holiday—quick to learn, relatively quick to play, and as satisfying as strategy games come.
In Concordia, the players embody powerful Roman merchants who trade on the Mediterranean coasts. The building of a road network on the map and the influence over the different provinces during the game helps the players to get more assets to grow their bridgeheads in different territories, to get ahead in the tug of war for the advantage of being the first player to construct such an essential opportunity for profit while at the same time ensuring it in a way such that only they can militarily and politically hold on to it.
Concordia distinguishes itself from other games thanks to its simple elegance and the profound, strategic opportunities it offers. It has clear, intuitive rules, which make it readily accessible to beginners; nevertheless, it is complex enough to satisfy veterans who thrive on intricate game play. Even though the gameplay is relatively light in other respects, player interaction and a (nearly) ever-changing game state ensure a wealth of murky decisions and opportunities throughout. And those decisions pay dividends.
A real strong point for Concordia is the beautifully integrated theme and mechanics. The historical context of the building of the Roman Empire, and the establishment and growth of trade routes, isn’t just built into the set; it comes out in the gameplay, too. This is just as much a game for history lovers as it is for fans of the kind of strategy that makes the hex-based warfare of Settler II or the last-ditch defense of the walled cities of Carcassonne so much fun. Even if you have to play with the inside of the box to keep track of your cards, it’s still very much worth playing.
I have played Concordia more times than I can count, and I can testify that the game is outstanding in what it promises: variety. The game itself does not grow boring because the players have multiple opportunities for meaningful tactical decisions. It places a large enough number of roadblocks (“friction points,” to use the lingo) along the way that players must confront and solve. In fact, the more the game is played, the more those climactic moments seem to build right into the fabric of the experience. The battle aspect is where such friction mainly occurs.
The establishment of Concordia is a painstaking process that lays the groundwork for an awesome strategy and trade game. As a person who has put together not one but many Concordia game nights, I know that the carefully put-together setup makes the game not just smoother to start but also more satisfying.
The gameplay of Concordia is where the true shine of its depth and elegance can be found. Each turn, one of the players selects and plays exactly one card from their hand. And, very simply, this card determines which action the player will undertake that turn—the core of the game. The available resources and the player’s current situation must be the action potential for the hand of cards they have been given. And trust me, it is possible to work oneself into a situation where you are simply not able to get the most out of the cards you have to play.
Concordia really has a lot going for it. Its first strength is its elegant design. Everything seems to have a purpose in this game. No rules are wasted or too complicated, and no actions are movements that don’t mean anything. The next strength is its hand management aspect. You have six cards. That cannot be stressed enough. Out of these six cards, you have many paths to choose. The sheer number of choices, coupled with the fact that your deck is constantly reshuffling, simulates an in-game economy pretty well. You tend to feel like you have just enough resources (cards) to get by.
Concordia is strong but not perfect. The gameplay has a basic simplicity that is deceptively immersive. Come to think of it, that’s the structure of a lot of great strategy games: easy to learn, difficult to master.
And when a game like Concordia is a strong contender in the “difficult to master” camp, that has to be a place where it doesn’t act as a first-time gamer’s introduction to the format. The accessibility factor is poor. A high learning curve tends to keep this title in the hands of a strategy enthusiast.
The board game Concordia is as satisfying as it is straightforward to play. And when people are playing it, what’s going on at the table is tough to hide because of the big, shiny, forest-green box the game inhabits, easy to spot from across the room. “By virtue of its simplicity in presentation, and how beautifully it does what one thing it’s aiming to do, and the way it reinforces this one thing many times over the course of the average game session, Concordia is a gem,” says usgamer.net’s Anthony John Agnello.
