Cyclades

Cyclades is an interesting game. It has dice mechanics for battles and a nice beautiful map and components, typical of american-style games, but it also has a very clever money system that pervades everything you do, with some decidedly euro-style mechanics such as bidding for powers. All put together it's a fantastic game that is moderately deep, interactive, easy to learn and showcases many great things about modern boardgames.The gameplay is divided in two parts, the overhead map and the bidding area. The "wargame" aspect is simple by itself, with simple dice and territory control mechanics, although there's the neat aspect of controlling ships and troops, and controlling the sea is so important. What's makes the game shine is that players have money tokens and everything costs money, from hiring soldiers to moving ships, to building metropolises. So, in order to do anything effectively, you have to not only manage your resources balancing income and spending, but you have to worry about outbidding your opponents for the actions you want to perform.The game is not very heavy on conflict, you can possibly win without even having a battle. I find that battles are rare but very significant, I kinda wish there was more incentive to fight. Also I appreciate that there are "safety nets" to avoid players falling too much behind. No player can be eliminated before the end of the game, and players always get something out of the bidding, so it's a great family game, no player is ever helpless or unable to influence the game. It is also not a very long game, I've heard people complain it ends a bit suddenly, but that's mitigated as players get experienced with the game and learn to spot and counter players who are close to winning.Overall one of my favorite games, it's my perfect gateway game for people who enjoy Risk and I enjoy it every time. After you've had some time with Cyclades, the expansion Cyclades: Hades is also highly recommended.

Cyclades is quickly becoming one of my favorite board games. And it is a boardgamers board game. If you aren't into boardgames that much, this one probably isn't for you.Here's what's great about it:- Awesome theme. All of the mechanics tie in perfectly with the theme: Greek gods / mythology. Really well done.- Amazing production value. All of the pieces are just beautiful. All of the boards and cards just look like works of art. All of the little armies and ships for each player are all unique (a HUGE plus). You can really tell a lot of work went into making this game look great, because it does.- Some very fun game mechanics. The auctioning in this game is pretty well thought out, and is really the center-point of the whole game. Basically you bid (give your offerings) on a god, then it's the next player's turn. That next player can then either bid on a new god, or overbid you on your god. If you're overbid, you have to rebid HOWEVER you cannot rebid on the god you were just outbid on! This makes the game very tense, and there's a lot of subsequent bid "faking" (I like to call it), as you're trying to goad players into outbidding you, so you can rebid on the god you really want. Very fun.Here's some cons to the game:- It is a rather light game. However, if you know this ahead of time, it shouldn't be that big of a deal. This isn't really a Civilization or Axis and Allies wargame. In fact it's barely a wargame at all. It's a medium-weight game at best, so don't expect more out of it.- It is not really a wargame. You'll have some games with little to no direct fighting. It's mostly an economic / area control game. Because of how hard it is to initiate combat, there won't be much fighting. If you want more fighting in your game, I'd recommend the Hades expansion, which forces players to enter into conflict more.In conclusion, I can't recommend this game enough. Great fun.

My friends and I have recently become addicted to board/card games, and we realized we didn't have any strategy games. We picked this one up from a recommendation off of boardgamegeek.com, and have not regretted it.The pieces of the game are well made and reasonably detailed, and the individual factions have their own designs for fleets and soldiers. There's quite a few sheets that you need to punch out, but that doesn't take too long.The game itself is an interesting mix of strategy, bidding, resource management, slight city building, and a little bit of luck and randomness is involved. The nice thing about this game is that with everybody trying to outbid one another, and everyone only ending up with one god's worth of actions (in anything but a two-player game) per turn, you never have to wait too long between doing things in the game. Combat in this isn't about amassing fifty units and rolling across the enemy. Battles are usually short and significant, and while there is a bit of luck involved with your dice rolls, due to each player only having one 0-3 die, it's more about strategically placing your small groups of units and structures than having a lucky roll (although those can happen). As for the city building, it's nothing too intense, there's four buildings, three of them that give distinct benefits, the fourth only there to be necessary to build the end goal of the game, acquiring and keeping control of two metropolises before the rest of your opponents.I could go on for longer about the nuances of the game like monsters that give bonus powers and how the managing your money comes into play, but if you've got the money and a group of friends who don't mind sitting down at a table for a couple hours (depending on how many are playing), I would highly recommend this game to anyone looking for an involving, strategic game.