Ostia has players building chips and sailing them across the sea.
Also sailing them in circles around your player board.
Players lead a large fleet to explore the ocean, trade and develop the port.
Ostia Game Overview
Quick Rules Summary
This is a fairly in-depth game so I’m just going to give a very top level overview…
On your player board you have a 6 segment mancala board. On your turn you choose a segment and gain a resource that segment produces for each ship you have in that segment.
Then you mancala the ships in that segment clockwise and take the action of the segment the final ship ends in.
These actions let you:
Build ships to go on your mancala board.
Build buildings which are placed on the main board. Port tiles give a bonus and building tokens upgrade your mancala actions.
Trade lets you perform action where you have port disks. You can also buy honour cards for gold.
Order allows you to pay wheat to gain resources and by Amphoras.
Move allows you to move your ships on the main board. If you move through a Discovery tile you gain the benefit and take the tile.
If you end on a Transit tile you receive its benefit. Finally, If you reach a Destination tile, place your ship in the highest empty space and gain the benefit.
Finally, Administration let’s you Order, Move, or Build.
How do you win?
The game ends when one players reward token reaches the 12th space on the reward track, or 3 ships from any one player reach 3 the Destination tiles.
Players score points from end-of-game effects on Trading Port tiles. Points from building icons and ship icons in your play area, and amphoras based on the position of
your relevant reward token on the reward track.
12 points for each set of 4 icons (Wild Animal, Exotic Animal, Nobleman and Noblewoman) collected.
Finally, 12 points for each Honour card you gained.
Main Mechanisms
The main ones are mancala for taking actions, resource management for paying for them and a bit of set collection.
I don’t usually call ‘point to point movement’ a mechanism but in this case it’s really important. Moving your ships to get bonuses and eventually those big scoring destination tiles is important.
USP
There’s a lot of regularly seen mechanisms put together here. Even the theme is done a lot.
Theme
Done a lot.
Setup & Rulebook
Setup is fiddley. The main board needs tokens and buildings. Each player board need cubes and ships on one and disks etc on the other. Then there are cards around the main board.
I haven’t even mentioned the Pirate expansion that adds more player boards that I haven’t played with yet.
The rulebook is really good with plenty of examples and clear blocks of text.
Components & Artwork
The components are really nice. The ships and buildings are really good as is the card quality.
The minimal artwork is OK and the graphic design is really good.
Ease of Teaching
Each individual action is, in itself, easy to teach.
However, there is a lot more going on with each action that is a bit harder to remember. Also, moving on the board s tricky with all the different spots. Finally, ship building and where the newly built ships go is a tad tricky.
Similar Games
The minimal board and the importance of moving around it, combined with the theme reminds me of Concordia.
Ostia Review
Positives
The overall aim of the game and what you’re trying to achieve is fun.
The mancala mechanism gives you a lot to think about.
Having the resources you need be on the action space they are required for makes you plan ahead.
The components are nice.
Negatives
At 2 hours+ with 4 players it takes a while and you can have a bit of downtime depending on who is playing.
There are a lot of fiddley, easily forgettable rules. A good crib sheet will be useful.
Summary
Ostia is a very fun game and I’m looking forward to it giving me headaches in the future! I also can’t wait to play with the Pirates expansion.
Jesta ThaRogue