Cyclades Legendary Edition
The new Cyclades are Legen… wait for it
Cyclades is a 2 to 6 player game where we’ll bid for the influence of the gods, gain the help of legendary monsters, recruit powerful heroes, all to conquer three Greek metropolises.
The Legendary Edition refreshes the Cyclades and adds some cool new twists to it.
In my review, however, I’ll focus on what this new version gives us and I won’t be comparing it to its predecessor at all.
Bidding – something for euro players
The most important aspect of the Cyclades is the bidding of what we can do in our turn. According to the order of players, we will try to offer the most impressive sacrifices to the Greek gods. It’s all about the cash btw. To do this we will line up on the track of the individual deities. If someone outbids us then we will be forced to go beg another god for his favour. All players will do this until everyone has chosen one god.
Bidding itself in the Cyclades is such a game within a game. Because we are trying to outbid our rivals so that we can be the ones to benefit from the gods’ actions. The best thing about it is that we can throw some horrendous amount of money right away. We just want to do it and that’s it. We can also trick someone so that, for example, that person tries to outbid us and they have to pay a larger gift, exhausting their further options. It’s a great mini-game in this big game.
By the Gods
While we’re on the subject of gods, we have six of them. Zeus is in charge of priestesses and temples. Ares lets us recruit new hoplites and lets us move our units. Poseidon does what the god of war does only that on water. Athena erects universities and invites philosophers. Hera allows us to build any building, employs mercenaries and legendary heroes. There is also Apollo, but he only bestows gold on us.
In addition, most gods allow us to gain the help of monsters and provide movement with our heroes.
If you think that Hera’s options are legendary then you are right. Every option she offers us is a good one, and it’s her favour that we most often fight for.
The gods available in the game will rotate and there will be a completely different bunch each cycle. Although we always know who will enter the next round. The most important piece of advice for the future is that it’s better not to put Hera and Ares next to each other. Because it will make some rounds more mobile and there will be rounds where we don’t fight too much given their powers.
Monsters and Heroes
The best thing about the Cyclades is the ability to gain the help of powerful beasts. They provide us with the ability to do one-off legendary feats. With a Pegasus, we can visit someone’s island and at the least expected moment(I love this). The Harpy will remove one unit on the map and the Griffin will steal someone’s gold(why did everyone target me with his ability?). We also have epic creatures that stay on the map a little longer and require sacrificing a priestess every round. My favourite monster is Cerberus, which takes someone’s income from one area and gives it to us. ‘Fair exchange.’
Generally you have to be careful all the time what monsters are available for employment. Because any of them can surprise us at the least appropriate moment. Especially that stupid Pegasus that allows you to teleport units on the board. He gives me nightmares.
Heroes hired thanks to Hera are also powerful. Because they each have a passive ability and a second one that allows them to be sacrificed to raise a metropolis. The Heroes offer us options for additional movement thanks to heroic mobilization. The game has gained that extra mobility from them, which it lacked before. I also love the plays with them where I suddenly sacrifice my hero, build a metropolis and win. It was legendary.
Islands, peninsulas and matching
I’m not a mean person…, but I had immense joy as I watched my fellow players try to match the map tiles in Cyclades. Because modular game boards are great and serve such a breath of fresh air in subsequent games. In Cyclades the board is also modular, but because it has such strange, irregular shapes it’s sometimes hard to fit the tiles together. So it’s good, but it could be better.
The risk of fighting
Combat in the Cyclades is simple. A little too simple for my taste. There are no tactics cards, spells or other goodies during combat. Simply if we are trying to conquer someone we each add up the strength of the troops(1 per unit) and roll one dice. If we have a higher result than our opponent, he will have to remove 1 unit from the conflict. Then we can continue to fight, or run away so as not to lose everything.
It’s random and sometimes it doesn’t matter how cool a play we did with the monsters or our heroes. If the dice were not on our side we will still lose. My wife has already found this out, but we will never go back to it.
There is no mechanism in the game to help the player who was destroyed on the board. If other players have beaten you up then sorry, but you have to watch others having fun. It was especially painful when we took away someone else’s main source of income. Even Apollo was unable to help them.
Scaling and gameplay time
The game works well with 4 players and that’s the kind of group that will want to play it. With 5 players it can drag so that we are looking at the sundial, and when we play two it gets a bit weird on the map. Because we each get to play with two different armies and we play as if there were 4 players on the board. As in dungeon crawlers I somehow manage to lead 4 heroes at the same time. In Cyclades I have no intention of playing it with 2 players. Because in this team mode we bid 2 times and can even outbid each other. Additionally, we can pass through the units of our armies, but we can’t stop. We have common gold, but we count priests and philosophers separately. For that, metropolises are common, and the buildings needed to build them are almost common. The thing that bothered me most about all this was counting the income from my territories. Because somehow I couldn’t focus on all those colours available on the map.
Cyclades is not a long game and I like that about it. The gameplay will last like 1,5 hours and that will be time well spent. It always ended at such a perfect moment. Well, unless we were playing a 5 player game.
Greek quality and Pandora’s box
Graphically I somehow like this version better than the older one. The tiles have beautiful graphics and somehow I feel the island vibe more. Note what I am going to say now may be considered blasphemy, but I even like the meeples of our warriors. The standees of heroes and monsters look great too.
Insert tries to get everything sorted and succeeds in that. Although I am annoyed by the coin lid, which I have to hold all the time to keep it from falling down. Because without it I could treat the box as a kind of coin dispenser.
Summary
…dary, but not in all aspects. Many good changes have been made to the base game in this edition. The mini bidding game is shorter because we don’t spend several minutes on it. The game has become more dynamic because we have more movement options. It’s also more aggressive thanks to powerful monsters and heroes. I love the legendary plays with them. An added bonus of Cyclades is the modular board, which gave us a breath of fresh air in subsequent games. Although these shapes gave pleasure to the person who didn’t have to put these irregular tiles together.
I may not be a fan of the combat in Cyclades, as I prefer slightly more complex options, but I understand that this game was meant to be simple and specifically didn’t want to complicate anything in this aspect.
Final verdict: New is always better. I’d be happy to play it in our board game club.
Pros
- Mini bidding game
- Legendary Monsters and Heroes
- Modular board
- Mythological atmosphere
- More dynamic gameplay
Cons
- Combat way too simple for my taste
- For two players I can play, but would prefer not to
- Insert cover
[Game provided by Galakta]
