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Rating 8/10 after 10+ plays
by Marcel-Andre Casasola Merkle
art Manuel Casasola Merkle
published 2003 by Hans im Gluck / Rio Grande Games
players: 2-4
duration: 30-45 mins.
type: medium strategy board game
PACE: QUICK. Players can either draw 2 tiles and place them, or build 3 tiles from the board. The tile-placements are varied, but not prone to heavy analysis, which keeps the game moving at a fairly good pace.
COMPLEXITY: MEDIUM. The rules are actually very straightforward, and almost anyone could play this, even as young as 8 years old I'd guess, but it isn't fair to call it a light game, because putting together chains of buildings, and deciding when to pay extra money to claim good spots -- this all makes it a nice middleweight game.
LUCK: MEDIUM. Cards are used a lot like Settlers of Catan to pay for things, but are always drawn blind from the deck. Similarly, tiles are always drawn blind from the piles, and a lucky sequence of card draws or tile draws could definitely help or hurt a player.
TENSION: LOW. Like many tile laying games, you are trying to optimize placement -- in the case of Attika this means buildings as often and as cheaply as you can. Pleasant as opposed to tense.
CONFRONTATION: MEDIUM. To keep a player from getting to many free buildings, a player may opt to cut of some of the open spaces around a kep building. This is almost necessary to prevent a player from running away with the game. In the same way players need to cut off each others path to the shrines. But since everyone can either play this way or not, I suppose it doesn't have to be all that confrontational. And it certainly doesn't have a vicious feel to it, although in extreme cases a player could play like that.
INTERACTION: LOW. Pretty much limited to what was listed under 'Confrontation'.
VISUALS: GOOD. It can be a little hard to read the small type, but the modular board is well-presented very clear and easy to see. Trying to remember which buildings you have placed on the board can be a little tricky, so you may want to have extra markers of some sort to mark your player board when you have placed a building.
THEME: FAIR. Ancient Greece and its developing cities: A neat idea for a setting, but this game is very abstract and has that underlying abstract feeling. Still, the setting is chosen well enough I suppose, and the visuals do a nice job of conveying the idea of the setting.
PLAYER SCALING: GOOD 2-4. Though probably best as a 2-player game, it certainly works well enough with 3 or 4 players since the board expands to include them. The downside is that more players extend the length of the game considerably. 2 players can play in about 25 minutes, 3 player maybe 35 minutes, and 4 players would be closer 50 minutes.
GAMER APPEAL: PROBABLY. Interesting enough to make it filler, too lucky to be much of a favorite.
CASUAL GAMER APPEAL: YES. I get that "Lost Cities" feeling when playing this game, but in a good way. It's fairly easy to pick up and play without a lot of brain-burning. It has that "auto-pilot" factor that makes it easy to sit down and play.
REPLAY: EXCELLENT. There is something so inoffensive about the mechanics: they isn't a great game, but its also far from being a bad game. It's almost boring, it doesn't really rise above its rules, and yet it has some sort of timeless elegant feel to it.
RATING: 8/10 after 10+ PLAYS
My 2 cents | ?The rules themselves are fairly clever, and the game, though far from spectacular, has some sort of inoffensive replayability. (If you've ever played Lost Cities or Balloon Cup, you know what I mean.) A nice game that will remind some of Settlers of Catan (without the trading), and make others think this is another good tile laying game. It's perch in the Top 25 has proven its appeal. Indeed, it ought to appeal to most players without ever being anyone's favorite game. A dubious distinction? Perhaps not when you consider how much play time this game gets!