Concordia

A game about Roman trade in which nobody ever attacks anybody.

You are a merchant family working the Mediterranean under Rome — founding houses in Hispania and Asia Minor, moving colonists along the roads and sea lanes, and quietly cornering the market in wine, cloth and bricks. Mac Gerdts designed it in 2013 and it has sat near the top of every serious ranking since, which for a game with no combat, no dice and no take-that at all is a reasonable achievement.

The engine is a small deck of cards that never shuffles into obscurity. Every card is both an action now and a scoring category at the end, so buying a Mercator because you need money this turn also decides what your final score is built on. The Concordia card sitting at the top of the market ends the game whenever somebody decides they can afford it, which means the clock is in the players' hands rather than the rules'. It runs to about an hour and three quarters and repays a second play enormously.

Perfect for: Groups who want a genuinely deep game where nothing bad can happen to them on somebody else's turn.

2–5 players | 100 minutes | Age 13+

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