The city is expanding in breadth and up – review of the board game “Akropolis”

Acropolis is the first game that Jules Messaud created himself. Did the Lucky Duck Games publishing house have a nose when releasing a debutante board game on the Polish market?

 

We’re going up

The whole fun in Akropolis is based on mathematics, specifically on the multiplication of squares by the number of districts that meet the conditions. There can be three types of buildings on the tiles that we add to our city:
1) Quarries – when we cover it, we get one stone.
2) Districts – they come in five colors, each scores in a different way. Blue (residential) – only the largest group of buildings scores, and in the case of the purple district (temples), we score points when it is surrounded on all sides.
3) Squares – stars drawn on them (from one to three) are a multiplier. For example, having two blue squares (each blue square is one star) and the largest blue district of size ten will give you twenty points.

A certain variety is the overbuilding of tiles. Not only is this the only way to get a stone, but also districts located on a higher level will bring more points (the value of the district equals its height). With one purple square (two stars) and two surrounded temples on the third level, we will get twelve points. Why do we need a stone? For the mechanics of the river, because when we draw one of several exposed tiles (depending on the number of players), only the first one can be taken for free, and for each subsequent one you have to pay, discarding one gray cube to the reserve. Of course, in the end, the person with more points wins.

The life of a builder is hard

My beginnings with Akropolis were difficult. I liked the different scoring conditions for districts, but I didn’t like the river mechanic. I’ve seen it so often in various titles that I would prefer some other solution. For this reason, at first I was disappointed by the simplicity of this title. When choosing a tile, there are not many decisions to make, and meeting most of the requirements turned out to be quite trivial. However, after the third game, I was more and more drawn to playing Akropolis . Instead of building to a maximum of level two as before, our buildings began to climb even higher. It required a lot more thought, but the benefits of doing so were also quite large.

The biggest surprise for me were the optional variants. An additional condition, the fulfillment of which will result in a double multiplication of the value of a given district. For example, the temple must be at least level 2, if we manage to do this, then one purple district will already be worth four! These variants made building up even more sense, especially building the third tier! And suddenly we went from about a hundred points to two hundred, and I even managed to exceed three hundred once, half of which I got thanks to the blue district. Just…wow! In the end, each subsequent batch began to provide me with even more fun and satisfaction. Although I think that the variants are brilliant, in the end I became so convinced of this title that I will gladly play several games in a row even without them.

Barracks or Temple?

Of course, after playing a dozen or so games, I noticed a few shortcomings. Namely, it seems to me that it is best to invest in the blue district, while the purple one seems to be the least profitable. The temple multiplier is the same as the barracks and marketplaces, but the condition that must be met requires much more work. And yes, going in purple, you can get a lot of points, but there are much more reliable points from other districts. Interestingly, there is a token in the box that serves no purpose. Not a word about it in the manual! Apart from this detail, I must commend the workmanship.

The sprue fits everything beautifully, and in addition, the tiles not only look nice on the table, but are also extremely thick. I also want to commend Lucky Duck Games for adding a solo variant (downloadable on the publisher’s website), which works great. It is true that the Famous Architect is no longer a challenge for me after a few games (although defeating him on the third difficulty level without additional scoring variants seems rather impossible), I am still willing to face him from time to time.

Is it worth building… Acropolis?

I love tile games, none have let me down yet. And it’s the same with Akropolis . Each game gives me a lot of fun, especially when I play a game with additional scoring variants. Akropolis is simply the quintessence of simplicity. There are no redundant elements here and everything works great, so it’s the perfect item for a quick game with family and friends. Although initially I thought that it would be a maximum of six for me, now the new game from Lucky Duck Games receives a solid and deserved seven with a plus from me.