Does anybody remember Father Guido Sarducci, the chain smoking, off-beat Roman Catholic priest, portrayed by Don Novello on Saturday Night Live in the late 70s? According to Wikipedia, he's somewhat infamously known for confronting former President Richard Nixon outside his home at 1 a.m., and asking him, “Mr. President, Mr. President, if you coulda be any animal in the world, whata would it be?”
He had this plan for a Five Minute University; an educational institution designed to teach you everything you’re going to remember about your actual college education, 25 years later.
The thought bridge that put me out on this Five Minute University limb was a planned review of Pantheon, designed by a compilation of names, known as Michael Tummelhoffer, best known for designing St. Petersburg and Stone Age. It was among the games that I was teaching at the WBC in August. The game was contributed to that event’s library of games, and the rules went with it. Since it’s available for play on Brettspielwelt (BSW), I’ve slipped a few more games of it in since I’ve been back.
Good game, overall. Kinda layered, lot going on. I’m still getting a little overwhelmed by the mechanics of playing it on BSW, and I get trounced mercilessly out there. Since it’s always been so clear that I’m losing and will eventually lose altogether, and since the program does all the end-game calculations, I’ve sort of forgotten the end-game bonuses, which I do remember as being critical.
This is what brought me to Father Guido Sarducci, because I’m thinking, “What do you remember about games, a month after you’ve played them? Do we need a Five-Minute Board Game University that teaches you everything you’ll remember about a game, a month after it’s been parked on a shelf gathering dust?”
We do seem to make a large deposit in our memory banks for games like chess, checkers. . . dare I say Monopoly? I’m actually not sure I could adequately explain Monopoly without a quick glance at the rules. I could probably do Mille Bornes. Pantheon’s sort of on the edge, but I think being able to explain it without the rule book is one of the cornerstones of a good game, yes? Like a movie plot, that you can describe in a sentence.
Cape Fear Games down here in Wilmington has a shelf copy, but the game hasn’t hit the tables. I could cheat and check out the Board Game Geek entry to refresh my memory and maybe, clarify a few rules. But I’m curious, so I won’t do that. What do I know about this game off the top of my head?
Pantheon. . .Roman theme, Gods, map board of land and ocean – Italy? The Mediterranean? Object of game; construct the most columns through six (I mean, VI) eras of Rome’s history. Each era will start a round of play at a specific location on the board, as defined by the placement of a wooden ‘Parthenon’ piece at the center of the designated area. Each player is in possession of a number of wooden feet (a personal and general supply stock of them), a certain number of columns (same), and a starting hand of cards. On a player’s turn, he/she will take one of four actions – Draw some more cards, place feet and/or columns on the map in the designated area, use money to buy something, or enlist the aid of a God by making sacrifices.
The board is divided up graphically into hexagonal movement spaces. Some of these spaces have pictures of stone columns on them. On your turn, if you choose to ‘place feet/columns,’ you will place your wooden feet, commencing from the central space in a given era, (and later, connected to feet you’ve already placed), placing them in an unbroken line in a direction of your choice. You will be looking to extend your line out to the spaces with the pictures of columns, upon which you’ll place (instead of feet) your own physical wooden column. The accumulation of these personal (and colored) columns, throughout the six phases of the game, will, along with some other point-related items you’ve accumulated, determine the winner of the game.
Each era ends when either all of the available bonus spaces in that round (up to four, depending on the number of players) have been occupied (and their bonuses collected), or when all of the Gods, who’ve come on the market (so to speak) in a given era are in the possession of the players (2 to 4, if memory serves).
Money is represented by cards in your hand; for the most part, one dollar units (they’re probably called piastres in the game). You can build them up in your hand to buy a lot of things, or live from hand to mouth and get just enough to buy one thing. There is a special deck of money cards with amounts ranging from $2 to $5; you’ll draw from this deck, based on an available bonus you’ll come across as you play. You’ll use all this money to buy more feet, columns, and ‘sacrifice’ tiles, which are related to the ‘purchase’ of Gods.
The Gods, you see, have no interest in money. What they want is sacrifices, which, in the game, come in two forms. They’re graphically represented on cards in your hand, and they’re available for purchase from a market (there are four different types of sacrifices). Gods require these sacrifices in clearly defined combinations; like four of one type of sacrifice, and two of another, or three of one kind, two of another, and one each of two others. You will meet these requirements by utilizing a combination consisting of cards from your hand, and the sacrifices (cardboard tiles) you’ve purchased in the market. The difference is that while cards go into the discard pile when you use them, the tiles stay with you; permanent fixtures of your sacrifice menu for the Gods.
Once brought into play for you, the Gods themselves (square tiles, about twice as large as the sacrifice tiles used to buy them) help you in a variety of ways, in your quest to expand your empire and place your columns in multiple areas on the board. Just how much is a matter of judgement. It takes a while to accumulate the sacrifices necessary to get one of these Gods, while, at the same time, you’re trying to lay down feet to get to column spaces, where you can place your columns. You’re also out there looking to land on the bonus spaces to acquire everything from victory points to a free God.
And then, to top it all off, you can’t even get your wooden feet out there on the board, unless you’re lucky enough to have or draw the movement cards necessary to take that action. There are four cards on display, when and if you opt for the ‘draw cards’ action. You can take one from those shown or draw blind from a deck. Last time I played this, I couldn’t find movement cards (picturing little feet) to save my life. I ended up acquiring some dough, though, which helped me buy sacrifices and then, Gods, but not nearly enough to offset my opponent, who, with a combination of (his all the time) bonus feet, was laying ‘em down all over the board and claiming the lion’s share of column spaces. As I noted earlier, I don’t remember the actual distribution of victory points at the end, as they relate to how many columns you’ve actually been able to get out onto the board, but it’s a substantial bonus. Placing these columns on the board is certainly important enough to describe as a prime objective.
How was that? I know I’ve left some things out, like the fact that when a player chooses to take a movement action (place feet or columns), his/her opponent gets to move (place feet and/or columns), too, as part of the original player’s turn. Or the fact that certain ‘era’ bonuses are direct victory point bonuses that can accumulate throughout the game.
I like this game, although at this stage of the learning process, I am a long way from developing my own sense of how to be successful at it (it could be argued that I’m a long way from developing that sense with a lot of games). Its components are well-made, both the physical components, and the machinery of game play. There are those four actions, with rationales for taking any of them on your turn, and the necessity of choosing which ones to take when. There’s the process of accomplishing objectives, and the relevant importance of each short term and long term objective. Sounds like a Euro to me.
Now, I’ll take a look at its Geek entry to offer some basics. The first thing I learn is that Eric Martin of Board Game News has described this game in two short paragraphs in the Geek entry, under “Description.”
Sorry about that. . .
Pantheon, published by Rio Grande Games, is designed by Michael Tummelhofer (although Geek entry indicates Bernd Brunnhoffer), with artwork by Franz Vohwinkel. It is designed for 2-4 players, age 10 and up. The box’s indication that it can be played in 90 minutes is fairly accurate, although it will generally take some time to work up to that level of timed efficiency. It’ll cost you somewhere in the vicinity of $25.
Comments