Review – Perikles
Who shall dominate Greece - a tale of Hubris
Perikles is set in Greece during the time of the Peloponnesian war. It is another in a series of historical games done by Martin Wallace where the game play is very evocative of the theme. It has a fine attention to the detail of the period.
The players represent factions that are vying for control of city states in Greece. The forces for the city states are then used to gain victory points for the player.
The game plays with 3 to 5 players
Components:
Each player has a set of influence blocks and leaders. The player colors are orange, black, blue, red, and green.
The forces for the 6 city states (Athens, Sparta, Thebes, Corinth, Argos, and Megara) are represented by oversized counters. Cities forces are divided into land (hoplite) or sea (trireme). Each of the cities has a different force mix with Athens weighted to naval and Sparta and Thebes to the army.
The colors used for the city states are different enough from the player colors so it is readily apparent which function the counter belongs
The influence tile draw shows which city can receive the influence, how many units (one or two) and additional action – promote an influence marker to a candidate for control. Knife an influence marker.
21 battle locations of the Peloponnesian war. Depending on the importance of the battle each is worth differing victory points. The battles are divided by the defender of the battle – 7 Spartan, 7 Athenian and 7 split across the “minor” powers.
Special character tiles, these generally provide a 1 time bonus mainly in battles. When referencing historical people the benefit aligns with the character. Brasidis helps Spartan troops, Phormio the Athenian navy, Pericles adds influence in Athens, and my personal favorite Alcibades the bad boy of the war – can move influence from one city to another.
All counters are thick and well made.
The map board is an outline mainland Greece with the cities represented as temple facades to keep the influence, and holding boxes for leaders, and city forces. The fringes hold the influence tile draw and the place for the 7 battles with army holding areas to be contested this turn.
Game Play
Players earn victory points in 3 ways.
. Each influence on the board at the end of the game scores a point
. The winner of a battle is awarded between 3 and 7 victory points
. Being a leader of a city during any of the game turns can earn between 2 and 9 victory points at the end of the game.
As part of the game setup each player places 2 influence in every city. Following there are two rounds were a player can one additional influence in any city. The starting player is randomly chosen.
For each turn 7 new battle tiles and 10 influence tiles are drawn.
The game consists of three turns. Each turn has phases consisting of several rounds where each player takes an action, in order
Influence phase:
Consists of 4 or 5 rounds depending on the number of players.
Starting with the player who last controlled Athens. Each play selects from the 10 tile draft an influence marker. This allows the player to place one or two influence markers in the city labeled on the tile. A player can only take a city once, this coupled with an any city tile limits a player to add 3 influence to any one city. This marginal increase makes the next phase more competitive.
The single influence tile markers also will allow a player to remove an influence from any city (or as we call it “knifing” the influence, since the symbol is a dagger) or promoting an influence to a candidate level early.
The candidate placement is a strong action since it can cement your control of a city or foil your opponents control.
[b]Candidate placement phase:[/b]
Each city must have 2 candidates to be the leader. The ultimate 2 party system. So again in turn order each player promotes one influence to be a candidate for leader ship. This goes around until all 12 positions in the cities are taken.
City elections:
All the influence and candidate placement leads up to the election.
The rule is simple, the candidate with the most influence wins. In case of a tie the first candidate wins. Even if a player has more influence in the city than the players with candidates, he is locked out of leadership.
The candidates are removed and the winner must remove as many influence as the losing party. This has a balancing effect, since the leader of a city will get VPs as the end of the game by being a leader and could potentially win battles. The game is forcing you to trade current VPs (influence) for the potential of earning more VPs.
Also you can see a strategy, if you are wanting lead a city you want a weak player’s influence so you don’t lose too much yourself, or as an interested 3rd party you would want 2 strong players wiping out lots of influence markers.
Military forces deployment phase:
There are 7 battle locations for the turn, these are historic sites worth 3 to7 VPs. The number of VPs is reflective of the importance of the battle. The players allocate the forces of the cities they control as either attacker or defenders to the battle locations. If a player doesn’t gain control of a city he gets to control the Persian forces as a consolation prize.
The leader of each city retrieves either the weakest army or fleet marker which has been previously lost as reinforcement.
The starting player for this phase is decided by the player who controls Sparta.
There are several rounds where the players use an influence tile collected earlier, as an action point to place up to 2 forces from any city the control to any battle locations. All the 2 influence tiles must be used before any of the one influence tiles. The players which took less influence will have an advantage of deploying their forces later.
In addition in each placement move, the player can burn an influence marker from a city he controls to move 2 more forces from that city.
There are several constraints on the army placement.
The first player to deploy forces to a location is the main force for attack or defense, and is eligible to win the VPs from the battle.
The owner of the city defending the location must grant permission for any force to participate on defense. The main attacker must approve any ally for the attack as well.
Once a city attacks another, either by the location of the battle or through army deployment, they must be opponents in other battles.
Conversely once a city assists another in the deployments, they must be allies on all future deployments.
The deployment phase gives the player a lot of options of where and how strong to defend, where and how strong to attack.
Battle resolution:
Most battle locations include a naval and army component. The first action is fought to gain an advantage in the second. The second action determines the winner. The winner of the battle takes the tile and VPs. If the defender is defeated the city also gets a defeat marker which makes the city less valuable at the end of the game.
To fight a battle each side totals up their strength compare the force ratio on a CRT for the die roll that the force must make to get a hit. The first side to get 2 hits wins the battle. The loser loses the weakest unit.
Think about it, a Euro that uses a Combat Results Table! It warms the old wargamer in me.
The end of turn contains one of my favorite rules.
“All leaders die and statues are erected in their honor by the grateful citizens”
Comments:
Is Perikles a simulation of the Peloponnesian war? No. However, many things (large and small) show quite an attention to the details of the theme.
The special counters named after people are historical with what they allow as outlined in the components section.
The forces of each city state align historically. Sparta has a very strong army but a poor navy, Athens has a powerful navy but mediocre army. Thebes is strong on the ground but almost no navy. Corinth is balanced and the strongest of the smaller states. Argos and Megara are bit players. Persia is in the wings ready to intervene.
The locations for the battles are historical and the intrinsic defenders or attackers again align with history. Lesbos in rebellion with Athens, Syracuse (Sicily) helping Sparta.
The battles are random with the advantage to the side with the biggest battalions. It even uses a CRT for crying out loud, what more can you ask.
The game play includes many difficult decisions and tradeoffs for the players.
Do you go for the most influence at the cost of not having the later turns in the force placement so you can’t respond to opponent attacks?
Do you focus on influence, winning battles, gaining leadership of cities to get victory points?
Do you help an opponent with his defense so a city that your leader counters retain value?
Do you trade influence to get stronger forces to help win a battle?
Do you trade influence to be able to get your candidates set up for to control cities for VPs?
Decisions such as these lead to a rich game with a good bit of strategy.
Final thought:
Do I consider this one of the best games from Martin Wallace? That is a very tough question. Age of Steam, Struggle of Empires and Liberte are among some of my favorite games, and Perikles falls in that category. The game play is different enough from the others that this an outstanding addition to one’s collection.