Concordia (2013)

How To Play Concordia

Setup the Game

The quick intro card does an excellent job of explaining how to set up the game board and distribute resources.

1. Shuffle City tokens and randomly assign to cities based on their characters, then flip to display their type of goods.
2. Assign bonus markers based on the most valuable type of goods of each territory.
3. Arrange Sale cards according to their number with the highest matching the number of players and discard the rest. Then place the top 7 cards in the display area of the game board.
4. Players place their scoring markers at zero, one of each colonist on Rome, two of each colonist in their storage space, along with 6 predetermined goods. Assign each player 15 houses of their color and 7 starting cards. Give five coins to the first player while others get an additional coin for every place further in line.

Game Play

The game flows in clockwise order, with player turn consisting of playing a card out of their hand and performing the action. Used cards go into a face-up discard pile in the order they were played. Players can buy the cards on the game board to expand their playing options.

Personality Cards

In Concordia, you take actions with the personality cards. Every player starts with 7 identical cards and uses up one per turn.

Tribune can be used to recover used cards. After recovering more than three cards, the player also gets one coin for every additional card. Secondary action allows the player to purchase 1 new colonist and then place it into Roma from his storehouse.

Architect card gives the player a number of move actions equal to the number of colonists on the board to distribute freely among them. Land colonists can only move on brown paths, while sea colonists fare on blue. Colonists are not placed on cities, but on routes between them instead. They can pass each other on the path but two cannot occupy the same spot at the end of the move action.

Once all movement actions have been exhausted, the player has the option to build houses in cities that are adjacent to their colonists, for a price determined by the type of good that city produces and the number of other houses in the city.

Prefect lets the player produce goods or collect a cash bonus. Production takes place in a province of players’ choice, where they have housing. The amount of coins received is determined by the number of visible coins on the bonus markers.

Colonist either add a new colonist in Roma at the cost of 1 food and 1 tool or provide 5 coins plus 1 for every colonist they have on the board.

Mercator is executed in two steps: first, 3 coins are received from the bank, then two types of goods can be traded with the bank – either bought or sold.

Diplomat allows the player to execute the action of the top discarded card of any other player.

Senator allows players to buy up to two personality cards from the game board display.

Consul lets the player buy one card from the game board display for less than it takes to buy with the Senator card.

How To Win Concordia

The game is over once the last personality card is bought, or when a player builds his 15th house. The player who has completed the game-ending action gets the Concordia card worth 7 victory points. The other players play out their last turn before summing up their points.

The player with the most VP wins the game. If there is a tie, the player owning PRÆFECTUS MAGNUS or would receive him next in the course of the game wins.

Concordia Review

“Concordia is an easy-to-grasp euro game with a lot of potential. The unique spin on the theme is refreshing and is well executed. It is an ideal bridge between new and experienced players and can be a great way to introduce more people to the genre. Once you’re up to speed, a game can be completed within an hour, making it a great addition to the board game rotation.”

Luka Kusic, gamecows.com

“There are many scoring options, which makes it hard to tell who is winning, especially because all the scoring is at the end of the game, so everyone stays involved to the end. The variety of actions and mechanisms in Concordia work together smoothly to create a very satisfying game experience. I know the fact that the scoring is only at the end might bother some, but for me it increased the tension. Concordia was an overlooked game by me when it came out in 2014. And that’s a shame. A nice thing is PD-Verlag, the publisher, keeps on releasing new maps for the game to keep the game fresh.”

Peter van der Helm, tabletoptogether.com

“Concordia is an advertisement for the best that Euro games have to offer: simple rules, tense decisions, player interaction (without overt player conflict), and near limitless replayability. The box is ugly, true, but don’t be fooled by the woman on the cover: Concordia is far from soulless, and it is one game that will keep you coming back for more, time and time again. Concordia is a true classic.”

FarmerLenny, islaythedragon.com

The content of this article is originally from Board Game Geek and gamecows.com. For more information and a better understanding of the game, you can watch the videos below.