Alea Iacta Est
Alea Iacta Est is Latin for "The die has been cast".
Players take on the role of Caesar and compete for the most prestige points. This happens by clever placement of his/her eight dice, which are placed on five different buildings.
At the Castrum (barracks), new provinces can be conquered, while patricians can be recruited at the Forum Romanum to be sent to those provinces. At the Senatus, cards can be won for bonuses that will be kept secret until the end of the game. The Templum awards prestige points directly from the Goddess Fortuna. Each die that does not win any of these ends the round at the Latrina, where it provides its owner with a “repete!” chip, which can be used to re-roll dice or can be traded in two-to-one for prestige points at the end of the game. Each building has special rules as to how the dice can be placed, allowing many tactical possibilities with any roll of the dice.
User Reviews (2)
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I’ve played a few games where dice are rolled and used as worker placement mechanics, but Alea Iacta Est throws in a very nice twist into the works and creates a really good game.
Gameplay is easy and fun. Starting with your eight die, you roll, and chose any number of those die to play on one of the buildings to gain their benefits. Here are a rundown of the buildings you can choose from
Templum: The first player to play here uses one die of any value and then the second has to you two die to total higher value. Third, three higher and so on. Playing here gives you the bonus of random victory points.
Castrum: Here you play sets of die to get to choose from a number of lands that have “been conquered”, although no conquering is actually done in the game. The player with the higher number of die, not value selects first and down from there. Each different land has a victory point number attributed to it.
Senatus: Play your die here in a run to get a selection of Senate cards. These cards are multipliers and bonuses that work with what you have built.
Forum: Place your die here to get to select members to govern the lands you have conquered. Each member comes with victory point amount similar to the lands. You can have one man and female for each land. You can place any value die here, or values of 1 & 4, or 2 & 3, can be played in one turn. However, the higher the value will get bumped down the line of selection as others played until they are bumped into the latrine.
The Latrine: is the last place to go and is where all of your left over die will end up at the end of the round. For each die you get a reroll chip.
Once you chose a building to play on the turn goes to the next player. Once everyone has placed on a single building all players reroll their die for new results and place again. However, one person may only play one die and another may play a whole set of die, but once one player has placed all their die the round ends and whatever die you have left end up in the Latrine.
The game ends after the fifth round for 4-5 players and sixth round for 2-3 players. At that time the players count up each of the points they have gained from each of the buildings. Reroll chips are worth 2:1 VP’s and lands without governors are worth one less than their total value.
Mechanics that I Enjoy: I like how in most cases for the buildings you play on it is the number of die that you are rolling, not their total value that wins you the right for first pick. So if you have four one value die, you go before someone who has two sixes in the Castrum.
Additionally, I like now there is a good amount of interaction as players are fighting over the first action on a building. Players are often trying to one up their opponent to get the land or action they want first.
I don’t want to sell the interaction in this game short because that is what sends it home for me. (Also, all the dice) But because you can only place one spot each round before rerolling you will have to choose, do I play another die to make my set or run longer, or place someplace else. Someone could play against you and challenge your place, so you want to secure it, and you also do not know what your die roll will be next! Also, if you dilly dally too long then your opponents will use all their die and send you to the Latrine. So as you can see there are a good amount of options with overwhelming you. Great balance.
The one con that I do have against the game is that the iconography on the Senate cards is about as readable as hieroglyphics. You will need to have the rules handy to figure it out during your first few play throughs.
Overall, I like this game. I would say this is a good waist deep game. The strategy and mechanics are not so much that new players and gamers are going to be in over their head. And at the same time its not like playing in the kiddie pool either. Its has a nice bit of strategy even though there are dice. The interaction is also nice for new and mature gamers. Plus,. it has dice! Lots and lots of dice rolls that are always fun.
From Wikipedia: Alea iacta est (Latin: “The die has been cast”) is a Latin phrase attributed by Suetonius to Julius Caesar on as he led his army across the River Rubicon. With this step, he entered Italy at the head of his army in defiance and began his long civil war against Pompey and the Optimates. The phrase is still used today to mean that events have passed a point of no return, that something inevitably will happen.
If you’ve got friends or/and family at dinner party, and someone want to play a game. Not to complex or time consuming, this is it.
Alea Iacta Est was the words from the Roman War Hero, Julius Caesar, when he crossed the river Rubicon with his army, and marched against Rome, where he became Emperor Julius Caesar.
You roll your dices, and place a part of them, where they are most needed. There are 5 destinations where you can place your dices, read the Publisher Overview, then it’s the next players turn and so on.
On your turn, reroll the rest of you dices and place them again.
When one of you are out of dices, the roll fase stops.
The player with the best result will collect his/her reward in form of:
The Templum: Points directly from the Godess Fortuna,
The Senatus: Bonus Cards,
The Castrum: Provinces in the Roman Empire,
The Forum Romanum: Patricians to populate the Provinces,
or The Latrina: Unused dices are transformed to a reroll chip.
This was 1 round. At the end of the 5 round, the game ends, and points are counted.
Behave, and be a good ruler. But mind your back and beware of friends or familymembers calling themself Brutus.