Ostia
Players: 1-4
Playtime: 100-200
Board Game Geek
Do you remember a few years ago when there was a meme about how often men think about the Roman Empire? My sister’s mind was blown when she asked me about it and I responded something akin to, “oh yeah, I mean how can you even think of roads without thinking of the Romans?”. I could practically hear her eyes rolling in her skull. Well, Ostia is not just about a shipping port in Rome, it’s now my entire Roman Empire.
When Ostia first hit the gaming scene I remember seeing it, thinking that the O in Ostia seemed like a ripoff of the O in Oath (in hindsight, it’s not even close). Then when I heard it was a mancala game, I completely (and ignorantly) wrote the whole thing off. I’ve since come around on how cool mancala systems can be in games and I am so glad that I gave Ostia another look.
Right out of the gate, Ostia has some of the best production qualities around. Beautiful artwork, a great organizer, wooden buildings and ships, and optional dual-layered player boards. It’s a bit of a table hog but it’s all so pretty that it’s hard to be upset about it.
Let’s get back to the mancala aspect of Ostia. If you’re unfamiliar with mancala, here’s a brief overview. On the player boards for Ostia, there are 6 sections with your ships in them. Select one of the sections, count your ships in it, and give yourself resources equal to the number of ships. Next, pick all the ships up and drop them, one-at-a-time, into the sequential sections. Then, when you place the final ship you get to take the action of the spot you dropped it in
This is the bulk of the game and with some careful planning, pulling off huge turns can make you feel like a genius. Unfortunately for me, I usually only see maybe one genius-turn a game , while I have more than a few total duds while I’m trying to build up to something big. But nothing ever feels wasted, even on the dud turns. It all feels like momentum.
All of this momentum is due to the actions being interconnected. The Move action sails your ships on the main board, which opens up more ports for you to build and can gain bonuses for being the first to sail there. Shipbuilding gets more ships for your player board to make a better mancala engine, but you can also get more ships for sailing.
Ordering lets you purchase cards from an open row that get you more resources and amphora, which net you points. Build allows you to build on the ports you moved to, opening up two bonuses; you can now use the port tile bonus (for trading or end-game points), and the buildings in the port city can be used to unlock bonuses in your own board. There’s also a Trade action that gets better the more port cities you’ve explored.
Finally, an Admininstation action which acts as a pseudo wild action to do anything but Trade. The cool thing here though is that you get to do the mancala again from the Administration spot so you can effectively take multiple turns in a row. It’s extremely satisfying to pull this off well.
I think one of my favorite things in mid-level euro games is the variety of things to do. Games where doing a little bit of everything can be a winning strategy. Because of the mancala mechanic, Ostia feels like it is practically forcing players to not only adapt, but to make sure that every part of the game is being touched upon in some way by the player. It’s simply not possible to get boxed into a bad strategy.
However, that’s not to say that some strategies are better than others and Ostia most definitely rewards expediency. There are tokens and scoring tiles that act as bonuses for being the first to achieve them. Even a bad overall strategy could mean you’re snagging bonuses instead of others. The end game triggers are all based on completing these specific objectives. That essentially means Ostia is a race to do all of these things, at least a little bit, and hope that you did enough overall to squeak by your oppononents.
Another genius part of Ostia that I love is the rewards track. By moving your token up the track, you can move into brackets that make everything worth more points in the end. You may have the most buildings built, but if you haven’t gone up the rewards track, those buildings may only be worth 6 points apiece. At the top of the track? They are worth a whopping 12 points apiece.
This can lead to some huge swings in scores and less experienced players will likely feel the sting when it comes time to tally everything up in the end. I feel like this is also an appropriate spot to talk about another sore spot that can rear its ugly head…analysis paralysis.
Because of the mancala/point-salad buffet that the game is serving up, it’s very easy for turns to drag as players try and suss out the best move. It’s also very easy to start doing something and quickly realize that isn’t going to work, and re-doing a turn in this game isn’t super easy.
Obviously these sharp corners can dull with experience and repeat plays. And if you’re anything like me, you’ll want as many repeat plays as humanly possible. Even while writing this review, I find myself itching to set up another game. And this is my real Ostia experience…it’s a hook that keeps me coming back for more.
Presentation
+ Amazing production quality
+ Colorful components and smart symbology
+/- Main board seems like it is maybe too big and open, while player boards seem a bit cramped
Getting it Played
+ Extremely smart insert eases setup
+ Tons of variability in the cards and tiles
+ Flow of the game and actions are easy to teach and understand
+/- Final scoring can be a bit tricky to understand
– Turn do-overs and potential analysis paralysis could make the game’s length stretch
Gameplay and Fun Factor
+ Turns are typically short and feel impactful
+ Nothing is ever truly blocked, bonuses for being the first to do something though
+ Two-player games can be done in about 75 minutes once familiar
+/- Mancala may not be for everyone
– Downtime could be brutal at higher player counts and people that take long turns
I hope you enjoyed my review! If you want more, you can also follow us on our Instagram page.Or you can see my other reviews in my geeklist!
Allie