Augustus (Rise Of) - Roman Bingo

We played several games of Augustus yesterday and I thought I'd post some thoughts.

Augustus is a Roman themed game where you try and control Provinces and Senators with your Legionnaires and plays from 2 to 6 players (we played with 3 or 4).

I won't go through all the rules but the game is known as 'Roman Bingo'. Tokens are pulled randomly from a bag and all players simultaneously place red soldier meeples onto cards they have in front of them.

There are also bonus tiles for scoring 3 cards of a kind, for having gold and wheat and various other achievements.

The game is quick to explain and also quick to play, around 30/40 minutes per game.

At first it seems quite random but as you play, you realise there is depth in what cards you choose and if you want to go for the bonuses. Some cards are easy to complete but only have a low score value. Some are hard and have a high value. Some have special abilities which might help or even hinder you.

I enjoyed the challenge of working out what I wanted to go for, and there is a nice tension as several people can be waiting for that one specific token to be drawn from the bag. I like how the scoring is fairly easy to work out but you can't glance at another player's cards and calculate their exact score, so you are never sure until the end how well you are doing. I also like the variety of cards, sometimes the decision of which one to take next is quite hard.

I don't think everyone will like this game, I think it might be a bit simplistic for some, and there is definitely a random element because of the cards and tokens which are drawn. The bonuses can cause wild swings in score, if you manage to snag 3 or more, you are going to do well and there's not much your opponents can do about it.

However I like the game a lot and if you are looking for a fun, quick, family style game you can't go wrong with Augustus.