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Ostia
Author: Stefan Risthaus
Publishers: PS Games, Mayfair Games, Pro Ludo
Year: 2005


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The sea harbour that supplies Rome a lot of transhipment of goods takes place, and we as players are part of it to take our pick from the profits that go with it. The goods come in cards, and the profit in red wooden discs that are points that eventually lead to victory. Each player has a small player board on which the harbour is depicted. One warehouse already is on the board; players can build up to four. Also on the board is an oversight of a game round and scoring.

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Each round a player is dealt five goods cards; one of them is put on the warehouse side of the neutral dividing card that depicts a warehouse on one side, and a boat on the other. The other four cards are put on the boat side; they will have to be taken ashore and put in one of the warehouses this round. A Senate card is revealed; this card shows the value of the goods that the Senate would like to get in the city. A second revealed Senate card already gives insight for the following round.
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Each player auctions the four goods on the boat side, two by two, one set per round. All players may make one bid, the minimum amount is depicted on the cards. A smaller number shows how much of each good is in the game. Cards that are won are put on the warehouse side of the dividing card; if the auctioning player decides to take the cards himself, he pays one more than the highest bid to the bank. This continues until each player has unshipped his goods and all have their cards on the warehouse side.
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During the next phase the cards are secretly divided between the Forum, the Senate, and the warehouses. Because a player could decide to leave one of these spaces empty, two dummy cards can be mixed among them to give not too much insight to other players. Players are not allowed to place more than three different goods (although they may place any number of these three) in the Forum and the Senate.
Money is needed to acquire valuable goods in the auction rounds, therefore a player will bring some goods to the Forum to exchange it for money. In the Senate it is all about status; here goods are oferred that may bring points.
When each player has divided his cards, all cards except those in the warehouses are revealed. Goods in the Forum bring money according to a chart; when a player for instance is the only player with just one goods card of a kind, he earns 15 money for it. When more cards are sold by the same or other players, the money earned already shows a much smaller amount per card on the chart.

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The values of cards in the Senate are added per player and the one with the highest total gets three red discs. The second highest gets two, and the third one disc. Cards put in the warehouse may be taken to the next round so these are put on the warehouse side in a players hand under the condition that every card must be covered by a built warehouse. These warehouses ccan be built any time during a round and costs 10 money.
After the fifth round the game ends. A last bonus is awarded for the three players with the most money, and every player gets one point for every different good he has in his warehouses. The player with the most point has won the game.

The auctions are the heart of the game, but with only one single bidding round the player that has to start the bidding knows almost for sure he will not get the goods; each next player can exceed the bid with an advantage for the last player, and even then the auctioner has the possibility of taking the cards himself. Players that have goods that are not valuable in the Senate or even do not appear on the Senate card, have a clear disadvantage. There is a small manoeuvring space: if ivory is low valued in the Senate this round, but has a high value next round, it is wise to keep it and put it in your warehouse. And a player who hopes to earn a lot of money, could think of putting a valuable Senate card on the Forum with hopes he is the only one who has done so.
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The warehouse/boat card is subject of much confusion; some players have difficulty with the orientation as the position of the symbols on the front and back of the card are logically their mirror image. It would have been easier to put the acquired goods cards temporary in the warehouse space on the board.

There has been obvious effort to give the game a professional look; the playing boards are of very high quality. Instead of the sturdy wooden discs many other publisher would have used a cardboard scoring list. It is a pity that the paper money is not in line of this quality; it is too thin and has reminiscence of the machine coated paper money that Ravensburger used in their games in the 70’s.

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Unfortunately it must be said that ‘Ostia’ is not captivating. Every round is the same: auctioning, bidding, and dividing the cards; with little to none tactical decisions. The rule that a player does not have to accept the highest bid, but can take a lower one does not add anything as ninetynin percent of the time a player will go for the highest bid. The dummy cards are useless; players do not care and do not pay any attention how other players divide their cards. There is simply no tension in the game. ‘Ostia’ pretends to be a strategic trading game but is merely a simple and not very exciting auction game. And there are already enough, but better, of the latter...
© 2006 Richard van Vugt

Ostia, Stefan Risthaus, PS Games, 2005 - 2 to 5 players, 12 years and up, 60 to 75 minutes

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