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The Romans loved to strut around in their robes and be centre stage. I think they saw themselves as the influencers of the ancient world. If social media was around in their time, guaranteed we would all be eating Caesar endorsed cereal and chilling out listening to an Augustus curated daily-mix. But not, I suppose, without good reason. The Roman Empire had its fingers and toes in everything back then. You name it, it was shaping it. And add in the authority of the Gods and, well, they were unarguably the movers and shakers in all realms.
Fitting then that we are playing influence hungry Roman senators in Quorum by Devir Games. Political power is there for the taking and we have 12 rounds in which to become the most followed leader of them all.
In terms of mechanics, Quorum is simple. Take a card. Play a card. 12 cards. Boom. Done. And I love that! Whilst I adore words and writing texts, reading rule books is not my idea of fun. I want to get straight into the table action. A few “do this then do that” and then let me at it. I’ll work out the significance as I go. I know my first attempt won’t benefit from the nuances and insider knowledge. And I might beg a mulligan or two (usually only when playing against my husband). But it usually gives me a taste and that’s what gets me hooked.
And so, in Quorum, each turn you will be taking a card and playing one from your hand which has some effect on the 6 available provinces. The action of playing the card will trigger influence and points (or at least you hope it will!). After the 12th card is laid, the player with the greatest sway will be crowned the Mega Influencer of the time!
Bu simplicity ends where scoring begins. However, I am getting ahead of myself. Let’s briefly go though the components and how the game looks on the table.
There’s a central board which organises the 6 different provinces in play. Players also have markers on the track running around each province and a score marker in the middle of the central board. Province tokens then get placed on each province section of the board (starting with number #2). There’s also a handy player aid for each player, 14 God cards and 72 Rome cards. After giving each player 4 Rome cards and a market of 5 cards near the central board to represent “Rome”, the rest get shuffled together to form a single deck. As cards are taken from Rome they get replaced with face up cards unless a God gets flipped. Then, it stays face down until it is selected. When that happens, the effect is applied, and it then just takes up hand real estate until the game is over. And that’s it!
Final Thoughts
With play focussed on taking one card and playing one card out of a small hand size, every decision counts. Hand management is the permanent focus throughout. And we found that although those God cards can feel useful when played, knowing they take up space in your 4 card hand for the rest of the game means picking them up can be an interesting trade off. But it’s a fun gamble to pick one as, even though they let you increase influence in any province, they then affect the value in each of the two provinces adjacent to the one you chose (the value will go up on one and down on the other). And that is important because your player tokens keep track of what your current value is worth in each province during the game. And end game scoring in provinces is based on your marker position multiplied by the current influence value for the particular province. Well, it is if you are in the lead in a given province. If you’re not, a penalty system is applied reducing the value based on your position.
The power value of each card and which province it belongs to also requires you to balance what you are playing and when. But because cards belong to one of four different types: military, trade, architecture, and intrigue - and they each score differently, again you feel like you need to focus but also work on them all.
And whilst the gameplay in Quorum is easy to learn, I will confess that this end game scoring phase took us a little time to wrap our heads around. Not because any one calculation is overly complex. There’s just so many of them. It’s almost like province scoring requires one side of your brain to be focussing on that throughout the game, whilst each scoring card type you have present amongst your diplomatic dozen has the other half occupied. You want to do well in everything, but you can’t because even each of these score differently – Architecture is based on how many different cards are in your final tableau, Trade is based on matching icons present etc. Thankfully the player aids show how the provinces score as well as the four different card types but trying to think of everything all at once can feel overwhelming at times.
Ultimately, trying to score well in one place, be it province or card type, will mean sacrifices need to be made in others. Trying to score maximally in all places is noble but impossible. And for me, the special synapse sizzle in a game always comes when doing x means I can’t do y, but I really want to do y. Just maybe not right now. Unless it might be my only chance……
In Quorum, banking points now versus manoeuvring for later scoring opportunities is the big picture question. But the nitty gritty comes in the significance of the card you pick each of those 12 turns. One card will have the potential to boost scoring in so many different areas. But it will depend massively on what you have already played and whether it is also having the desired effect in the provinces. And with more players (the game plays up to 4) comes more influence manipulation, leading to some sudden and exciting reversals of fortune! You’d have to be a foolish opponent to leave cards in Rome that you know will boost a fellow player’s score!
For that reason, playing at a higher player count is best for those who like to tussle because each province feels like a proper fight. At 2P, with no variation to close down the races and no increase in the number of guaranteed God cards in play in a given game, there’s a chance you might focus on equal but opposite provinces, making the game feel more open and perhaps less interactive. Rome cards can also get stuck if nobody fancies what is on offer. The ups and downs of the influence tokens are also minimal if God cards just don’t come up in the deck. Having said that, some players may prefer less chaos and a more multiplayer solitaire vibe – with end game positions based on how well you managed your own positions in the absence of outside influence!
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