Fantasy Flight Games has announced the May release of Olympus (MSRP $59.95), a sophisticated Euro-style strategy board game designed by Andrea Chiarvesio and Luca Iennaco and originally published by Stratelibri. Designed for 3-5 players ages 12 and up, Olympus is a strategy game based on worker-placement and resource management. The object of the game, which takes about 2 hours to play, is to score Victory points and gain dominance over the other city-states and control of the Peloponnesus.

 

Each player in the game leads a different city-state in Ancient Greece (Athens, Corinth, Sparty, Thebes, Argos, etc.).  Each city is defined by values (population, culture, military) and the productivity of its resources (grain, fish, venison).  Each turn a player decides to send one of the city’s three priests to worship one of ten different Deities. Since the Deities are specialized, praying to them can influence a city’s values and production. Players can use the gods for their own mortal purposes to increase food production, create new buildings, or go to war.

 

The deluxe Olympus game box (11.6” x 11.6” x 2.9”) includes: a colorful Mount Olympus game board, five Polis boards, over 180 cards, a rulebook, and over 100 playing pieces. The game, which does not use dice, provides players with a number of potential winning strategies including resource gathering, building, and cultural development along with more aggressive options such as war and plague-spreading.