Antike

Antike is Mac Gerdts’s original rondel civilization game, played across a double-sided map of the Mediterranean and Near East. Each nation produces marble, iron, or gold, spends resources to found cities and temples, advances navigation and military technologies, and moves legions or galleys to settle new territory. A player’s marker circles the rondel to choose actions; moving farther than the free allowance costs resources, making the order and timing of every decision as important as the action itself. Victory comes from recruiting ancient personages for achievements such as building temples, controlling cities, advancing science, or destroying an enemy temple. There are no event cards and combat contains no dice, so expansion, deterrence, and diplomacy remain visible and largely calculable. The result is a broad civilization contest with surprisingly little downtime and a strong incentive to pursue several paths instead of relying on conquest alone.