Akropolis Athena

• Designer: Jules Messaud
• Publisher: Gigamic
• Players: 1-4
• Age: 8+
• Time: 25 minutes
• Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3WEMPYo
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Akropolis Athena is an expansion of the Akropolis base game, set in the Ancient Mediterranean where architects compete to build prestigious cities. The theme revolves around gaining the favor of Athena, the goddess of wisdom, war, and artisans, to earn riches and honor.

In this game, players must use their skills to complete specific Construction cards by building layouts within their cities that match the cards. As players complete these cards, they can acquire parts of the Statue of Athena and gain Mini-tiles to enhance their cities. The goal is to strategically build your city while completing these Construction cards to gain additional points and advantages.

The game integrates the core rules of the AKROPOLIS base game with the added challenge of completing Construction cards. Each architect can complete each Construction card only once and must manage their resources and placements carefully to maximize their points.  In each game, four of the 18 Construction cards are chosen at random to be in play for the game.  Each of these has 4 mini-tiles placed underneath it (also at random).  Additionally, each of the four Construction cards will be associated with a piece of the statue of Athena.

As you play Akropolis, you can also complete a Construction card by building a layout of tiles in your area as shown on the card.  When you complete a Construction, you take the matching piece of the statue associated with that card as well as one of the mini-tiles found beneath that card and then immediately place it in the city.  The mini tiles could be additional plazas, small one-tile districts or even bicolored districts to give you more flexibility in connecting areas of your city.  You can only complete each Construction once.

The game concludes when there is only one tile left in the Construction Site and all the stacks have been used. Points are counted as usual, but players who have completed the Statue of Athena gain extra points for their Stones (5 points each instead of one point each), adding a layer of strategic depth to the gameplay. The ultimate goal is to have the most prestigious city by the end of the game, as determined by the accumulated points.

My thoughts on the game

So, I’m honestly not usually one for expansions – but Akropolis is a game that has been a favorite here since it arrived; still getting plays on a fairly regular basis.  Some of my friends who had been at UK Games Expo said they saw an expansion for Akropolis and had heard many good things about it, and as a result, I was keenly looking forward to checking it out.

This expansion takes nothing away from the game; it only adds the Construction cards.  These four goals give you more things to consider when building your cities.  If you’re already playing the expert version of Akropolis, you’ll definitely have a lot to think about!

The difficulty of the particular Constructions is quite variable, and you’ll have to try to gauge this difficulty level at the start of the game.  I think that it can be quite easy to get caught going down a rabbit hole of a particularly tough construction goal and then end up missing out of the scoring opportunities of the base game.  

It’s important to remember that the Constructions do not necessarily score you any extra points.  The mini-tiles can be quite valuable – providing ways to link up different areas on your board or perhaps give you an additional plaza to increase your scoring multiplier in a desired color.  

The increase in the bonus for leftover stones can really be huge; but from my experience, it takes a LOT of effort to get the full statue of Athena built – so much so that I’m not sure if I’d ever specifically go for it as a strategy from the start.  Sure, I might go out of my way if I had three of the four already done – but for me, losing out on traditional scoring doesn’t seem to make it worth the work of the full statue.  Of course, YMMV, and I’m likely to now lose the next three games of this to someone who gets a huge bonus at the end for their stones.

That being said, some of the mini-tiles really give you some neat scoring opportunities.  The tiles with half a purple on them can be quick and easy scoring temples.  The tiles with a half blue can be really handy in making a huge apartment block and connecting different areas.  Additionally, being able to plop down a single tile on level 3, 4 or maybe even 5 can really lead to some huge bonus scores if you work it right.  

I would say that this expansion adds five to ten minutes onto the length of your regular Akropolis game as it will take slightly longer to do your planning and tile laying with the extra options to consider.  If you like Akropolis, there is no reason to think that you wouldn’t like this too.  As it is a piecemeal addition to the game, you can include it and actually never play its elements.  I wouldn’t necessarily suggest that – but you should take advantage of the opportunities as they arise with Akropolis Athena.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it!
• I like it. – Craig M.  Dale Y
• Neutral.
• Not for me…

Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3WEMPYo