Clash of Cultures Monumental Edition

• Designer: Christian Marcussen
• Publisher: Wizkids
• Players: 2-4
• Age: 14+
• Time: 3-4 hours
• Played twice. Review copy provided by Wizkids

Says the publisher: “ Clash of Cultures: Monumental Edition brings back the classic game of exploration, expansion, and development with the Clash of Cultures base game and the Civilizations and Aztecs expansions in one box! Grow your civilization, advance your culture and tech, and leave your mark by building wonders, with this edition of the game including fully-sculpted miniatures of the Seven Wonders.  In Clash of Cultures, each player leads a civilization from a single settlement to a mighty empire. Players must explore their surroundings, build large cities, research advances and conquer those who stand in the way. The game features a modular board for players to explore, 48 distinct advances, seven mighty wonders, and loads of miniatures and cards. The winner will create a culture that will be remembered and admired for millennia.”

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Both were designed by John Clowdus

Art for Exordium by Aaron Nakahara

Art for Cacti by Liz Lahner

All published by Small Box Games

Exordium and Cacti are 2p games

Each takes 20-30 minutes.

Review by Jonathan Franklin

Review copies donated by the publisher without additional compensation

Both games were played at least four times

I have enjoyed games designed by John Clowdus for over ten years. Early games were Elemental Rift, Omen, and Politico.  His first designs were published in 2007 and I have fond memories of playing Omen (2011) with my then young son on the floor. Omen has since grown out of its VHS case packaging and become a very popular two-player card battler.  More recently, John sent a care package with a few more recent releases and I am excited to review them now.

These are some of the less confrontational games he has designed and Small Box Games has published, so if you want an OG battler, only one of these might be for you.

Cacti

Cacti is a very clean 2 player set-collection game that comes in a standard 54-card deckbox. It has a double-sided sheet of rules folded into the box and two greatly appreciated Turn Reference cards. You start the game with five Cacti cards between the two players. Each card has one cactus of one of the four types on it.  There are also five sale cards, which have two types of cacti on them, always with three cacti of one of the four types and two cacti of one of the other three types.

On your turn, you may choose one of two common actions,

1. Grow Action – Take all cacti of a single type from the middle. Often there will be two cards with the same type and one of each of the others, so you might get two or three cacti of the same type in the Grow action. In compensation, your opponent may either take all the remaining cacti from the middle of a single type or Sell, the second possible action.

Exit: The Game Advent Calendar – The Hunt for the Golden Book