Olympia 2000 (v. Chr.) First Impressions

Olympia 2000 (v. Chr.) sees ancient Greek athletes, as the pinnacle of psychical perfection…

…and some other dudes.

Players use simultaneously played cards to compete in ancient Olympic events, such as long-jump, discus, or archery. The cards have a picture of the athlete as well as a rating for his skills in each of the different events. Often times, an athlete will be very good at one event and be very poor in others, while some athletes are simply too inept for words, and still others are god-like. The key to the game is using your cards wisely, because although the best athlete gets the prize for the current event, the worst athlete gets to pick the up-coming event.

That pretty much says it all really…

Some event tokens for the 5 events (Discus, Running, Long Jump, Archery and All Round) are laid out. These are placed under the game board starting with value 2 upwards to the 5’s. Two number “2’s” are chosen randomly and are added to the current and upcoming event slot on the board.

Each player gets 4 cards like those above with a different ranking in each event.

A Round

Each player simultaneously picks a card and then reveals it. The player with the athlete in the best position wins the ‘trick’ for a lack of a better phrase. Maybe “event” is the word? Either way, they take the token for the event which is worth that many points.

If you play a guy on crutches you get a point token which represents the crowds’ appreciation of your injured effort.

The token for the next event slides into position 1 and whoever finished last in the previous event chooses the next token by selecting the lowest numbered token for an event. That’s only if you finished last, if you play a card of someone who was disqualified you don’t finish so can’t pick.

This continues until the deck runs out and you played all the cards in your hand.

Most points win.

Olympia 2000 (v. Chr.) Summary

Olympia 2000 (v. Chr.), at the time of writing, is 20 years old and could do with an update but apart from that, it’s pretty fun. Trick-taking games are plenty with ebbes being my favourite at the moment.

I like the idea of playing a competitor in an event than just a number for the sake of it.

Jesta ThaRogue