Fair warning: I'm a sucker for any game with an Ancient Roman theme. So, when I saw Antony and Cleopatra in my Friendly Not-So-Local Game Store I immediately grabbed it. How could I go wrong? A game about Julius Caesar and Cleopatra trying to dominate the Roman Senate? Surely this had to be right up my alley. Was it? Let's dive in and find out...

Caesar & Cleopatra is a two player card game that depicts the political manipulation of the Roman Senate by Julius Caesar and Cleopatra. The game comes with 135 cards: 74 Influence, 26 Action, 21 Patrician, 8 Vote of Confidence, and 6 Influence Bonus cards. The cards are about two-thirds as wide as a standard playing card and perhaps a quarter-inch taller, making them feel very narrow. They are of decent quality and should hold up pretty well for casual play. The art on the cards is pretty nice and evokes both ancient Rome and Egypt quite well. Overall, the game has a nice presentation and the art helps set the mood of the game: political backstabbing.

The object of Caesar & Cleopatra is to gain the most Victory Points. Victory Points are gained by collecting Patricians and fulfilling the requirements of the Influence Bonus cards.

At the beginning of the game, both players receive a random Influence Bonus card. This card gives you a secret mission that, if completed, awards you two extra Victory Points at the end of the game. For example, “Collect 3 Praetors” and get two Victory Points.

The Patrician cards are now set up into five stacks: 5 Senator, 5 Praetor, 5 Quaestor, 3 Censor, and 3 Aedilis. The Patricians are clearly labeled as to what group they belong to and each group is also color-coded for easy sorting. This is a nice touch, as it makes the game look more colorful and makes the cards easy to differentiate. The only thing I really didn't care for here are the names given to the Patricians. Granted, the portraits on the Patrician cards have a slight goofiness to them, but I could've done without names like Advocatus Diabolus, Beatus Usus, Justitianus Anus, or Glutaeus Musculus. This is a minor quibble, however, as we got a good laugh from some of the names and we weren't exactly playing Avalon Hill's Republic of Rome. Anyway, once the Patrician cards are set up, the Vote of Confidence cards are shuffled and placed next to the Patricians.

Each player then takes their set of cards and separates the Influence cards from the Action cards. In a regular game, each player arranges their 13 action cards however they want in a face down stack. However, as recommended by the rules, we just shuffled the Action decks for our first game. Each player then takes two each of the Influence cards numbered 1 to 5 and sets them aside. The remaining Influence cards are shuffled and placed face-down in a stack.

Next, Each player places five Influence cards (from 1 to 5) face down on their side of the patrician groups, one card to each group. The remaining cards are kept as a starting hand. Thus, both players have the same opening hand (Influence Cards 1 through 5).

Gameplay now begins with the Cleopatra player. On their turn, a player can be Active or Passive. Passive turns are easy: discard up to five cards from your hand and draw back up to five from either or both the Influence or Action stacks. Active turns allow you to play one Action card if you wish (see below), but require you to: 1.) play one or two Influence cards, 2.) refill your hand, and 3.) draw a Vote of Confidence card. We'll cover Action cards a bit later. For now, we'll focus on Influence cards and the Vote of Confidence.

Playing Influence cards is simply a matter of placing a card on your side of a Patrician group. If you place one Influence card, you may play it face down. If you play two cards (onto the same or different groups) they must be placed face up. Caesar and Cleopatra have identical Influence cards save for the art on them. Influence cards range in rank from 1 to 5 or are Philosophers (see below for them). The more influence you have on your side of a Patrician group, the better... usually. The real trick here is deciding whether or not to play one Influence card face down or two face up. In the case of Philosophers, it's usually better to keep them face down for protection. The same can be true of your higher-ranking Influence cards like 4s or 5s, which are often the targets of Action cards like Assassination (see below).

Once the Influence cards have been played, the player refills their hand from either or both stacks and draws the top-most Vote of Confidence card. The Vote card will either call for a Vote of Confidence on one of the Patrician groups or call for an Orgy. In the case of an Orgy, no vote is called, the turn ends, and it's the next player's turn. If a vote is called, both players flip up their Influence cards for the Patrician group in question and tally the card values. Whoever has the higher Influence total takes the top-most Patrician card for that group, thus scoring Victory Points. The winner also discards their highest Influence card for that group and the loser discards their lowest Influence card for that group.

If a Philosopher is present, however, the result is reversed. The lowest total Influence wins the Vote of Confidence instead. In this case the winner discards their lowest Influence card and the Philosopher for that group and the loser discards their highest Influence card for that group. Obviously, Philosophers can shaft you pretty hard if you've got a lot of high-value Influence cards in one group. You might think you have the advantage only to find the tables turned on you at the last moment. Things get stranger when multiple Philosopher cards are present on both sides of a Patrician group. There are a few special rules to cover this, but nothing worth going into detail for.

A Vote of Confidence is also called if there are 8 cards between both sides of a Patrician group. In fact, no group can have more than 8 cards between both sides at any time, and no player may have more than five Influence cards on their side of a group. Thus, a player can force a Vote of Confidence by loading a group with Influence cards, a legitimate tactic for capturing Patricians.

A note about the Vote of Confidence cards is in order. There are eight Vote of Confidence cards: one for each Patrician group, two regular Orgy cards, and one Orgy/Re-shuffle card. The re-shuffle card comes up a lot, and forces you to put all the Vote cards back in a stack and shuffle them. This can get aggravating, as shuffling eight thin cards is annoying. Also, eventually, a Patrician group will run out of cards and the Vote of Confidence card for that group is removed from the game when that happens. Thus, the stack gets smaller and smaller and more annoying to shuffle. I think quarter-sized cardboard tokens would've been easier to deal with than cards in this case. But, that's a minor point and in no way detracts from enjoyment of the game.

Action cards allow you to really mess with your opponent. They come in the following flavors:

Assassination (4 each): Just what you think it is! This card allows you to remove a face-up Influence card belonging to your opponent and put it in their discard pile. You can bet those rank 5 Influence cards are prime targets for Assassination.

Spy (2 each): This card lets you search your opponent's hand and take one card from it and put it in their discard pile. They get to draw a new card immediately from either deck. This card is useful for getting rid of Veto, Wrath of God, and Assassination cards.

Castling (2 each): Castling allows you to redistribute all Influence cards from two of your groups face down. This is a neat trick to pull when you have a lot of face-up cards and you want to confuse your opponent. By redistributing the cards, you force them to question where you have re-allocated your Influence... or if you left the cards exactly as they were!

Scout (2 each): The bane of Castling, Scout gives you the power to flip all the Influence cards from one of your opponent's groups face up. This is a useful tactic for revealing your opponent's hidden strengths.

Wrath of God (1 each): Mutually Assured Destruction. This card removes all the Influence cards from both sides of one Patrician group (your opponent's and yours). It's dirty pool, but it works.

Veto (2 each): This is the counter-card. Veto prevents the execution of any Action Card except another Veto. Both the Veto and Action card are discarded.

Play continues back and forth until either all the Patrician cards are won, both players have no more Influence cards, or neither player can play on any of the groups due to the card group limits (8 total Influence cards, no more than five on a side). Victory points are then scored for the following:

• Each patrician card won: 1 point
• Majority in a patrician group: 1 point
• Win all patricians in a group: 1 point
• Achieve the Influence Bonus: 2 points

The winner is the player with the most Victory Points.

Strategy: Caesar & Cleopatra features a lot of backstabbing, maneuvering, and out-guessing your opponent. Knowing when to play Influence cards face down is of critical importance, especially for high-ranking cards. There is plenty of room for strategic play, such as using an Assassination card to remove an opponent's high-ranking Influence card and then playing enough Influence cards of your own to force a Vote of Confidence on a Patrician group. Sowing confusion and disrupting your opponent's plans are vitally important to winning this game. You can't be a passive player and expect to win! You can expect your opponent to take the same attitude, which makes for a fun, competitive game.

Summary: Despite the silly Patrician names and the annoying Vote of Confidence card shuffling issue, this is a great two-player game. My fiance and I had fun assassinating each other's supporters, calling down the wrath of gods, jockeying for position, and trying to outwit each other. Naturally, she won. Let's just say that a couple well-placed Philosopher cards put the smack down on me and leave it at that.

While at first glance the rules may seem slightly complicated, they're really quite easy to master after a few turns and the rulebook is easy to reference during game play. This is a great pick-up game as it requires little in the way of set up, has only cards for components and can be played in about a half-hour's time.

If you like political maneuvering, backstabbing your opponent, strategic play, and a Roman or Egyptian theme, Ceasar & Cleopatra is highly recommended.