Players: 3-5
Playing Time: 30-60 minutes
Complexity: 2 (of 10)
My description here is of the recent, 1999 Avalanche Press production of this game. Curiously an older version of the game published in Germany featured totally different peoples--Anglo-Saxons, Gotes, Huns, Lagobards and Vikings. Through multiple editions, this is one of Reiner Knizia's oldest games, dating back to 1991.
For the academically minded, Res Publica is Latin, most literally meaning "the public things", but more commonly translating as "civic affairs" or "the commonwealth" or "the state" or most simply "the republic".
This is a minor revisal of my review of Res Publica originally released in April, 2003. It's been cleaned up a bit, but as much as anything the revisal is based on an improved understanding of German trading games.
The Components
Res Publica is, at heart, a card game, and thus what you get inside the over-sized Res Publica box are 140 cards and some rules. The cards are divided into three main types: people cards (60), technology cards (60), and cities & monuments (10 each).
The Cards: The cards are printed on very sturdy cardstock with rounded corners. Each features artwork by Howard David Johnson which is very pretty, and nicely representational of the objects depicted. (The archaeologist in our playtest group carefully determined which each monument represented, from the Library at Alexandria to the Great Pyramids.) However, the artwork all has a computerized feel to it that I personally find inappropriate for a game of "ancient times".
There are 12 each of five different people cards: Romans, Babylonians, Egyptians, Atlanteans, and Greeks (each marked by a letter: R, B, E, A, or G). There are also 12 each of five different technology cards: Metalworking, The Wheel, Architecture, Chemistry, and Navigation (each marked by a symbol: anvil, wheel, column [or owl as one smart-ass play-tester kept insisting], beaker, or compass).
The 10 city cards are all identical, each marked with their victory value of 3. The 10 monument cards have values between 4 and 9; there are six different ones, total.
Overall, the design of the cards is pretty, showcasing artwork which fills the majority of each card face, flanked by the identifying numbers, letters, or symbols. A bit of each card is wasted with useless knotwork, which is a shame because they would have looked better with the art covering that space. The knotwork also makes it a bit hard to see the letters and symbols which you use to sort your cards, because it pushes them downward, forcing you to fan your cards further to see everything.
It's clear that a real effort has been made to make these cards totally international--there are no words on them anywhere. Unfortunately this has some play deficits. First, neither the people or technology card backs are explicitly marked as such; instead you have to remember that peoples are red and technology is yellow. And, yes, this can lead to drawing from the wrong pile until you're fairly familiar with the game. Second, the names of the technology cards aren't immediately obvious. For example metalworking is marked by an anvil which could equally well stand for "forging". Given that the heart of the game involves requesting card types, this is an annoyance.
Rules: The rules are a little 4-page booklet, printed in black and white on off-white paper. They're very plain. It's also a bit hard to read the rules and really understand the game without playing it, but I think that's mainly due to the fact that the gameplay is abstract enough that it's not immediately intuitive. Overall, the rules are solely adequate.
Box & Tray: The mjor disappointment in the components is the box. I talk on occasion about companies that sell card games in board game boxes and understand the necessity of that for many marketing reasons--such as getting stores to carry the item (which requires a higher price point) and making the games visible on the shelves. However if a company is going to do that I expect them to make use of their box to include something extra, or at the least to put together a box that is well-suited to holding cards.
The Res Publica box isn't. The inside of the box has a cardboard tray in it with two holes, which each hold a decks of 70 cards--if they're wrapped in plastic. However, once you break the card packs open, the tray becomes useless and the cards slide all over, getting mixed up and requiring sorting unless you rubber band them. Annoying.
Overall, given the poor box design, the usability problems with the cards due to the internationalization, and the compuerized art, I can only give Res Publica a "3" out of "5" for Style. Improvements in any of those areas could easily have improved the rating.
The Gameplay
If you want to approach it from the angle of traditional card games, Res Publica is a traditional, though limited set collection game (like Rummy). You're trying to gather sets of matching cards, and those sets are variously valued depending on how quickly you can make your collection.
However, where Res Publica really stands out and differentiates itself from standard card games is in the method that's used to collect cards. A simple though tightly structured mechanism for exchanging cards is at the heart of the trading methods in this game.
The main cards you're playing with are the People and Technology cards. There are 60 of each, and each is split into 5 categories of 12 cards each. As already noted, these are divided as follows:
- People: Romans, Babylonians, Egyptians, Atlanteans, Greeks.
- Technology: Metalworking, Wheel, Architecture, Chemistry, Navigation.
Setup: Each player starts off with four People cards, then gets to draw one People card a turn (at the end of his turn).
Order of Play: Here's the actual turn order, which incorporate all this:
- Trade Cards.
- Display Sets.
- Draw Cards.
Trade Cards: Each turn a player gets to try and initiate one trade. He may either request a card or offer a card, but may not do both. This means for example he can say "I request 1 Greek" or "I offer 1 Roman" but not "I'll trade 1 Roman for 1 Greek."
Each player, in order around the table, then fills in the other side of the trade. For example if you offer a Greek you might get people offering you nothing for it, of offering you another peoples card, or perhaps offering you a couple of cards if they really want it.
There are a few more specific rules for how trading works. They are:
- You can use generalities (ie, "one people card" or "one card" instead of "one Greek").
- You can use "and" or "or" (ie, "one Greek and one Roman" or "one Greek or one Roman").
- You can only specify two types of cards (ie, you can say "one Greek and one Roman" or "three people cards", but not "a Greek, a Roman, and an Atlantean").
When everyone has made an offer, the player can choose to accept one of the offers, or not to accept any of them. In any case, a player only gets to try and initiate one trade a turn--if anything is accomplished or not.
Display Sets: After trading cards, you may then display any sets you've accrued of five cards of the same type. If this set was of People cards, you take a City card worth 3 Victory Points. If this set was of Technology cards, you take a monument card, worth between 9 and 4 points. (The value of monuments vary, with the greatest valued one drawn first. All told the monument values look like this: 9, 8, 8, 7, 7, 6, 6, 5, 5, 4. Clearly there's a lot of importance embedded in getting that first technology set ) We'll get to how technology cards actually enter the game in a second ...
Draw Cards: Finally, you draw one People card. In addition, you may draw one Technology card per City you have, to three cards total. If you have three or more Cities, you decide between drawing one People and two Technologies, or just three Technologies.
Ending the Game: After the final technology card is drawn, there's one last round of trading. Afterward players count up their points:
- City: 3 points
- Monument: 4-9 points
- Pair of the Same Card: 1 point
Relationships to Other Games
Res Publica is a simple set-collection trading card game. It's the most popular way to setup trading card games. The other well-known game in this specific niche is: Bohnanza.
The Game Design
Overall, the game design of Res Publica is very smooth and easy to understand (once you get going), with high replayability. Here's some of the best features of the game:
Trading Well Balanced: This game meets the core criteria for a well-balanced trade game: items have different values to different players. In this particular case, each player will more highly value cards which he holds multiples of, and will less highly value cards which he only has one or two of.
Bidding Well Designed: The strict and specific rules for how bidding is done allow for considerable strategy in this area. For example, because bidding is done as a one-time auction, it's possible to undercut someone; you just offer a better trade than someone sitting to your right. In addition, it's possible to use the bidding to pass information, much as is the case in Bridge; for example you might offer a trade that you know the current player isn't interested in so that another player will gain some information on what cards you're holding (and are willing to give away).
Gameplay is Dynamic: The gameplay changes as the game progresses, with trading beginning with People and then moving on to Technology. This offers increased dynamism in the game, and thus makes it more interesting throughout.
Number of Players Changes Dynamic of Game: The number of players in the game can dramatically change the feel of the gameplay, which increases the replayability of the game.
Some of the more troublesome mechanics include:
Spoiler Players Possible: A player can lose, not just based on his own strategic play, if a player who holds many of "his" cards is acting as a spoiler, and trading obstinately. (This can also cause "lock-up" problems if two players are each working toward approximately the same goals.)
Power Curve Possible: It's possible to get irrevocably behind in this game if you don't get cities out fast enough because of the power curve implicit in card drawing.
"Or" Can be Complex: Some of our playtesters had some confusion over what happens if an "or" statement is made by a responder. Who gets to choose, the requester or the responder? We came up with our own decision here (the responder), but the rules could be clarified.
Game is Abstract: As is the case with many Reiner Knizia games, Res Publica is very abstract. You could just as easily be collecting spades and hearts and the game wouldn't really feel that different. This is shown pretty clearly by the fact that earlier versions of the game included different peoples. However, I wasn't bugged as much by this fact in this game as I was in, e.g., Tigris & Euphrates. I think the prime reason for the abstraction being OK in Res Publica is that we're taught to expect our card games to be abstract, from years of playing Hearts, Euchre & Poker, and thus any facade of background behind a card game seems impressive.
I was fairly impressed by Res Publica the first time I played. Despite blemishes, it's a very solid pure-trade game. However, in playing other trading card games since, I've come to the conclusion that it's also pretty traditional and not terribly innovative. Thus I give it an average "3" out of "5" Substance points.
Conclusion
Res Publica is, overall, a very solid trading card game. I'd recommend Bohnanza first, but if you'd like some variety, this is a good choice. My biggest annoyance, which I note again with sadness as I now put this game away is the terrible box that it's been packaged in, in which my poor cards are now randomly mixing.
