Ave Caesar is a classic Roman racing game recently republished by Asmodee Editions.
Players: 3-6
Time: 60-75 minutes
Difficulty: 2 (of 10)
The Components
Ave Caesar comes with:
- 1 gameboard
- 6 chariots
- 6 denari
- 144 cards
Gameboard: A 4-panel gameboard printed full-color, attractively depicting a Roman chariot racecourse. The board is actually double-sided and shows two different courses, one on each side, which I was quite pleased to see. More games should make use of the backs of their game boards like Asmodee did here.
The race tracks are very simple. The course is sectioned off into spaces. Often there are two tracks, one inside and one outside, and the inside track is usually more efficient (sometimes barely, sometimes notably so). The two tracks are often sectioned off by walls.
Plastic Bits: Each player gets one chariot and one denari, each of which is molded in some type of hard plastic with very good detail. These look entirely gorgeous, though the chariots are too large for some of the racing spaces. The chariots and coins each come in the six player colors: blue, red, yellow, green, brown, and black.
Cards: The 144 cards provide the six players with twenty-four cards each. Each of these sets contains four each of the numbers 1-6. Besides each player's cards being printed in their own color, each also features a unique Roman figure. The cards are half-sized and medium weight. Some people online found them a bit flimsy, but they're not unusually so.
Rulebook: An 8-page, glossy, full-color rulebook that does a good job of explaining the game simply and with lots of pictures and examples.
The game is missing some components that should have been included. More notably, there's no way to track your score, which is annoying given that you're supposed to play 4 races. We used Poker chips. Some of my players wanted to see lap markers, since players can lap (or nearly lap) their opponents. I didn't find the latter that big a deal, but I nonetheless note it here.
Overall, Ave Caesar is beautifully produced with most components being high-quality (other than the strictly average cards). The beauty of the game isn't quite up to some of Asmodee's other entirely goregeous releases, but it's still well above average. As such I've let it eke in a "5" out of "5" for Style: very attractive.
The Gameplay
The object of Ave Caesar is to finish each of four races in the best position possible.
Setup: One of the boards is laid out and the players' chariots are placed on the starting line, beginning with someone randomly selected. Each player is also given a deck of 24 cards which he shuffles then takes 3 of.
The Board. The board depicts a simple circular track broken into individual spaces. For most of the circle there are actually two parallel tracks--an inside and an outside, with the inner track often being a few spaces shorter--but there are also some choke-points where there is just one space. Stone walls at some points keep players from jumping back and forth between the two tracks.
The starting area is a very wide section of track and off to the side is the Emperor's Alley, a walled-off area which players must enter at least once during each race.
The Cards. Each deck of cards has four 1s, four 2s, four 3s, four 4s, four 5s, and four 6s. These cards control have far a player moves on his turn.
Order of Play: During a turn a player will play a card, move his chariot, possibly play homage to the emperor, then draw a new card. This continues until the players have all made three laps around the arena.
Moving: On his turn a player plays a card, then moves forward exactly the appropriate number of spaces. He can cut diagonally from one lane to another provided that there isn't a wall blocking both spaces. However, chariots can't move through other chariots.
If a player can't play any cards legally (usually because someone is blocking a single-space ahead, or two chariots together are blocking a pair of spaces), then he loses his turn.
There's only one other rule for moving: the lead player(s) can't play a 6. (Unless they only have 6s in their hand and they're blocking the race course, which is a somewhat clunky rule.)
Paying Homage to the Emperor: Each race lasts three laps and sometime in that period a player must pay homage to the emperor. This is done by going into the Emperor's Alley near the start line either at the end of a player's first or second lap. (If you haven't done it by the third, you're out of luck and lose the race.) The chariot must stop in the Alley, and the player drops off his denari to mark that he's accomplished this task.
This can be tricky for two reasons.
First, the Emperor's Alley is a 5-space long walled off section, which means that traffic jams and blocking can often occur there.
Second, three of the four ways that you can play the game have walls on the course set up in such a way that you have to take the outside track on the section just before the start line, else you can't get over to the Emperor's Alley--providing another space for potential blocking.
Ending a Race: A race ends when everyone but the last player has completed three laps. The first player gets 6 laurels, second gets 4, third gets 3, fourth gets 2, and fifth gets 1.
Notably it's possible to not finish the race. You never get your cards back after you've played them, and if you take the outside courses too many times you can run out of cards before the end. (This didn't happen to anyone in the four races we ran, but it's possible according to the rules.)
Playing a Full Game: According to the rules a full game is four races: one clockwise on each of the two maps and one counterclockwise on each of the two maps. Each race is scored separately then each player adds up his laurels.
You could just as easily play just 1 or 2 total races, and indeed if playing 4 you might find that the game outlives its fun level.
Relationships to Other Games
Ave Caesar is a relatively minimalist racing game. It is a pretty simplistic get-around-the-track-first game, and in that it's somewhat reminescent of Formula De, another game now published by Asmodee, with a new edition due out shortly.
Ave Caesar at first appears a little more deterministic than some racing games because each player has the exact same set of cards, and will generally use almost all of those cards, but in actuality it has a very high random factor because lost turns due to blocking largely determine the game.
Word is that Ave Caesar may be expanded with additional maps in the future, which would be a nice element for those who like the game.
The Game Design
Ave Caesar is generally a light, casual game. There's a small element of decision in which card you play, and sometimes you can try and set up a future move, but generally plays are pretty obvious and thus largely determined by the cards you happen to hold in your hand. As a result the random factor is really quite high, as those scant cards in your hand ultimately determine how well you do.
On the other hand, Ave Caesar is also a fun game. If you're continuously blocked it can get a bit frustrating, but otherwise the light gameplay and the theme combine together well to create a fun (if not particularly strategic) game.
The game also does a good job of controlling runaway winners, which is often an issue in racing games. By keeping leaders from playing their best cards and by running multiple races rather than one extended race, everyone stays in until the very end. (Though admittedly some of this is at the deficit of the game system's polish, such as the somewhat awkward rules about when leaders can actually play their 6s.)
Overall Ave Caesar is amusing and earns a high "3" out of "5" for Substance. If you're looking for a casual game that would be of interest to non-gamers, or that kids and parents could play together, this release would be even more highly recommended.
Conclusion
A very light, largely random racing game that's got some nice theme and is probably a good game to play with non-gamers and with families.
Review Summary