Our Review
ANTIQUE FINDS
PERGAMON
JEWELRY, VASES, MASKS
Looking for an interesting game, I notice Pergamon from Eggertspiele. The cover of the brown box is adorned by a golden mask split in half!
The idea or story behind the game is given as: „On a contract with the Royal Museum at Berlin in 1878 the excavations in ancient Pergamum begin. The town, situated in today’s Turkey, was at her peak about 200 B.C.”
Players therefore embody archeologists on the search for valuable antique vases, carafes, bracelets and golden masks.
If you open the box you find the following game components: 1 game board, 60 tiles featuring parts of finds, 40 coins, 24 research funds cards, 36 victory point tiles = admission markers, 1 black tomb raider and a set of components, in a different color for each of the 4 players: 1 marker, 1 reminder card, 3 round marker tiles for the collections with values 1, 2 and 3 as well as 3 square markers for collections, also with values 1, 2 and 3.
The board is divided into 3 areas, at the left you find the excavation area for 4 excavations with 4 spaces each, in the middle you find a calendar which substitutes for a rounds counter and to the right an area for the Pergamum museum.
Before the game can start you must do a few preparations, as usual: The board is spread on the table, the 24 excavations funds card are shuffled and stacked face down. The 60 find tiles are shuffled too, and 5 of them are placed 4 down on each of the 12 spots on the calendar in the middle of the board. The 36 victory point tiles are separated by value und placed openly on their respective spots on the board. All material of a color is given to each of the players.
The game plays over 12 rounds all in all. Each of these rounds comprises the phases
3. Dig for finds
Display finds:
At the start of the first round 5 find tiles from the firs calendar field are placed on the five excavations. The finds are sorted by age, the oldest find is placed in excavation 5 and the youngest find in excavation 1.
The finds are always placed on the first free spot of the respective excavation.
This display is laid out at the start of each new round. Should from previous round already four finds be present in an excavation no tile is added in the current round and the finds tile is put back in the box.
Hand out research funds:
The two top research fund cards from the stack are laid out face down next to the board. The back of the cards can show a money bag or a treasure chest. This gives you an idea how much money might be distributed, because a money bag card can yield 1 to 4 coins and the treasure chest can yield 5 to 8 coins.
The starting player puts his figure on a free spot on the excavation bar at the top border of the board. On each spot the number of coins is stated that you can receive and in which excavations he can dig for finds.
All other players place their figurines on a spot on the excavation bar, too. The special feature of this placement mechanism is that the further left you place your man the better the income and the results of digging can be, but the first one to dig will be the player who is positioned to the utmost right on the bar. This means, the further right you are placed the fewer coins you receive and you can only dig in the upper excavations, this might be a disadvantage, but on the other hand you have this income nearly 100% surely.
The further left you place your man the bigger the number of coins can be but it is equally possible that you are left with no coins at all and also in digging it can happen that another player has already dug up what you wanted to acquire and that you do not achieve the finds you aimed at.
After all players have placed their man, the two research funds cards are turned over; the numbers on both cards are added and the total is distributed in coins among all players: The player whose man is positioned to the utmost right takes the number of coins stated on his location, then the player to his left takes his allotment of coins, then the next one and so on. If there are not as many coins left for a player as his location would yield he only gets what is left, so it can happen that one or more players do not get any coins at all.
When the last player is poised to take his allotment it can happen that more coins are left than are stated on his location, in this coins he receives all the coins that are left.
Dig for finds:
After all coins have been handed out, the player whose man is standing to the utmost right starts the digging. The location of his man on the excavation bar determines the excavations he can do.
He can take all finds tiles from the excavation chosen by him, but must pay the costs. For this it is only important which of the excavations he chose – for the top excavation, #1, the player pays 1 coin, for the bottom excavation #5 he pays 5 coins. It is absolutely unimportant how many finds there are in an excavation, it can be 1, 2, 3 or 4.
The tiles you could take you lay out open-faced on the table.
Now you can combine several corresponding finds into a collection.
A collection could begin with a tile that shows on its right side the left part of a carafe. The next tile for the collection in consequence must show the right half of a carafe on its left side. To make up a collection of several tiles, the second tile would have to show for instance one half of a bracelet on its right side and the third tile would have to show half of a bracelet on its left side. All finds tiles show a number between 1 and 5 in the right hand bottom corner.
When a collection, for instance, would consist of the three tiles just described and under the left carafe half on the first tile a 3 were shown and under the left bracelet half on the second tile a 4 were visible the player could present the tiles in an exhibition in the Pergamum museum and the exhibition/collection would have a value of 7.
By discarding up to three coins a player could enhance the value of this collection by 1 point per coin discarded. In the 12th round of the game you can enhance the value of any collection just assembled by as many coins as you like.
The player now places his round marker tile for collections into the Pergamum museum, onto the value corresponding to the value of his collection after an eventual enhancing with coins.
The value of collections already present in the museum which are of the same or lower value than the collection just added is reduced by 1 due to this new collection. In the rounds 4, 7, 9 and 12 scorings happen and all players receive the number of victory points printed next to each value of a collection. For instance, each player who has a collection of values between 5 and 8 receives 2 victory points.
A player cannot have more than three finds tiles in his display on the table that are not included in a collection. If he has more than 3 tiles stocked, he must pay a penalty of 1 coin. A fifth and sixth tile do not accrue further costs, because each set of additional 3 tiles costs you 1 coin each.
Should a player have finished his excavation and positioned any collections, if applicable, the turn passes to the next player.
After round 12 a final scoring is done. The owners of the three oldest finds exhibited in a collection in the Pergamum museum receive victory points. The player owning the oldest find is given 3 victory points, for the second oldest you receive 2 points and the find in third place still earns you 1 point.
The player with most victory points wins the game.
Pergamum is a wonderful game on archeology, the beautiful and harmonious graphics by Klemens Franz out over the atmosphere perfectly.
The interesting placement mechanism that is bidding mechanism and the resulting distribution of coins make all players thank and think again and provide a lot of fun and challenge for the game. At the same time the players bid for player order in phase 2 and 3 of a round with the placement of their men.
Stefan Dorra and Ralf zur Linde have managed to force each player into a dilemma over the placement of their men with that bidding mechanism which provides lots of interest. Despite the mechanisms used in the game not being really new they have been felicitously interlocked and result in a challenging and entertaining game.
Due to the well-structured instructions and the very clearly designed elements of the game Pergamon can be recommended also to less experienced players.
In my opinion it lends itself to be rated as a discerning family game.
There are not many strategic considerations to be done, but there is a rather strong element of tactics in the game, combined with an equally high element of chance.
The game can and must also be recommended to experienced players, as there is no necessity for endless games for a game to be good, and so I advise all interested players to take a closer look at this game.
My conclusion: The game offers a very high inducement to play it again and I can recommend it as a good addition to a game collection.
Maria Schranz
Players: 2-4
Age: 10+
Time: 60+
Designer: Stefan Dorra, Ralf zur Linde
Artist: Klemens Franz, Andreas Resch
Price: ca. 25 Euro
Publisher: Eggertspiele 2011
Web: www.eggertspiele.de
Genre: Bid and acquisition game
Users: For families
Version: de
Rules: de en fr
In-game text: no
Comments:
Well-structured rules * good mixture of tactics and chance * challenging family game
Compares to:
Troia, König Solomons Schatzkammer / Indiana Jones Auf der Jagd nach den verlorenen Schätzen, Mykerinos
Other editions:
In English at Gryphon Games, in French at Iello
My rating: 6
Maria Schranz:
Pergamon is a beautiful game on the topic of archeology; topic and mechanisms go well together and provide a big lure for playing it again for families as well as for experienced players.
Chance: 2
Tactic: 3
Strategy: 1
Creativity: 0
Knowledge (yellow): 0
Memory: 0
Communication: 0
Interaction: 3
Dexterity: 0
Action: 0