Concordia Review

Intro

Mac Gerdts created something special with Concordia, a Roman trading game that's earned its spot as one of the most beloved strategy games of the past decade. You're running a merchant dynasty during the height of the Roman Empire, sending colonists to distant cities, building trade networks, and collecting resources across the Mediterranean. What sets Concordia apart is its brilliant card-driven action system that makes every decision feel meaningful without overwhelming you with complexity.

This gem works beautifully with 2-5 players, though it truly shines with four around the table. Expect games to run about 90-120 minutes once everyone knows the rules. With an 8.08 rating on BoardGameGeek and recent induction into the BGG Hall of Fame, Concordia has proven its staying power. The game sits in that sweet spot of being approachable for intermediate players while offering enough depth to satisfy strategy veterans.

How It Plays

Concordia revolves around a deck of action cards that serve double duty. Each card lets you take specific actions during the game, but they're also your main source of victory points at the end. This creates fascinating tension since playing cards gives you immediate benefits, but you need them back in your hand to score points.

On your turn, you play one card from your hand. The Architect lets you build houses in cities where you have colonists. The Prefect produces resources from cities where you've built. The Mercator helps you trade resources at favorable rates. Each card does something different, and once played, it sits in front of you until you use the powerful Tribune card to retrieve all your played cards.

The map shows the Roman Empire with cities connected by land and sea routes. You'll move your colonists along these paths, establishing presence in cities that produce the five key resources: bricks, food, tools, wine, and cloth. Building houses costs resources but gives you permanent footholds for future production. There's also a card market where you can buy additional action cards, both for their immediate utility and their end-game scoring potential.

Victory comes from the gods themselves. Each deity rewards different achievements: Jupiter loves provinces, Minerva favors diverse resources, Mercurius rewards trade networks, and so on. The brilliant twist is that your final score multiplies the number of god cards you own by how well you've achieved their specific goals. It's not enough to just collect cards or just build efficiently—you need both.

Highlights

The card system is pure genius. Every card you play advances your position but also limits your future options until you retrieve it. This creates natural rhythm and pacing that feels organic rather than forced. You're constantly weighing immediate gains against long-term flexibility, and the Tribune card becomes this crucial reset button that you'll use at just the right moment.

What really impresses me is how interactive Concordia feels without being aggressive. You're not attacking other players directly, but you're absolutely competing for the same cities, resources, and cards. When someone builds in a city you wanted or buys the card you needed, it stings in the best possible way. The tension comes from competition for limited opportunities rather than direct conflict.

The scoring system deserves special praise. Hidden victory points keep games suspenseful until the final tally, and the multiplicative scoring means different strategies can all be viable. Some games reward specialization, others favor diversification, but you won't know which approach won until you count those god cards.

Concordia also offers excellent replayability through its double-sided board and variable card market. The full Roman Empire map plays differently from the Italy-focused side, and since cards appear in the market randomly, each game presents unique opportunities and challenges.

Criticisms

The biggest hurdle with Concordia is explaining how scoring works. New players often struggle to grasp why they should buy certain cards or how the end-game multiplication creates value. The concept is elegant once it clicks, but I've seen plenty of first games where someone builds a beautiful trade network only to score poorly because they didn't collect the right god cards to reward their achievements.

Some groups find Concordia a bit too predictable in its rhythm. The card play system, while brilliant, can feel mechanical after many plays. You're always doing roughly the same sequence: play cards, retrieve with Tribune, repeat. The decisions within that framework are rich and varied, but the overall flow can feel samey compared to games with more dramatic swings or surprising moments.

There's also the matter of player interaction. While the competition for resources and positions creates tension, some groups crave more direct engagement. If you're looking for negotiation, alliance-building, or dramatic confrontations, Concordia might feel too polite and indirect for your tastes.

Conclusion

Concordia absolutely deserves its reputation as a modern classic. It's perfect for groups who appreciate elegant strategy games that reward good planning without punishing a single mistake. If you enjoy games like Ticket to Ride but want something with more meat on its bones, or if you love Puerto Rico but want less direct interaction, Concordia hits that sweet spot perfectly.

This is the game for players who get excited about efficient systems and satisfying engine-building. The way everything connects—your cards, your network, your resources, your scoring—creates this beautiful sense of building something meaningful over the course of the game. Sure, it might not give you the dramatic highs of more volatile games, but what it offers instead is the deep satisfaction of a well-oiled machine humming along exactly as you planned.