Everything old is new again, and the latest example of a game being recast for a new market is Cyclades, a game from Bruno Cathala and Ludovic Maublanc that debuted in 2009 from French publisher Matagot.
Several expansions were released for Cyclades over the next decade — Hades in 2011, Titans in 2014, and Monuments in 2016 — along with various promos, and now Cathala and Maublanc have reworked the Cyclades base game and its many expansions to “make gameplay more dynamic and fluid” in the words of publisher Open Sesame Games for the upcoming title Cyclades: Legendary Edition.
Here’s an overview of this game, which details some of the changes from the original series:
Cyclades: Legendary Edition features a strategic bidding system that defines the actions available to each player on their turn. You must balance your finances to optimize the various actions provided by the different gods, with each player gaining the support of only one god each turn. The game features a shorter and more dynamic bidding phase than the original Cyclades thanks to a new exponential bidding scale. Six gods are available instead of the five, increasing the variety of actions available:
• Ares allows the movement of player armies and the building of fortresses.
• Poseidon allows players to move their navies and build ports.
• Zeus allows his followers to hire priests and build temples.
• Athena provides her worshipers with philosophers and universities.
• Apollo increases the income of his worshipers.
• Hera provides mercenaries to enforce your troops during battle.
Players now use landscape tiles to assemble the modular game board during set-up, allowing for ever-changing maps and game strategies. New creatures and heroes are available in the base game, offering new strategic opportunities to build metropolises and gain decisive advantages on the battlefield. Your goal is to be the first to control three metropolises, which can be obtained as follows:
• Economic development, by constructing four different buildings.
• Intellectual development, by owning four philosophers.
• Heroic deeds, when sacrificing a hero.
• Military conquest, when seizing an enemy city by strength.
Cyclades: Legendary Edition features three game configurations:
• “Classic” mode for 3-5 players in which each player defends their own interests.
• “Team” mode for 4 or 6 players in which you play in teams of two, co-operating with one another and competing against others.
• An enhanced and refined two-player mode.
Cyclades: Legendary Edition will be Kickstarted in Q2 2023, with release scheduled for Q1 2024.
