Neue Spiele im alten Rom

About this board game

Neue Spiele im Alten Rom is a 1994 compendium of fourteen Roman-themed games for 2–7 players, with a listed play time of 60 minutes. Designed by Reiner Knizia, the collection explores the rise of Rome, the Roman Republic, and the Empire through highly abstract mechanisms.

The box includes games ranging from quick card challenges to positional contests and racing. In The Wheel of History, players move around a circle of cards representing tribes to be united under early Rome, collecting cards whose values contribute to scoring. The Seven Hills of Rome is a two-player struggle for control of seven numbered hills, with the player controlling the highest-valued hills winning.

• Mercator: A simplified ancestor of Medici in which players compete for high-value totals while filling their ships.
• Imperium: Players place control markers across nine areas, with each area evaluated in sequence over nine turns.
• Senator: Cards are pushed from perimeter steps into the central senate on a 5×5 board.
• Circus Maximus: Players race teams of three chariots around a hex-map circuit using cards numbered 1 to 5.
• Consul: A memory and bidding game where players reveal cards and build sets by value, color, or both.

The variety is a central feature of Neue Spiele im Alten Rom. Some games reward careful placement and control, while others focus on hand management, memory, bidding, or maximizing movement with limited cards.

Although the collection has been translated into an English rulebook, it was never published by an English publisher as a complete edition. Three games—Imperium, Circus Maximus, and Hannibal vs Rome—were later printed or repackaged in English by GMT in Rome.