Carpe Diem

About this board game

Carpe Diem is a board game for 2–4 players, designed for games of about 75 minutes, in which wealthy builders create lucrative city districts in ancient Rome.

Players take the roles of rich patricians seeking prestige through the districts they build. Each turn, players receive building tiles and must integrate them into their individual districts, creating a changing collection of buildings as the game progresses.

The game unfolds across four phases, with seven rounds in each phase. During every round, all players move their meeples onto one of the opposite semi-circular spaces. They then choose one building tile from the adjacent blueprint space and immediately add it to their district.

• Four phases of seven rounds each
• Building tiles selected from adjacent blueprint spaces
• A scoring period after every phase
• A final scoring period after the fourth phase

After exactly seven rounds, all 28 building tiles have been picked and the phase ends. The scoring period that follows gives players regular opportunities to turn their developing districts into prestige points.

The unusual method of reaching individual buildings, combined with a large variety of score cards, gives Carpe Diem a distinctive structure and supports a wide range of strategies. Once the fourth scoring period is complete, a final scoring period ends the game. The player with the most victory points wins.