Description

Byzantio is a game of medieval intrigue in the near east, where players take the roles of the main Byzantine dynasties of the 11th century A.D., and scheme to choose the successor to the imperial throne.

The game takes place over several rounds where the players choose one of six possible actions each turn to place garrisons, remove opponents’ garrisons and advance throughout the provinces. The players set their own, hidden, agendas and the one who has managed to complete most of their objectives by having control of those cities, wins the game.

A game with 4 players takes 60 minutes to play, while a game with 2 or 3 players takes about 45 minutes to play. Setup is completed within 5 minutes.

Highly interactive, Byzantio rewards tactical flexibility and outsmarting the opposing players. Decisions are never obvious, as an action may very well be helping an opponent.

Nekken is the fantasy-themed implementation of the game, using the exact same materials as Byzantio. With its map on the reverse side ofthe board, Nekken gives a different game experience – in essence, it allows the players to have 2 games in 1.

In Nekken, each player takes the role of a tribal leader and attempts to prevail and become the ruler of this new society. The goal is to achieve prestige through the establishment of new and glorious cities, using actions to move their leader on the map, exploring, establishing cities,and betraying friends to achieve their objective. Hopefully no other ruler intends to settle in the same place!

You can download the rules here (right-click and save to your desktop for the best view):

• English
• Français
• Deutsch

Contents

A double-sided cardboard game board
3 rulebooks (english, french, german)
4 wooden pretender tokens, blue, purple, red, yellow (1.18 x 0.59 x 0.39 in / 30 x 15 x 10 mm)
40 wooden garrison tokens, 10 each in blue, purple, red, yellow (0.71 x 0.47 x 0.31 in / 18 x 12 x 8 mm)
1 octagonal wooden timeline token
1 scorepad with 100 scoresheets
4 pencils
6 event & natural disaster cardboard tiles
1 8-sided die

Reviews

Note that these videos display the prototype game materials. The retail version of the game has finished art and proper cardboard & wood components.

The All Us Geeks guys give a very good overview of the game:

Richard Ham of Rahdo Runs Through manages to lose to a vicious imaginary Jen. Here’s what he thought:

Here’s what the Last Of The Varangians had to say:

Finally, here’s what Mr. Tox thinks: