Gladius is a 2-5 player card game where you play a privatus in ancient Rome looking to wager coin and make a profit on the gladiatorial games. Players take turns betting on gladiators and then playing influence cards to alter the outcome of each event. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/catquartetgames/gladius
Tom Vasel takes a look at game of betting on gladiatorial combat!Intro 0:00Overview 1:10Final Thoughts 6:45Dice Tower promos and merchandise can be found now...
We are excited to see that the Dice Tower reviewed our little game Gladius! They even gave it the Dice Tower Seal of Approval! You can check out the video here.
Here are some unused concept art sketches from Gladius courtesy of @cysketches.
Do you have a favorite? Should we develop these into full arts for expansions? Let us know, and if this looks cool to you, check us out on Kickstart now!
Before making this video I had no video editing experience, and now having gone through it I would have filmed it totally differently. But, despite all of that I’m still proud of how our little homemade how to play video turned out. Check it out! If it seems cool to you, check us out on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/catquartetgames/gladius
We got some gorgeous pictures taken for our game Gladius that is launching on February 18th! Check us out on Kickstarter if you’re interested in fun, easy to learn, board games.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/catquartetgames/gladius
An award-winning board game about betting on and rigging the gladiatorial games.
Gladius officially has a Kickstarter pre-launch page! Click this link. Sign up to get reminded about our launch in February. You don't want to miss this game we've spent 3 years working on with so much love and passion!
In Gladius, play as cunning Roman spectators trying to make the most money by betting on gladiators competing in the gladiatorial games. Through the skillful use of underhanded tactics, players can help and hinder teams to alter the outcome of each battle. Can you outwit your opponents to turn a profit, or will you be left empty-handed? —description from the publisher
Our Board Game Geek page is up and running, if you’re interested in helping out Gladius for free, consider becoming a fan or subscribing to the page, and if you’ve had the chance to play it, leave a review! Thank you so much for your support.
We spent this weekend blind playtesting the Gladius rulebook in preparation to send it to reviewers. Want to help us out? Check out the rulebook and leave feedback in the Google Doc.
“ I find that the majority of board games set in ancient Rome adopt a very limited perspective by focusing on war or politics (or both), reinforcing the traditional view that history is the story of Great Men (i.e., rulers and generals). It occurs to me that your game, by emphasizing the importance of spectacle in ancient Roman society (the players are not the gladiators in the arena, but the spectators placing bets), shifts attention to the agency of the masses as the people whose consent actually mattered the most in securing the stability and longevity of the Roman Empire.”
- Dr. Seth McCormick, Associate Professor in Art History, Western Carolina University on Gladius
*that moment when an art history professor finds your game about Ancient Rome on the internet and validates your decision to have diverse representation*
Never in a hundred years did we think that something like this would happen. I’m so happy we’re fighting good fight and get to show people that the power of Ancient Rome came from the diversity of its people.
Many of you have asked how you can support the game Victoria, Valerie Caña, and I made, so I put together a list. Thank you everyone for supporting our journey to make fun, accessible games with diverse, inspirational characters.
- Subscribe to get notified when we launch on Kickstarter at https://catquartetgames.com
- Like us on Facebook at Gladius
- Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/gladiuscardgame
- Follow us on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/gladiuscardgame/
Here is some early concept art for a new Gladiator in Gladius. She is a hunter of the ultimate prey. Years of surviving on the run in Roman-occupied Gaul have honed her into a cunning opponent in the arena. She is, Cornelia the Crafty by @cysketches
You’ve got to admit it's getting better, a little better all the time.
Gladius is still in a good place. The core things that I believe are settled in are the event structure (not the events themselves), the influence cards, the gladiators, and the betting system. The event structure currently has 4 events, each event “slot” can have 3 events to chose from so that means there are 24 different schedules players can play through. Also now the first event will always involve theatrics. So there is a theatrics only, theatrics/luck, and theatrics/fight. The same for Fight in the second event and luck in the third event. The last event slot is still reserved for the finale, which is always a single stat either Luck, Fight, or Theatrics. I think this layout is what the final game will have. Another element that is locked in is the influence cards. We’ve experimented with a lot of different cards, but I think the current mix is a nice blend of simplicity and fun. Finally the betting system I think is the best it is going to be for Gladius. We’ve tried systems where you bet with your own money, we’ve tried systems when with death bets, but we keep coming back to this system. The medium bet is now a battle bet that adds +1 to a teams final score. This at least makes it interesting to play over just big betting every time. It also leads to an interesting risk-reward where a player can attempt to piggyback off of another player using the battle bet. Oh, and the Gladiators are pretty set in stone. I would like to add 2 or 3 more, but that’s still up for debate.
Here are a few of the changes that we have in development that will probably change later on.
Event specifics are still up in the air. There are some I like, and others I don’t like. While some of the comeback mechanics might be a little too punishing, I think they are needed now that we’ve taken away the doubling in the final round. Currently one of the finales still doubles the final round, but I think even that is unnecessary. We’ll be making adjustments but it is pretty close. Also for demo purposes, I believe we should have a simple “fake” event that is easy to understand. But this won’t be included in the final game.
Player Powers! Everyone loves player powers right? Well now they are in Gladius, I think they add an interesting element to the game. I think they need more playtesting and adjustment before they are in a place I will be happy with them, but some of them let you break rules in really interesting ways, and I like that.
In the current build of the game, there is a system called underdog tokens. They basically give players bonuses for getting gladiators that are way behind to win. I think the idea of them is healthy for the game, but their implementation is still clunky. Also, the numbers on the tokens might still need to be adjusted. I’m considering a flat rate for the tokens instead of the current variable rate. As it stands, if a team trails the lead team by 1 or 2 stat points they get a small token which has an equal chance of being 200, 300, or 400, extra coins. If they trail by 3 or more then they get a large token which can be 400, 500, or 600. I’ve noticed the amount of randomness can turn off players, but in playtesting it really even out. Rarely are games decided by underdog tokens because they are so hard to acquire. But I worry about the perception of their existence. So while something like underdog tokens needs to exist, they might not exist in their current form.
Finally, the last thing that may change is how cards are distributed. Its pretty close to being there, but I think there might be slightly too few cards in the final round. People seem to throw away all of their cards in the 3 round. Which might just be poor planning, but there might be too few cards there.
Thanks for reading, feel free to reach out if you have any questions or what to know more about the game!
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