Blocks!: Julius Caesar

Summary: Fun light war game with a low barrier to entry both in terms of the interface as well as the ease of grasping the rules. Recommended for fans of light war games or those who enjoy games with "fog of war" such as the Columbia blocks system games. So far, I am enjoying this game with 3 campaigns played. This is the conversion for the Columbia Blocks system game "Julius Caesar" which is highly rated on Board Game Geek. This game simulates the Caesar vs. Pompey Roman Civil War campaign. The rules are easy to grasp. You play a card each turn that allows some combination of moving and levying units, with a handful of cards that "break" the rules in some way. Initiative is determined by the movement value of the card played, whether or not a "special" card was played, then finally Caesar as the tie break. The variety and strategy comes into play with playing the cards at the right time and experimenting with unit combinations. The blocks system simulates "fog of war" since you can't see your opponent's units, and each block is used to mark the damage by turning 1/4. Visually here, the blocks just have "notches" that shows damage marked off, which works well. There are special blocks like leaders and Cleopatra. The PDF they include with the game is well laid out and clear, and the in-game tutorials are nice. Columbia has a PDF of the physical game rules which might help as well. The only thing I need to read through again is the part about levying units, since it seems like you are restricted as to what you can levy where but I am sure I can find this out easily enough after a re-read. Overall, the interface is nice and smooth and intuitive which lowers the barrier to entry. The controls are easy to use, and the board is nice and clear. You can zoom in so that it is easy to see the roads and how much damage is on each block.