subject: How To Play Colosseum [print this page] In Colosseum, you play as a Roman impresario who produces spectacles in an arena to attract the most (and most influential) spectators. You can earn both wealth and prestige for each event you run, utilising the profits to produce bigger and better events. You also need to invest in infrastructure, upgrade your arena, hire better performers, and convince the nobles and the Emperor to attend you shows. Managing your assets and balancing risk against gain, play to become the Grand Impresario.
With the exception of the final round, each part of the game has five phases (the last round only has four). In each round, players must take control of their own arena, and they may need to upgrade the size in order to perform some of the more ostentatious plays. The first rounds allows people to choose between two different events, but soon you need to buy the rights to bigger shows and to buy, sell and exchange asset cards, which represent actors, animals and equipment that are used in the show.
During the first phase of the Colosseum players invest in one of four ways. Making the arena bigger, so that bigger events can be run and more important personages might visit; Constructing the "Emperor's Loge" which means that you can double your chances of bringing a noble into the arena; Getting a season ticket, meaning five more people come to watch; and buying a new event card, (before running the event you will need to expand the arena once or twice). Five different markets (laid out in the middle of the board) have three difference asset tokens. The players each have the opportunity to start an auction for the different assets, but nobody can win more than one auction. Players can, however, choose to sell asset tokens to others, or to trade and buy different asset tokens.
Next, players move nobles by rolling a die (or two dice if you have the Emperor's Loge) and they move clockwise. If you are rolling twice, you can combine or split the rolls. If you bring a noble into your arena, you get additional spectators ... and spectators are pure gold! If a noble lands on specially marked squares, the player receives an Emperor's Medal, which are really useful in later phases. For each spectator in the arena, you get a gold coin, which is scored by a marker around the outside of the board. This scoring system is typical for Days of Wonder games. The total game score is the maximum number of spectators attracted to one event; not the cumulative number of spectators.
Now the event has run and the spectators have been counted, there is a winner and loser for that round. The loser gets to pick any asset card from the winner, but the winner receives the podium, which gives them three extra spectators at their next-round show.
