Cleopatra And The Society Of Architects Board Game

The Components

Days of Wonder has gotten a good reputation for producing big-box games with extravagant components. Cleopatra and the Society of Architects contains what are perhaps their most notable components to date. They include:

• 1 quarry with 21 plastic pieces
• 2 boards
• Other Plastic Figures:
  • 10 statues of anubis
  • 1 Cleopatra
• Cardboard Bits:
  • 89 amulets of corruption
  • 108 talents
  • 15 nile merchants
  • 12 mosaics of the gods
  • 1 altar
• 110 cards
• 5 dice
• 5 pyramids of corruption
• 5 summary sheets
• 1 rulebook

Quarry: A solid sheet of cardboard with rock "walls" raised up to help separate the components. This tray is pulled out of the box and set to the side when you play. It contains all the items that you can construct during a game of Cleopatra (other than the cardboard mosaics). Herein you get 9 column walls, 6 sphinxes, 2 obelisks, 2 door frames, and 1 throne and 1 pedestal.

The pieces are all large and molded from hard, tan-colored plastic. They all contain a medium level of detail, but some of it's very nice, such as the hieroglyphs up and down the obelisks. There isn't a lot of contrast on the plain tan pieces, which is unfortunate, but they'd probably look amazing if you wanted to paint them. Even if not, they're attractive.

The quarry comes wrapped in a protective plastic dome. Unfortunately when I took mine off I ended up with an annoying sticky residue on the bottom of the quarry.

Game Boards: Two heavy cardboard panels. They're used in conjunction with the box bottom, which shows the outside of Cleopatra's palace. This is where all the pieces from the quarry are ultimately placed.

You place the "garden" board atop the box. It has spaces for the mosaics of the gods and Cleopatra's throne and pedestal. You place the "plaza" board in front of the box. It has spaces for the sphinxes and the obelisks, and also shows Cleopatra's processional, which marks the time until the end of the game. The last two quary pieces, the door frames and the column walls, go around the box.

Other Plastic Figures: A small tan figure of Cleopatra which doesn't have that great a level of detail and two statues of Anubis in each of the player colors (green, purple, black, orange, white). The statues are molded out of a softer plastic and seem to have slightly better detail as a result.

Cardboard Bits: The cardboard bits are all printed on thick, linen-textured cardboard. The corruption markers and talents are each simple markers. The amulets are circular and show crocodiles while the talents are rectangular and show a value of 1, 2, 5, or 10.

The merchants come in the five player colors. Each one shows a ship with the color & hieroglyph of the owner, which is a nice touch. The merchants are wild cards in the game, and they helpfully show all five resources along their bottom.

The Mosaics of the Gods are pentominos. Each one shows a different set of five connected squares. They're each edged in different colors, which makes them vivid.

The altar of the god is a circular cardboard piece that you put by the front of the board. It exists solely to collect dice that come up "ankhs" so that you don't accidently reroll them.

Cards: Cards printed on full-sized, linen-textured cardstock. Each one has attractive art in the middle, then either icons or text at the bottom to describe what the card does. They're all very pretty, and also very easy to use. Besides the good use of icons at the bottom of each card, there's also a handy shorthand at each of the top corners, which allows you to see exactly what a card does if they're stacked on the table or if you're fanning them in your hand.

Dice: Five wooden dice, each printed with an ankh on one side.

Pyramids of Corruption: Cardstock pyramids which you fold out when you play. Each is printed with the color and hieroglyph of one of the five players. You place your corruption tokens inside them via a slot, so that the other players can't see them.

Summary Sheets: These summary sheets not only tell you the cost and return on every construction (which is extremely useful during the game), but also show what every card does. They're everything you need to play the game, so that you don't have to reference the rulebook. Very helpful.

Rulebook: A 12-page full-color rulebook which does a fine job of explaining the rules, and which you won't need to consult during the game thanks to the handy reference sheets.

Overall, there's an amazing amount of heft to Cleopatra. I'm stunned that they could put so many pieces in the box for $50. Some people have said it's overproduced, and they're probably right, but so what. The game is reasonably priced, and the pieces make the game very evocative.

As noted, the cards and other components are generally beautiful as well, and a huge amount of utility has been put into the cards and the reference sheets, making the game entirely easy to play. Cleopatra's components are everything they could be, and thus the game earns a "5" out of "5" for Style.