Concordia (Board Game) Map Expansions Quiz

Answer: There are separate starting cities for sea and land colonists

The "Britannia / Germania" map expansion was released in 2014, one year after the base game. The Britannia map has two capital cities: Portus Itius and Londinium. Portus Itius is on the French coast and has only sea routes connecting it, so all sea colonists start there. Londinium is land-locked (there is no route along the Thames river), so all land colonists start there. Unlike most "Concordia" maps that have a capital city in the relative middle, the Britannia map's capital cities are in the south east, meaning everyone has to expand in roughly the same direction.

Answer: Tribune

In every "Concordia" game, there is one resource tile associated with each province, which is flipped with a Prefect action. Because of the way "Concordia" is set up, which tiles are used is not consistent, meaning there are many extras included with the game.

The Germania map makes use of these extra tiles by having Roman forts. After placing tiles for the provinces, ten more tiles are placed on the forts, which are connected by routes just like cities. When a player plays their Tribune to recover their cards, if they have a colonist on a route connected to a fort, they can take that resource from the fort for free.

Answer: Sea colonists grant two movement points

The Germania map is a land-locked region with no seas or oceans to navigate. Instead, sea colonists travel along Germany's rivers, like the Rhine. There are far fewer available routes when confined to a river system instead of a large body of water, making sea colonists on this map much weaker. To offset this disadvantage, every sea colonist on the Germania board grants two movement points instead of one.

Answer: Build a house in an Atlantic port city

Players start games on Gallia with two colonists on the board, as usual, except the sea colonists are stuck in the Mediterranean Sea, granting movement points and nothing else. Land colonists start in Lutetia (modern day Paris), and players have to build a house in one of the six cities on the Atlantic coast to free their ship.

Answer: 20

There are four city groups in "Concordia": A, B, C, and D, with each group having a different number of cities. On the large maps, all four groups are used for a total of 30 cities. The smaller maps omit one of the groups to make "tighter" games. The Corsica and Creta maps are the only two maps to omit the largest group, C, which has ten cities.

The number of cities cannot drop too much because each player has 15 houses, and one of the end-game triggers is to build all of them, so maps need to have at least 15 cities.

Answer: Players receive extra sestertii when using a Prefect to reset the resource tiles

The original maps of "Concordia" were made to accommodate five players comfortably, but could feel a bit open when playing with only two players. These smaller maps were made with an eye to keep two-player games interesting. They have the fewest cities of any maps, and they also have fewer provinces (Corsica has only eight). An important source of cash in "Concordia" is the bonus cash from resetting the province's production tiles with a Prefect. With fewer players to play Prefects, and fewer provinces to offer bonuses, the cash flow into the game was reduced.

This could have stymied development because fewer cities meant players had to more often build in the same cities as their opponents, which would have increased the cash cost. So both of these maps grant an extra two sestertii whenever someone plays a Prefect to reset the tiles.

Answer: It has a province with only one city

The island of Gavdos, south of the western end of Crete, is the only province on any "Concordia" board that has only one city in it (almost all others have two or three). Usually when setting up resource tiles, the tile associated with the province is whatever is the most valuable good that can be produced in the province.

The space for the Gavdos resource tile is left blank during set up. Instead, if players produce in Gavdos during a Prefect action, they can choose any resource they like, and place the corresponding resource tile on the space.

When someone resets the tiles by taking the cash bonus, the tile is removed from the board, opening it up once again to be whatever players need.

Answer: A food tile is moved down the Nile granting extra food during Prefect actions

The Nile runs through the provinces of Kush, Nubia, Aegyptus Superior, Arcadia, and Aegyptus Inferior. During setup a food token is placed in Kush (the furthest upstream). When a player produces in Kush, that player receives an extra food resource, and the token is moved to Nubia, the next province in line. Each time the province with the food token produces, the token moves downstream until it reaches the Mediterranean Sea, where it gets sent back to Kush.

Answer: Extra sestertii when using a Prefect

Getting a sea colonist into the Frankincense space is no small feat. Players start in Memphis on the Nile river, which has no sea routes connected to the Red Sea. They need to build a house in a city on the coast of the Red Sea and purchase and use the Colonist card (or copy an opponent's Colonist card) to build a sea colonist in that city (Tribunes only let players place colonists in the capital city), and then use another Architect action to move the sea colonist into a route adjacent the Frankincense space. Any sea colonist that ends its movement adjacent the Frankincense space is moved into it at the end of the turn, and is stuck there for the rest of the game (maximum one sea colonist in the space per player).

But all that work can be worth it. There are three provinces adjacent the Red Sea: Litus, Sinai, and Arabia. Whenever any player produces in any of those provinces with a Prefect, any players with colonists on the Frankincense space get five sestertii. That is quite the cash infusion. Now players can reliably, efficiently collect resources and cash in the same turn.

If players use the team variant in the "Concordia: Venus" expansion, the second player, who does not have to start in the capital, could choose to start in a Red Sea coast city, getting to the Frankincense space much faster.

Answer: Germania (2014) and Aegyptus (2017)

Most maps focus on coastal areas in Europe and the Mediterranean Sea, making sea routes just as useful as land routes. The Germania and Aegyptus boards focus on land areas, with most of the water routes running along rivers instead seas. There are far fewer water routes when confined to rivers, so to prevent congestion, sea colonists can occupy the same spaces on these two maps.