Hellenica: Story of Greece

If you love Ancient Greece in an almost reverential way, perhaps keep a safe distance from this box. The mythic edition is literally flooded with plastic, while the sight of Trojan riders shining as though Apollo himself polished them, trampling Spartan hoplites across the Aegean islands before Charybdis swallows them, reaches Cyclades-level cringe. It has that American excess that makes you want to put on “America, Fuck Yeah” and look at the box with some suspicion.

At its core, Hellenica is a dudes-on-the-map game with theme and depth, honestly borrowing from Clash of Cultures, mixing in some old-fashioned American trashiness and adding a more contemporary lean toward solo play. I would not call it original, nor does it make much effort to hide its borrowings. Yet the result is not merely a pile of familiar ingredients: it produces a game that has a reason to spread across the table.

Its flow shines when a lot of people gather around it. With many players, downtime stays low, conflict is plentiful, and interaction is direct, noisy, and satisfying without exhausting the group. The problem is that the map, even in its random version, keeps the capital locations fixed. Since the game is essentially built for seven, at lower player counts you either need bots or someone gains a serious positional advantage.

Somewhere behind the innocent storefront of this lavish, historically peculiar box, I found a game with genuine interest. It is not something to take overly seriously, and it has its problems, but for a large group that wants map-based brawling and honest commotion, I consider it a very good option—certainly preferable to games with a stronger reputation, such as Mare Nostrum. For me, it just about holds up at five, becomes good at six, and is at its best with seven. If you cannot reach those numbers, you are better off looking toward a Dark Ages title.