Rondels and mancala? I am in...

I love rondels, I love mancala and I also love Trajan, which is a game that combined these 2 into perhaps my favorite action selection mechanism. 😍 After learning of Ostia and how it was inspired by Trajan, I was curious to see another take on this system, so we decided to grab ourselves a copy. In this competitive euro you are developing your port, building up your fleet of ships to explore, trade and sail to distant destinations.

Your port board is the essence of the game. 🧐 It is divided into 6 sections, with each section (except 1) corresponding to a type of resource and a type of action. This hexagonal part is your rondel which contains ship meeples, and those ships are the pieces that you will move around clockwise with mancala rules. On your turn you:
1️⃣ Pick a section and produce resources depending on the section and how many ships there are, and
2️⃣ Move the ships, placing them down one-by-one clockwise, then doing the action in the section where you’ve placed the last ship.

If you know Trajan you know it is often complicated to find the best way to do things. It is a very restrictive system, but very fun at the same time. Many actions might be blocked because of the way ships are placed on your board, and each mancala movement will shuffle things up.

A short summary of the actions:
⛵ Pay permits to move ships on the main board, claiming bonus tiles and reaching new trading posts where you can build later.
🏛️ Construct buildings to enhance the actions of your Port.
🔨 Use wood to construct new ships, so you can produce more resources, or get out new ships onto the main board.
🏺 Pay food to fulfill Order cards to earn Amphoras.
💰 Use coins to activate different Trade effects

You play until one of the end game conditions are met, where you then count up points. 🏆Points come from built ships, buildings and amphoras; set collection of icons; and trading posts where you’ve built with end-game effects.

💬 While these all sound like fun and the game works well enough, we unfortunately didn’t find the game engaging. Ultimately we were very underwhelmed by Ostia, which is a pity, because I love the concept and it looks so good too.