Learn To Play Colosseum

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.

In the next phase, roll dice and move nobles around the board. The main goal is to bring nobles to your event, as each noble is worth a certain amount of gold coins. Players with the Emperor's Loge allows you to roll twice, and you can combine or split the number on the dice. If you land on an Emperor's Medal square, you receive the medal which can be used in later phases. The goal of Colosseum is to finish with the most gold coins for ONE performance. The scoring is not cumulative.

Finally, each player throws away one of the asset tokens used in their event. The leading player at the end of each round wins the podium, which equals three extra spectators in that round. The losing player gets a better chance at the next round, as they can ask for one asset token from the winner player.