According to the saying, Rome wasn't built in a day. The title of this game from Alley Cat and Red Cat suggests 24 hours could suffice but even that is an exaggeration because Rome in a Day is a 2-5 player game you can play comfortably in a filler-length 20 minutes!
Designer Evgeny Petrov has given his game the Latin strap line: Veni, Vidi, Divisi! and that pretty much sums up the rules for this enjoyable easy-to-play 'I split, you choose' game. Players all have their own identical sets of 20 hexagonal tiles made up of four copies of each of the five types of terrain: olive groves (green), vineyards (purple), fields (yellow), town quarters (red) and quarries (white) and four gems. Everyone shuffles their tiles and in each of the four rounds, they draw five, placing the buildings indicated for them for the round on the first two tiles drawn. Then, behind a screen, players decide on how they will split the five tiles: 3/2, 4/1. The buildings must stay on the tiles on which they appeared and players must add a gem to the smaller grouping. Players all simultaneously reveal their splits and the neighbouring player makes their choice of which to take, with the group not chosen being retained by the player who offered it.
Once selections have been made, players add the tiles to their indicidual tableaus, again making sure that the buildings remain on the tile on which they were drawn. Your tile layout is important for scoring: a building scores a point for being on or adjacent to land of its own colour and a point for every matching terrain type to which it has an unbroken connection. Gems also score: 3 points if you end up with just one gem; 9 points if you end up with the four with which you started, but rising to 31 points if you end up with eight gems - the maximum possible after four rounds.
Rome in a Day is attractively presented with its individual wooden buildings and attractive artwork from Irina Pechenkina, and it has quickly become one of our 'go to' filler-length games. In addition to the 'I split, you choose' mechanic, it's a puzzle optimisation game as you try to make the very best of the tiles and building you end up with each round. Canny players will have an eye to which buildings will come up for grabs in subsequent rounds - both from their own and their neighbours' cards - so they can organise their tableau to maximise the score for the buildings they might expect to end up with. And if you see that your neighbour has laid out a line of yellow tiles in anticipation of being able to claim the windmill they know you'll be picking up this turn, you can take advantage by putting the windmill as the smaller option in a 4/1 split...