Monumental Board Game Review

Have you ever wondered what it would look like if samurai faced off against Vikings, or ancient Egypt against China? In the civilization game Monumental, you become the leader of a faction and might just find the answer. Can you defeat your opponents and become a legendary conqueror?

Monumental, designed by Matthew Dunstan and published in Czech by Blackfire, is for 1 to 4 players (ages 10+) and takes about 90 to 120 minutes to play. While the box is standard-sized, it is packed with game material. All components and cards are of high quality. The card design is truly well-executed and perfectly sets the game's atmosphere. In addition to the rules, the game includes a scenario book for setting up the map.

How to play?

The first "mini-game" will surprise you during the setup phase. As is customary in other games, you usually read the beginning of the rulebook to see how to set up the board game on the table and check the picture to see if you have it right. But the Monumental rules are different… While the rules explain how to set up the game, there is no component overview page anywhere. You create the map according to the scenario book, but you are pretty much on your own for everything else. So, when the game tells you to prepare market tokens or stack culture tokens, you will be desperately digging through the components in the box, guessing which token is which. Once you fight your way through the awkwardly written rules, you just need to choose one of five factions: China, Denmark, Egypt, Greece, or Japan. Take all the components associated with your chosen faction, and you can finally start playing!

Monumental is a combination of area control and deck building. Each player has their own starting deck of cards and creates a 3x3 grid from nine drawn civilization cards, which represents their city. At the beginning of their turn, the player chooses to rotate cards in one row and one column of their city. The civilization cards feature symbols that allow the player to gain production, science, or military tokens. These tokens then allow players to perform actions: moving military or explorer tokens on the map, purchasing knowledge cards, building wonders of the world, creating cultural policies, and gaining development cards.

Military combat is extremely simple. You don't need any dice rolls or combat cards. You add the defense of the given hex to the strength of your units against the attacking player's strength. Whoever has the higher strength wins the battle and conquers the territory. Once a player performs all their actions, they discard the used cards from their city, replenish them with new cards, and it is the next player's turn. The game is divided into 3 ages: Antiquity, Medieval, and Modern. With your faction, you will go through history from building Stonehenge to a space station. Monumental also offers three modules: heroes, monsters, and the Renaissance age, which you can add to the game if you wish.

You gain heroes from the development offer; they then help you with various actions and progress in the game, so your faction might include Joan of Arc, William Shakespeare, or Cleopatra. Monsters represent challenges for each player, for which they earn points. The Renaissance age extends the game by one era. Furthermore, the game offers Automa, a system for an additional player controlled by cards. You can add Automa to the game when playing solo or as an addition in multiplayer games.

The player with the most points at the end of the game wins. However, points are not calculated during the game, but only at the very end. Points are awarded, for example, for each province under control, for each knowledge card, or for a built wonder of the world.

Our impressions?

• The choice of factions is interesting – the game will play out slightly differently with each one.
• The map is composed of interlocking hexes that fit together very nicely. The map won't fall apart even if you accidentally bump the table.
• In the Czech version of the game, the military tokens are made of cardboard, while in the English version, they are plastic miniatures. Some might miss the miniatures, but thanks to this, the game is a third cheaper and more accessible. Personally, I find the cardboard tokens easier to manipulate on the map.
• The active player must carefully consider which cards in their city to rotate to extract the most actions. The better they plan, the longer their turn takes, which sometimes creates a long delay between player turns.
• The combination of area control and deck building is great, and both mechanics complement each other nicely.
• Due to its complexity, I would say the game is suitable for slightly advanced players. It's not that it's difficult, but it will take a newcomer some time to get the hang of the number of combinations.
• The game generates very interesting situations where, for example, Japan can build the Colossus of Rhodes and the Vikings can build Notre-Dame. I really enjoy this cultural "perversion," and I can vividly imagine pyramids standing in Greece.
• Even though the map is larger with more players, you will fight hard for every hex to have more points than your opponents.
• A big advantage is Automa. It allows you to enjoy the game both solo and in multiplayer. Operating it is simple and fast, and when playing solo, you won't feel like you're playing more for the Automa than for your own faction. Defeating the Automa is no easy task, and you will break a sweat doing it.
• The game is space-demanding. Expect to need a larger table, especially with more players.

Rating

Rules are one of the most important aspects of games, and unfortunately, I haven't read worse-written rules than those in Monumental. Not only will you want to pull your hair out during the first setup, but there are several situations in the game for which you won't find an answer in the rules. It boggles the mind why the authors didn't include a component overview sheet in the rules, which would have solved many issues. If you want to save yourself the trouble, I recommend checking out YouTube before setting up, where players who have already gone through it will tell you how to prepare everything. I personally recommend Nithrania, for example. If the rules don't ruin your appetite for the game, you will enjoy this civilization game.

Every player will find something to enjoy here, whether it's building wonders of the world, conquering, or gaining knowledge. The start will be more difficult for beginners, but they will catch on after a few minutes. I must say that despite the initial setup troubles, I enjoyed the game and wasn't bored. Player turns are longer, but at least you have time to think about your next move. As a player, you must not forget any of the victory point categories, otherwise, your opponents will outscore you at the end. Interesting theme, great gameplay, and reasonable player interaction, plus several modifications and a very useful Automa. The BGG rating of 7.6/10 is accurate. Honestly, I think if the rules were better written, this game would deserve a rating of over 8/10.

author Daniel Korčák