Country: Greece

Game description from the publisher:

In the strategic game Sparta, set in 228 B.C., you will relive the fascinating experience of skillful Spartan and Achaean warriors. Will Sparta seize power, or will the Achaeans maintain their stance?

Designer Yannick Holtkamp developed this strategic game at the age of 12. Still at school at age 14 in late 2011, he is enrolled as a science student at the University of Düsseldorf.

User summary:

The game is played on a 10x10 grid. Each player starts with a row of eight fighters on their side of the board. In the middle rows of the board, there are eight cities - each player owns four of these.

Each turn, a player may move one of their fighters up to two squares in any direction, changing direction between the moves if so desired.

If the fighter ends its turn in one of his own cities, he is promoted to a hero, and may move up to three squares on future turns.

If the fighter ends its turn on an opposing city, the city is conquered; it now belongs to the player that conquered it.

If, after the move, there are pieces trapped in between two opposing pieces, they are captured and removed from the board. Pieces are trapped if they are between pieces of the other side along a horizontal, vertical or diagonal row without a vacant square in between.

The game ends if one of the following happens:

One player owns all cities. That player wins the game.
One player has only one piece left on the board. His opponent wins the game.
Both players have only one or two pieces left on the board. The player with the most cities wins the game.

Alexandros is an abstract strategy by Leo Colovini, thematically inspired by the military expansion of Alexander the Great. It includes the "triggered scoring for all" mechanism, which can be considered a trademark of the designer, implemented in many of his games. It forces players to evaluate their actions in relation to what other players can earn.

The goal of the game is to have more points than other players when the trail/border markers are depleted or someone scores 100 points first.

Gameplay is driven by cards, used for all actions. Clockwise, players are first obliged to move the figure representing Alexandros across a triangular grid. They do this by playing cards with symbols matching those on destination spots. This is the core concept of the game - when the figure of Alexandros is moved, it leaves a trail of borders behind it. Soon, these borders begin to form provinces composed of triangular spaces: either with symbols or empty.

After moving Alexandros, players either build their hand of cards by drawing them, take over provinces or trigger scorings if the situation on the board suits them.

Players can occupy provinces by playing cards from their hand and placing tokens representing their leaders on spaces with corresponding symbols. When a scoring is triggered, provinces earn points equal to the number of empty spaces in them. Players can take over empty provinces and/or those occupied by other players. Each player has only four generals and placing them costs valuable cards - the game requires careful hand management and point-to-point movement - to create worthy provinces for scoring.

Awarded title of "Best Family Strategy Game" by Games Magazine in 2005.