Corinth Review

It’s time to Roll and Write your way into being the most successful merchant in the Ancient World of Corinth from Days of Wonder. Be ready at the Harbour to make wise decisions on whether to deliver goods, trade in gold or goats and when to build to bring home a tidy profit of victory points!

Components

This 2-4 player game, designed by Sebastien Pauchon, fits neatly into a small box that houses 12 light but sturdy engraved dice, nine white and three yellow, a pad of 150 full colour, paper score sheets, one Harbour Board, and a light but very helpful rulebook.

Have a look at my unboxing video below to see all of these pieces in more detail:

Gameplay

Each player needs to grab a pen and a score sheet, then place the Harbour Board in the centre of the table with the dice next to it and you’re ready to begin.

The first player crosses out the leftmost dice picture on their turn track and rolls all nine white dice (A dice tray would be handy for this, alternatively use the lid of the box). That player then sorts the dice by rolled value, the highest going into the Gold District (area) at the top of the Harbour Board.

The lowest value now is placed in the bottom area of the board, the Goats District, and the rest of the dice grouped into matching values and place in the next available District moving up the scale of the board (This may mean that not every district will have dice).

The first player now chooses which District to take the dice from, the important thing to note is that it’s not the number on the dice that counts but the number of dice. After this each other player in a clockwise order chooses the dice from other Districts, each removing them from the board.  

There are four distinct areas on the player sheet to try and complete during a game of Corinth. Gold or Goats, Goods Delivery, Move the Steward and Construct Buildings.  

When taking from either the Gold or Goats District the number of dice represent how many of these items they have just received. On the score sheet the player now circles the Gold or Goats. Every player starts off the game with one of each circled.

When a dice group is selected from one of the four coloured districts the player can deliver goods to shops in that District. They check off as many symbols as dice collected and when a shop has all its goods crossed out the player can move onto fulfilling the other deliveries for the rest of the shops in that district. The number at the top of each shop is the victory points awarded to each player who completes the goods order, counted at the end of the game.

The player who is first to deliver goods required to all the shops in the district receives a special bonus for doing so. This bonus number is found next to the character on the leftmost side of the sheet and is circled by the player. Everyone else then crosses out this bonus as they have missed out on it for that District.

As an action one could choose to Move the Steward instead of the regular district allocation. In this case the Steward is moved as many steps as the number on the dice. Gold can be spent (by crossing through circled coins) to increase or decrease the number of steps by one. When the Steward is moved through the market a path is drawn one step at a time, until reaching the last symbol that is circled and gained by the player. The Steward cannot cross over a circled symbol or line already drawn.

Finally, a player can construct a building by using the collected Gold and Goats. Each building gives a different helpful ability that can be used throughout the rest of the game, so it’s important to build these early on to take full advantage of all they offer.