Hubris: Twilight of the Hellenistic World, 220-165 BCE
by
GMT Games
This game deals with the period of history that I love the most. This would be the period from the death of Alexander to the fall of the Roman Republic. The game period also mostly corresponds to the rule of Antiochos III the Great from 223-187 BC of the Seleucid Empire (He was also the Great Grandfather of Mithridates VI Eupator, Rome's most inveterate enemy). Antiochos is my third favorite ruler from the time. The first two would be Antigonus and Pyrrhus. The year 220 BC is two years before the start of the second Punic War between Rome and Carthage. This time period is called the Hellenistic Age. The three families of generals of Alexander had carved up his empire and now ruled it along with some smaller states. The Greece city states were shades of their former glory and power. The Antigonids ruled in Macedon, Lagids (Ptolemies) ruled in Egypt, and the Seleucids had power over a large part of the Asian empire of Alexander. To be correct, the Seleucid empire was not doing that well when Antiochus III came to power. Antiochos first tried to conquer Egypt, but he was repulsed at the Battle of Raphia. After that, he decided to reconquer the other kingdoms in central Asia that had broken free from the Seleucid yoke. His triumphant march reestablished the Seleucid power and earned him his moniker. These three states had now had to deal with a relatively newcomer on the world stage the Republic of Rome. So, the stage is set and the players are on their marks. The curtain rises on them, and the winner of the contest will become the ruler of the Mediterranean. This is what comes with the game:
One 22” x 34” Mounted Map
69 Leader Cards
62 Event Cards
Three Double-sided Roman Agenda Cards
Five Double-sided Punic Wars Cards
37 Optional Satrapy Mini-Cards
25 Leader Blocks with Stickers
Three Countersheets of 5/8”, 2/3” round, and ½” Markers and Counters
Three Player Aid Foldouts
One Player Aid Card & Map Legend
One Solitaire Guidelines Foldout
Three Sets of Four 6-sided Dice
One Rulebook
One Playbook with Examples of Play and Background Material
Published: 2025
Designer: Morgane Gouyon-Rety
Developer: Kevin Bernatz
Art Director: Oliver Chanry
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| This is from GMT Games and shows all of the components |
This is what GMT Games has to say about the game:
"Hubris: Twilight of the Hellenistic World places players in the shoes of the 2nd century BC Hellenistic kings, heirs to the famous Successors who fought over Alexander the Great's empire for more than 40 years, into their dotage. The world they are living in is different in many ways as, under the Macedonian kings, the Eastern Mediterranean has experienced a boost in urban life and an unprecedented sharing and cross-fertilization of culture, but the dominant theme remains major powers' rivalries and endemic warfare.
In those years, even though the great kingdoms of the Lagids (Ptolemies), Seleucids and Antigonid Macedon have been established for 80 years or more, power remains a very personal endeavour, with everything revolving around the king, and he himself having to rely on his entourage of family members, childhood friends, and veteran advisers to conduct state affairs, whether leading armies, undertaking diplomatic missions, or governing provinces.
Even though the great kings are fixated on their rivals, the world around them has been changing, both from within, where minor kingdoms such as Pergamon have been pushing for a space at the table, and leagues of Greek cities are offering a new challenge to century-old Macedonian hegemony, and from without where, beyond the ever present Barbarian incursions from the savage North, new powers have been flexing their muscles both in the Western Mediterranean and Central Asia...
The times for a final push for final triumph, or descent into irrelevancy, are near..."
This is definitely a game that cries out 'Eurogame' when you look at the components. The board is colorful and totally filled with game information and tracks. It comes with both blocks and counters and has three decks of cards, one of which is Tarot card in size. There are also enough player aids and rules to choke a horse.
The map is in Ancient Greek. So, the place names might be different than even a Grognard who plays ancient games would be used to. The map goes from Egypt in the south to Illyria in the north, and from Italy to Bactria from east to west. It is cut up into the different satrapies (many left over from the Achaemenid Empire) and ruled by satraps (governors). There are also the smaller nations in Asia Minor, Pontus, Bithynia, and others, along with Sparta and the Aetolian and Achaean Leagues in Greece. The satrapies and nations have their own banners that denote victory points along with other game information. Cities and tribes are also marked on the map as are strongholds, capitols, and places of interest. The satrapies are combined into regions, these being:
Greece: Peloponessos, Boiotia- Euboia, Thessalia, Aitolia-Epeiros
Europe: Illyria, Makedonia, Thrake
Asia Minor: Mysia, Ionia, Lydia-Phrygia, Bithynia, Lykia-Pamphylia
Africa: Kyrenaike Delta, Pelousiakon Stoma, Thebais
Some might say the map is a bit busy, but everything on it is more than large enough to easily read and find the information you are looking for. One more thing, I find the map to be absolutely wonderfully illustrated, but this might be my bias talking.
Next, we have the different Rulebooks etc.:
Rules of Play - 51 pages
Learning to Play - 27 pages
Solitaire Rules - 11 pages
Companion Book (Tome) - 68 pages
All of the books are in blazing full color and use double-column pages. The Companion Book is jammed packed with almost everything in the game discussed in its pages. This is its Table of Contents:
Historical Introduction
Events Appendix
Second Punic War Appendix
Leaders Appendix
Designer Notes
Pronunciation Guide
Map Gazetteer
Bibliography
Credits
Every single Leader, place, and playing card has its own history or bio written out. Even someone like me who has read widely on the era will learn plenty of history here.
The Players' Aids are made of card stock and are also in full color. There are three, one for each Kingdom player, that fold out to four pages. The next is double-sided with a Map Legend on one and Information about Rome in the game on the other. Lastly, there are two Players' Aids about Non-Player Kingdoms for playing solitaire. One is double-sided and the other is a fold out four pager.
Coming up next on the hit list is the counters. There are three full countersheets of them. They range from 5/8" and 1/2" squares to circles representing armies, navies, and game tokens. The 5/8" counters are rounded, while the 1/2" are not. The squared counters have no writing on them, but the circle counters do. Unfortunately, this writing is small. There is also a small bag of muti-colored blocks and two sheets of stickers for them. There are 12 die that come with the game, four for each of the Hellenistic Kingdoms.
Last, but definitely not least, are the three sets of cards. Their sizes remind me of the story of Goldilocks. The three decks go from small to normal and Tarot in size. The smallest deck has all of the game's separate satrapies on them. The normal wargame sized deck has all of the leaders and Kings along with some other cards to be played. In this deck every single personality has a picture on the card representing them. They are very nicely done and remind me of what you would see in a graphic novel. The Tarot sized deck has all of the event cards that you will play or have to deal with. They also have the same type of graphic novel illustration across the top of the cards.
Please understand that I am not doing justice to the game's components. Unless you get the entirety of them in your hot little hands you will not completely understand the art and design that went into everything in the box.
These are the scenarios:
220 (Historical) New Hopes
220 (Alternate) The Seleucid Thunderbolt
220 (2 Player Introductory Scenario) The Fourth Syrian War
205 Antiochos the Great
192 (1 Player Solitaire Scenario) Antiochos's Hubris
190 (1 Player Solitaire Introductory Scenario) The Dance of Ares
180 Last Glimmers
The scenario setups also have a full color map to show you where every piece and token goes.
Victory in the game is decided by points in these three categories:
Territorial Victory Points
Dynastic Victory Points
Renown
Total Victory Points (all three added together)
A player can also get an Automatic Victory if he has 30 Total Victory Points. There is also a Historical Victory Performance Spreadsheet. You can use this to see how you are doing compared to your historical counterparts.
So, as the old adage goes, it looks very nice but how does it play? Well for starters, the complexity is nowhere near as high as the mass of components would make you think. The game is rated by GMT at a difficulty of five and I think that is spot on. It is certainly not Squad Leader or a beer and pretzels game. Like a good number of games that are coming out, it does help if you already know the history. That doesn't mean you will have to have taken a course on the Hellenistic age to play it, although the designer has put so much history into it that I would be surprised if you didn't receive some of it by osmosis. The game does have a lot of parts, and you will have to follow the sequence of play at least for a few turns. However, then you should be getting into the groove of playing it.
One part of warfare that the game does a very good job of showing historical reality is money. The talent is the going denomination in the game. If you do not have enough talents your grandiose plans are just that. The Macedonian Antigonids are the poorest Kingdom with the Seleucids roughly in the middle between Macedonia and the Ptolemies of Egypt. The Ptolemies definitely have a leg up as far as wealth goes. However, it can be more than offset by gameplay in other areas. Another very historical part of the game is that Hellenistic Kings did not make peace treaties lightly. Historically, no King reneged on his word and attacked another that he made peace with. So, in the game you have to follow this policy. However, if a new King is enthroned the gloves are off. The treaties were made between the Kings and not Kingdoms.
The very nature of the game means that every time you play it will be a different game. Oh, the starting setups will be the same but the minute you start to play things will be different. The goal of the game is to conquer and to increase your renown as far as you can. However, the name of the game is Hubris. This is taken straight from the Greek definition. So, just like Icarus you can fly too high and destroy yourself and your Kingdom in the process. For a historical reference Antiochos the Great has 29 Total Victory Points in the year 200-196 BC (turn 5). That means he is just one point away from winning. However, after his war with Rome he and his Kingdom crash and burn.
You start with the setup of the Treasury, Victory Points, your starting Court Members etc. Then you prepare all of the decks for play. Next is the Revenue Phase (collecting taxes from your satrapies). The Mercenaries Phase is where you will vie with the other Kingdoms for the control of the Kretans, Galatians, and others. The Action Phase with the Events cards and activations are now dealt with. Then comes the Winters Quarters Phase, Pending Events Segment, Peace Segment, War Exhaustion Segment, Victory Segment, Returning Home Segment, Strengthened Defenses Segment, Inflation Segment (this is a big one - your treasury is cut in half), and finally the End of Turn Segment.
Hubris is a game designed by Morgane Gouyon-Rety. You might remember her as the designer of Pendragon for GMT Games. If you look closely on some of the YT videos about Hubris you will see some are from David Bernatz, the game developer. That in itself isn't groundbreaking, but the fact that some of them are five years old is. So, you can see that a lot of time and effort has been put into this game. I have a bias toward anything during the Hellenistic age. However, that also means that if a game set in the period is not up to snuff, I will be the first to mention it. This is definitely not the case with Hubris. The game is just dripping with historically correct play and design. However, if you are more of a straight wargamer and do not like the GMT Games COIN games or politics and intrigue in your games I would look for something else. Hubris is meant for the player to try and keep his Hellenistic Royal Family at least alive and well if nothing else. At this point in history usurpers, assassinations, and governors who try to make themselves Kings are the norm. I cannot recommend this game highly enough. If you have the slightest interest in the era, I will say definitely pick it up. If you want to learn about the era that is even better. This game will give you a ton of information on the time period.
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| Antiochos III Megas- I am definitely going to get a replica of this bust at some time. |
My only wish is that we have an expansion that takes us back to the Diadochi (Successors) Era, or an entire new game. Remember what Plutarch said: "Antigonus, oldest and greatest of the Successors".
Robert Peterson
This is a link to Book 1 of a five-part series that Morgane Gouyon-Rety did for GMT Games. It is absolutely wonderful history of the people and times:
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