Heroes and Wonders - Mare Nostrum Review

I received my copy of Mare Nostrum in a trade almost five years ago, and I have played many times. Just this weekend I played it after an extended hiatus. We were playing with the Mythology expansion, where the players have the option to call upon the favor of a god to give them a one-shot boost for the round. I made the foolish decision to spend the resources to use a god that actually was a lot less useful than I had expected. Mare Nostrum is not a very forgiving game when it comes to wasting resources, and I assumed I had blown this one. But then an odd thing happened. The god I had selected, Baal, had the ability to destroy a city of an opposing player. I realized I was holding on to a live grenade that I could lob at someone, and that I could get my way to a limited extent by using the threat of the destruction of a city. I’ve played many times, and for whatever reason this had never occurred to me. I probably would have still been better off saving my cards and doing something else, but for a brief glorious moment I had the joy of watching an old game reveal yet another new facet to me.