Successors (Fourth Edition)

Pete: Hey, dude. How would you like to live in an ancient Mediterranean-area nation during the empire of Alexander the Great?

Rick: That sounds terrible, actually. Mandatory military service for all men, essentially domestic imprisonment for women, and very few board games.

Pete: Well, what about ancient Greece, but with carbonless copy paper technology?

Rick: Wait, what? If you could improve ancient Greece in one way, it would be with the introduction of, of what?

Pete: Carbonless copy paper. See, the ancient Greeks certainly could not deal with the internet, and I think the printing press would be giving them too much power. You don’t want to insert too advanced a technology into a civilization. It’s harmful and destructive.

Rick: You’re all over the map on this one. 

Pete: Even though carbonless copy paper came centuries after the printing press, I think it’s a good place to start with ancient Greece. Microencapsulated ink on the back side of the top sheet, clay coating on the front side of the bottom sheet. What’s not to love? I just bought some and had my new kitten pounce on it. Paw prints on both sheets! Adorable!

Rick: What about better management of human civilization so they don’t have nation states warring with one another every other week?

Pete: Hey, man, we haven’t figured out how to do that yet in 2022. I don’t know how we would tell them what to do. And—

Rick: And you’ve just read a book about the history and technology of carbonless copy paper and decided now would be the best time to show off? 

Pete: Yeeeeeeah.

Rick: Oh dear. Okay, then. I’m just gonna talk past you. I assume you brought up Greece because of our unboxing of Successors, Fourth Edition (2022), designed by Richard H. Berg and Mark Simonitch and published by Phalanx. A game about Macedonian generals warring among themselves over who would be the successor to Alexander's empire.

Pete: What? Are you not enjoying our kittenish repartee? Do you think Alexander kept cats? Cats are cute! Can we unbox a game about cats?

Rick: Dude. I need you to take a week. A full week. No reading. No board games. No doing or speaking of any kind.