The Tabletop Takeaway: A Board Game Design Podcast · Ananda Guneratne, Charlie McCarron, Trevor Muller-Hegel

106. Cyclades

·23 min·2 clips

Discover how Cyclades turns bidding on Greek gods into a tense battle for control over islands and metropolises.

Cyclades stretches the auction into the whole board game. Charlie, Trevor, and Ananda compare it with No Thanks, then move from number-card bidding into an island fight where bids buy actions. The gods are the menu. Ares improves armies and opens attacks. Poseidon builds and moves the ships that let those attacks cross islands. Zeus changes future bidding costs. Athena stays in the same system, and the panel keeps circling back to the nice trick: every god feels different, but none feels disposable. That is where the design bites. In many auctions, the lots mostly differ by value. Here, players need different capabilities because winning asks for several kinds of progress. The issue is when to chase them, not whether. The four building types add another squeeze, since they usually come from winning the four god auctions. Capture muddies that clean plan. Taking someone else's buildings can replace certain bids, but conquest also makes you obvious and fragile. Philosophers give another route. Four philosophers can make a building too, though the table reads that as risky if a player leans on it too hard. It invites invasion. The best part is the foreshadowing. Poseidon movement often has to show up before Ares aggression, so opponents can see the threat and decide whether to block, counterbid, or brace for it. That makes hate bidding feel earned. Sometimes a player bids on an action they barely want because keeping an island alive matters more. The panel likes that tension. Their closing caution is practical: multiple auction types can sing, but only when the extra machinery does not bury the main game.

As heard by us

An auction game where every bid reshapes the next move.

The discussion frames Cyclades as an auction game where each bid does more than win a prize; it pushes the whole table into a new strategic shape.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

If you want auctions that shape a whole strategic map, start here.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from The Tabletop Takeaway: A Board Game Design Podcast