Best Concordia Expansion & Maps To Get in 2021 [In Depth Review]

Concordia is one of the most popular modern board games, but it’s notoriously difficult to figure out which expansions are the best to get. You definitely want to get some expansions because you want the best map for 2 players, 3 players and 4 players. But, a few of the expansions actually contain (partially) the same maps as others. So in this post we walk you through this jungle to find the best Concordia expansion and map for your situation.

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Which Concordia Game Is Stand Alone?

First off, we need to establish which Concordia sets are stand alone base games, because you need one of those before you can get expansions.

There’s two stand alone Concordia games: the original base game and the Venus base game. All the other Concordia games are expansions and require either of these base games to be playable.

The Venus base game was created to replace the original base game, so we recommend getting the Venus base game. It includes the map of the original base game (Imperium), as well as extra maps, so it’s strictly better.

Which Concordia Set Has Which Maps?

It’s important to set clear which Concordia expansion contains which Concordia maps. We made an overview on this, based on the expansions that are currently available at retailers. Note that each Concordia set contains at least 2 different maps (so when we write ‘Imperium & Italy’ that’s two maps, not just one).

Original base game: Imperium & Italia
Venus Base Game: Imperium & Cyprus & Hellas & Ionium
Concordia Venus expansion: Hellas & Ionium
Concordia Salsa: Byzantium & Hispania

And there’s also a few Concordia sets that only contain extra maps:

So the maps that appear in multiple expansions are Italia and Balaerica, and Hellas and Ionium are both in the Venus expansion and the Venus base game.

Which Concordia Maps Are The Best?

Choosing Concordia maps is largely dependent on player count. For smaller groups you need smaller maps to force the players to engage with each other and to make the game sufficiently competitive.

To play Concordia with 2 players you want Corsica or Crete because they’re the most dense maps. For 3 players you want Italy, which is in the original base game, or Ionium which is in the Venus base game. For 4 players you want Gallia. For 5 players you want the base map Imperium (also called Mare Nostrum) which is in the base game, or Cyprus which is in the Venus base game.

Recommended Sets For Concordia

Every Concordia set needs a base game, so we split up our recommendation based on which base game you have.

Venus Base Game + Corsica & Gallia / Creta & Aegyptus

Assuming that you own the Venus base game, you already have a good map for 5 and 6 players (Cyprus and Imperium), 4 players (Hellas), and 3 players (Ionium).

What you’re really missing though is a good 2 player map, so you want to get Corsica or Creta. Corsica comes with Gallia which is a good 4 player map, and Crete comes with Aegyptus (Egypt) which is a good 3 player map, so you can base your decision on whether you rather get another good 3 player or 4 player map.

Original Base Game + Corsica & Gallia / Venus Expansion

If you own the original base game instead of the Venus base game, you only have a good 5 player map (Imperium) and 3 player map (Italy). So in this case we recommend getting Corsica and Gallia to fill up your holes for a 2 player and 4 player map simultaneously.

Or, if you want to be able to play Concordia with 6 players, you need the Venus expansion. Alternatively, you could get the Venus base game, if you really wanted to get the Cyprus map as well.

Rounding Up

We hope our article helps you pick the best Concordia expansion and map for you.

If you still have further questions, please send them to us through our contact form. We’re happy to help. We also periodically review and update our posts, so any questions you ask may end up in future versions of our ranking. This way, we can help future readers decide which Concordia version to get even better 🙂