Games Session
|
|
| Date: |
6th February 2004 |
| Game Played: |
The Prince: The Struggle Of House Borgia |
|
|
| Players |
Result |
Win |
Ratings |
| Mark K |
126 |
P |
6 |
| Garry |
122 |
|
6 |
| Mark G |
94 |
|
7 |
| Nige |
93 |
|
7 |
Having not won a game so far this year,
Nige was beginning to get desperate and so brought along a game that he
felt he stood a good chance of winning, as none of the rest of us knew
very much about The Prince.
The game is set in renaissance Italy and
is by Richard Berg, although published under the name Alexander S Berg.
Each player represents one of the powerful families from the era and are
seeking to gain the most power 
over
three rounds of card-play, by controlling city states, having artists live
in their cities, recruiting outside families to your cause, building
offices in the cities and ultimately winning elections to the office of
pope. You start with a small hand of cards which show these various
resources and each round consists of a series of auctions at the end of
which the cards you control gain you income votes towards the papal
election and victory points. In addition there are military cards which
enable you to attack other players' cities and other action cards that
when played help your cause or hinder another. The three rounds follow an
identical course at the end of which whoever has gained the most victory
points is the winner.
The first round was quite slow as we
were trying to establish the relative value of the cards being auctioned,
without really knowing how they would affect the game later. Mark K
acquired an army card very early on for a paltry sum of ducats, whereas
later armies went for several times the amount Mark paid. Nige's scouring
of the hints and tips beforehand enabled him to gain a handsome lead by
the end of the
second
round. However, Mark K and I had cards in hand suggesting we had powerful
armies just waiting to pounce. First Mark G attacked but Nige had just
enough to defend himself. However, this left his cards depleted and then
Mark K successfully stripped away Nige's most powerful city. My turn next,
but a powerful army came up for auction at the start of the turn. Nige
paid a hefty 41 ducats to grab the card (his only one in hand) only then
to find me play a spy to snatch the card away, leaving him defenceless to
my subsequent attack. Another lost city for Nige. This restricted his
third round scoring to just 13 VPs, while Mark K and I both claimed over
50 VPs. Mark K just managed to keep ahead of me to claim the win.
We all thought there were some
interesting aspects to the game but there were a few things that prevented
us from rating it that highly. The game took a bit too long, and the final
papal election was a non-event as everyone knew to hand it to the person
with the fewest VPs. Also, there was often not very much to do on a turn
as many of the cards won at auction had to be played immediately and the
choices were fairly obvious. However, the military threat was an
interesting aspect but I felt there weren't enough army cards to battle
often enough. Nevertheless, it was a fairly good game and we ensured
Nige's losing streak continued. Where did he finish in this game again? Oh
yes........
