Games Session
|
|
| Date: |
23rd July 2004 |
| Game Played: |
Doge |
|
|
| Players |
Result |
Win |
Ratings |
| Garry |
6 |
P |
7 |
| Nige |
5 |
|
7 |
| Mark G |
4 |
|
6 |
| Mark K |
4 |
|
7 |
Nige had managed to
acquire a cheap copy of Leo Colovini's Doge on E-Bay this week, so he was,
naturally, keen to try it out. When I played it in 2000, when it first
came out, I thought it was a pretty good game. Having played it again, I
still like it although anyone who doesn't enjoy blind-bidding games will
probably not have fun with it.
The basic idea of the game is that there are several
regions in Venice into which players are trying to erect places. To build
a palace, a player has to have built a number of houses in that region -
the number of houses increasing as more palaces are built. Players have a
set of influence markers which, at the beginning of each turn, they
secretly distribute among three regions. Once this has been done, each
region is evaluated in a pre-determined order and the players with the
most and second-most influence in the region get to build houses there and
(in the case of the player with the highest influence) possibly enlist the
help of advisers in evaluating other regions later on. Once all the
regions have been evaluated, players recover their influence markers and
another round takes place. As soon as a player has 6 palaces all in
different regions or 7 palaces in at least five different regions or 8 in
at least 4 regions, he is able to claim the victory.
Our game played pretty quickly. I managed to foil Nige's
plans in one region where we both had the same plan, which gave me a good
advantage and I built on it to assure myself of the victory. Nige, of
course, was gutted by this which made the triumph even more sweet.
