Medici Review

boardgamequest.com:

We review Medici, published by Steamforged Games. This is a reprint of Dr. Renier Knizia's classic auction game and updated with a modern look.

How to write a new review of an old game? Imagine telling Board Game Quest readers about a little game called (as it once was) The Settlers of Catan. Would you, dear reader, even get past this silly intro paragraph for an award winning game from 1995? Probably not. Well, what if I added that the game in question is probably by the most famous modern board game designer ever? Probably would make a new review seem even less necessary for a review, right? WRONG!

For all the fame of Dr. Reiner Knizia and for all the long heritage of the good doctor’s “Medici,” this game has often sailed just below the Kniziaradar. Hoping to remedy this, Steamforged Games, Ltd. has just re-re-re-released Medici—which was a Speil des Jahres “Recommended” game in the same year Catan took home the top honors—in an attractive new version that plays at the original 3-6 players but also includes rules for a 2-player duel, with new artwork from someone (or something?) named Rocketbrush.

This game is a classic part of the “Knizia Auction Trilogy” (bookended by Modern Art and Ra), and if you know it and have wanted to get a copy, you can skip to the bottom of this review because yes, you should jump on it. But if by chance you’ve missed out on this gem or even the entire genre of Knizian auction games, then let me walk you slowly down the path to becoming a Kniziologist.

As with seemingly every German game from the 1990s, you and your fellow players take on the role of Italian merchant-bankers engaged in early modern Mediterranean sea trading. Over the course of three “days” you will all bid to fill your ship with 5 items of cargo, and then receive rewards based on whose ship is filled with the most valuable set of goods overall, and then score points for who has managed to stockpile the most of each type of good in this and any previous rounds.

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