PLAYED FOR YOU

Verona

Schemer, attacker or defender

Verona, mis-en-scene of Romeo and Julia and also the setting and for this game: Verona was an important center for trade and culture and a power house of full of corruption and intrigue – but the current ruler is weak and players rival for power in the town.

To prepare the game each player places three followers into the streets of the city, but not into the central quarter. Then you play four phases in each of the rounds: 1) Revealing of a building. 2) Planning of actions. 3) Evaluation of each action – first schemer against all, then negotiations of attackers for the position of power, negotiation takes the form of an auction; then the strongest attacker is warded of by dice of the defenders. This is followed by a successful action with bribes - then placing of your own follower, violence - removal of an opposing follower and scheming – relocate schemer, and finally complete a task with revealing cards for successfully completed task and using them to your own advantage. This is followed by 4) end of round with occupying buildings, acquisition of money, upgrading and change of starting player. After the 5^th building is complete you score for followers in the streets, completed tasks and buildings and win with most points.

Verona is the winner in the “Czech Board Games Project” and basically a game on majorities with the aim to take over buildings. Successful placement of action markers is the core of the game; the auction mechanism using money and mercenaries + dice is interesting. All in all the game is a very unusual mixture of otherwise well-known mechanisms, which is not easily accessible, to must work for the game.

Players: 2-5

Age: 12+

Time: 10+

Designer: Petr Chval

Artist: Prokop Smetana

Price: ca. 32 Euro

Publisher: Czech Board Games 2010

Web: www.czechboardgames.com

Genre: Placement game

Users: For experts

Version: multi

Rules: cz de en

In-game text: yes

Comments:

Unusual mix of mechanisms * Bluff is possible by planning actions that probably will not work * order of implementation of actions is chosen by players

Compares to:

Other placement games for domination in a medieval town

Other editions:

Currently none

Chance (pink): 3

Tactic (turquoise): 3

Strategy (blue): 1

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 3

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0