PLAYED FOR YOU

The Doge Ship

Cooperative ship construction in venice

You are the head of a Venetian shipyard, work for the Doge and need to cooperate with other players to build the new ship for the Doge and at the same time you try to win the Doge's favor and approval for yourself. In the starting phase of a round someone rolls all dice, places them on the corresponding track in the appropriate position and draws a Doge tile. These Doge tile shows colored parameters for necessary modifications, the zones that the Doge will inspect, and maybe an icon for High Water or for Doge Inspection. Then all players, in turn order, have one action  and place one of their up to five action markers - buy materials, construct, intrigue, take money or discard one action marker for 1 ducat; all actions with the exception of discarding a marker are only available one a round. This is continued until all markers are used. The position of the die on a track determines action costs: all actions left of and at the die are free, all those to the right cost the value of the action minus the value of the die. You build gondolas, barriers or part of the ship - gondolas yield money and approval, barriers help against high water and ship construction earns you victory points and approval. In Phase Three you take back the markers, determine the new turn order and resolve, if the Doge tile shows the icon, either High Water or Doge Inspection. When the ship is built, you win with most points after a final inspection.

A very beautiful game with some interesting mechanisms details, for instance the determination of actions costs via dice placement, but the game does not offer any long-term strategy and takes too long

Players: 2-5

Age: 13+

Time: 90+

Designer: Marco Canetta, Stefania Niccolini

Artist: Lamberto Azzariti

Price: ca. 40 Euro

Publisher: Giochix 2012

Web: www.giochix.it

Genre: Worker placement

Users: With friends

Version: multi

Rules: de en fr it nl

In-game text: no

Comments:

Very beautiful components

Good, concise rules

Interesting mechanism details

Takes too long to play

Compares to:

Many other worker placement games

Other editions:

Currently none

Chance (pink): 2

Tactic (turquoise): 3

Strategy (blue): 0

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 2

Interaction (brown): 2

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0