PLAYED FOR YOU

Upon a Salty Ocean

SalT, Fish, Buildings and money

The wealth of Rouen at the start of the 16^th century has been generated from fishing and the trade with salted fish. Players are merchants in the city and invest money into ships and buildings in order to be the richest merchant when King Frances I. visits the city.

The game is played over five rounds comprising three phases each - Events, Actions and End of Round. Events are turned up at the start of the round, they result in checking of market prices and determine the actual weather; ships in open waters are not affected by weather changes. The Action phase comprises a variable number of rounds, in which players in turn resolve an action or pass; for the actions City (You buy either a saline or a building), Harbor (Build a ship, move commodities), Navigation (go fishing or go to Rouen) or Market (buy or sell) you pay the current costs, which rises with each implemented action of this type, up to a maximum of 10. In the phase of End of Round the special abilities of buildings are used; you produce salt, earn rent or interest; if necessary you pay interest on your debts; the price for actions is then reduced to 0 for the next round and the wealth of each player is - if necessary - adjusted to the limit based on his available or not available buildings.

At the end of the game after five rounds some buildings bring additional income independent from wealth limits. The richest player wins this game, which nicely catches the flair of this harbor town and offers  the same strategies to all players to optimize limited resources; despite knowing the strategies you do no mind to play again!

Players: 2-4

Age: 13+

Time: 100+

Designer: Marco Pranzo

Art: Lamberto Azzariti

Price: ca. 34 Euro

Publisher: Giochix 2011

Web: giochix.it

Genre: Resources optimization

Users: With friends

Version: multi

Rules: e en fr it nl

In-game text: no

Comments:

Very attractive design

Rather uniform strategies

High replay value

Compares to:

All games with a city development topic and use of buildings

Other editions:

Rio Grande, Rock Games

Chance (pink): 1

Tactic (turquoise): 2

Strategy (blue): 2

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 2

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0