OUR REVIEW

From Venice to Constantinople

Golden Horn

Trade and Pirates

In the Golden Era of the Doges players in the guise as rich sons of La Serenissima   try to arrange rewarding transports of commodities from Venice to Constantinople and back with their fleet of trade ships.

But strong competitions threatens their success and pirate ambushes keep happening and result in plundering of ships.

The cover of the box shows, in the foreground, two trade ships sailing into the harbor of Constantinople.

After opening the box one must assemble the twelve ships, this can be rather demanding; especially when closing the bow of the ship it can happen that you damage them slightly, but this does not really signify, and the ships really are a sight for sore eyes and very beautiful.

So, each player has a fleet of three ships and a storage facility which also must be assembled before you start your first game. The three ships and the storage facility of one color show an identical coat of arms; a small point of criticism is that two of those coats of arms have a black background and can result in mixing up the ships if someone does not pay close attention.

The game box also holds a black cloth bag, 54 cards and 90 wooden cubes in six colors.

On top of this the box holds four trade route parts, each showing three areas in different colors on both sides and also three harbor tiles, for Venice, Constantinople and Modone.

The three ships of a player all show three sails. The first ship has three sails of the same color; on the second ship two sails have the same color, the third sail on this ship shows a different color and on the third ship all three sails are of a different color.

Before you can start the game you must lay out the track for the ships using the trade route parts. You start the track with the harbor of Venice at one end, then you place the track parts and finish the track with the harbor of Constantinople at the other end.

In case of three players you use all trade route parts and also for a game with four players and you insert the harbor tile for Modone in the middle of the track. For two players you use only two trade route parts and also insert the harbor of Modone in the middle of the track.

There are two kinds of track routes, one kind shows one red, one blue and one yellow area on both sides, in different order. The other kind shows one orange, one green and one pink area on both sides, again in different order.

Now each player puts his three ships into the starting harbors of Venice and Constantinople, he has the free choice where to put which ship.

The 90 wooden cubes represent different commodities and are placed into the cloth bag. The starting player blindly draws nine cubes from the bag und puts them on the harbor tile of Venice and then he draws another nine cubes and puts them on the harbor tile of Constantinople.

The cards are shuffled and you deal five cards face-down to each player. All cards have a colored frame which corresponds to one of the six colors of track route areas and sails.

You play in clockwise direction. The active player in his turn first decides if he wants to initiate a pirate raid or if he relinquishes this part of his turn. Then he must move one of his own ships.

I will come back to the pirate raid later, he works very simply; but first a short summary of ship movement rules: In your turn you move your ship one step to the next empty area. If this ends on an area in a color that is represented in the ship’s sails you can move the ship one more step; should the area color reached be different from the sail(s) colors, you either stop or may play a card in the color of the area the ship stands in and move the ship one step.

In a harbor you load and unload commodities, you can load all commodities of one color that is not represented in the ship’s sails.

For an example I will now describe one of our first games of Golden Horn. The players involved were my husband Walter, my sister Gitti, my brother-in-law Gerhard and myself.

Walter was the starting player, he had put his ship with three sails of one color in Venice and his other two ships in Constantinople.

In the harbor of Venice there were three red, two blue, one yellow, one green, one pink and one orange cube. In the harbor of Constantinople there were three yellow, two blue, two green and one red and one pink cube each.

Walter took his ship with two orange sails and one blue sail, which was located in Constantinople harbor, and loaded the two green wooden cubes in the harbor onto his ship. I immediately took the bag and blindly draw two red cubes and put them on the harbor of Constantinople, so that there were again nine cubes available for the next player.

The track route adjacent to Constantinople showed the areas red-blue-yellow and the next one the areas orange-green-pink.

On each area only one ship is allowed, with the exception of the harbors: There is no limit to the number of ships in Venice and Constantinople; Modone has room for two ships in a game of two players, and three places for ships in a game of four players; remember, in a game for three players the harbor of Modone is not in play.

Areas that are occupied by a ship are simply left out.

Walter moved his ship to the red spot; as the first step of each turn is free you may put your ship forward to the next empty area this first move of a turn. Walter’s ship was now in the red area; he played a red card and could move his ship to the blue area; as his ship showed a blue sail he was able to move his ship without playing a card and put it forward to the yellow area. He then played a yellow card and as a result put his ship onto the orange area of the next track piece and from there he then moved his ship forward again for free to the green area where he ended his turn.

I had placed my ship with three red sails into the harbor of Venice and the other two ships were located in the harbor of Constantinople. I took my ship with the orange, blue and green sail, in Constantinople and loaded it with the three red cubes in the harbor. I moved this ship to the red are, played a red card and moved my ship forward to the blue area. As my ship was showing a blue sail I moved it forward for free. This area was yellow, but I did not have a yellow card in hand and my ship had no yellow sail, so I stopped my turn on this area. As I had loaded three cubes in Constantinople, Walter draw two yellow and one green cubes for a replacement and put them into the Constantinople harbor to replenish the commodities there to nine cubes.

Now it was Gitti’s turn, she had placed the ship with three green sails and the one with an orange, blue and pink sail in Venice harbor and her third ship in Constantinople.

Gitti took her ship with three sails of different colors in Venice and loaded the three red cubes onto it. She moved her ship onto the first area of the track adjacent to Venice, which was pink, so she moved the ship forward to the next area; as this one was orange she moved it forward again to the next area, which was yellow and she ended her turn on this area.

Gerhard hat placed his ship with a red, pink and yellow sail in the harbor of Constantinople. He chose it and loaded up two blue wooden cubes. He moved his ship onto the red area and played a red card to move the ship to the blue area, and then played a blue card and moved his ship onto the next track part as the yellow area was occupied by my ship. He now played an orange card as well as he stood on the orange area with his ship and moved the ship forward into the pink area. In doing this the ship hat jumped the green area as this one was taken by Walter’s ship. As pink was a color of one sail on Gerhard’s ship he moved his ship from the pink area into the harbor of Modone. In Modone harbor he draw one card from the pile, because his ship showed sails in three different sail colors, and this ended his turn.

Now each player had sent one ship each onto its journey. It was Walters turn again and he chose, before starting the journey for a second ship, to instigate a pirate raid on Gitti’s ship with the orange, blue and pink sails; this he simply did by playing two blue cards from his hand – the cards can be used for movement cards as well as for pirate raid cards. He took a red cube from Gitti’s ship and put the cube into his storage facility.

The rule in general for a pirate raid: Such a raid on a ship is made by playing to cards in any combination of the sail colors of the ship and take any one cube from the ship and put it into your storage facility.

In this manner we continued to play, from time to time we instigated a pirate raid on a ship or relinquished this opportunity because we did not have enough cards or the necessary cards for this or because we wanted to keep them for ship movement.

Gerhard was the first one who managed to sail his ship with two blue cubes on board into the harbor at the end of the track, in his case into Venice harbor. He took the two cubes off the ship and placed them into his storage facility. As his ship showed three different colors of sails he was only allowed to replenish his hand with one card from the draw pile.

I was first to manage to sail a ship with three sails of the same color into a harbor – in my case Venice - so I could place the two blue cubes from my ship into my storage facility and was able to draw three cards from the draw pile.

The game ended in the round in which Walter, who had been starting player, loaded the last cube in Venice harbor into one of his ships, and we scored the game:

Each cube in his storage facility earns the player one victory point, and you score additional points for sets: A set of cubes in six different colors scores four bonus points, a set of five different cubes scores two additional points and a set of four different cubes one points.

Gitti did win the game; at the end of the game she had five yellow, four blue, three orange, three red, two pink and two green cubes in her storage facility – so she scored 19 standard victory points for the total of her cubes and nine bonus points for her sets for a total of 8 victory points; in later games we usually achieved a score that was substantially higher.

The tactics component in the game is rather high, as you have continually to consider if you want to use two cards for a pirate raid or if you want to keep those cards for ship movements; the problem is that there is no long-term advance planning as there are continually new situations due to ship movements of other players’ ships. Strategic planning is necessary for the decision on which color of cubes I load onto which ship as a pirate raid on a ship with one color of sails only is not as easily done as on a ship with three different colors of sails.

Something else that you need to plan strategically is which colors of cubes you will try to acquire by pirate raids and which ones you will transport with your ships.

With this game of Golden Horn Leo Colovini has managed to create a really nice, challenging and varied game, by the means of using the basic mechanism that he developed for Cartagena and changing the goals and also introducing the additional action of pirate raids.

The graphic design, and especially the visually impressive ships provide a lovely nice flair for the game and so you are pleased to pick it up again and again for yet another game.

Of course, the game has a strong element of chance in what cards do I draw or which commodities will be available in my starting harbor when I want to set sails from there. But due to the possibilities provided by the pirate raids and the choice of which commodities to load into my ship I can achieve long-term strategic play.

Especially the pirate raids can assist you to acquire commodities that you urgently need to complete a set of six cubes of different colors.

The target group for this game clearly are families, but the game offers enough elements of interest to be fun for experienced players, too.

When playing with experienced players it turned out that they rather often chose to put into action the second of the two alternate ways to end the game, that is, to announce the end of the game if you have acquired at least one complete set of cubes in six colors. Contrary to this choice, in games with more inexperienced players the game nearly always ended with the other alternative – the bag of commodities is empty and someone loads up the last commodity cubes in one of the harbors.

I can unconditionally recommend the game for families – design and components, the varied and interesting flow of the game, the duration of approximately 45 minutes and the really simple rules, which all the same allow for a tactical/strategic game – are also very well suited for families that only play very rarely; all in all everybody should have lots of fun with this game.

Conclusion: Piatnik has published a wonderful, varied and yet simple game that is a real jewel for game play in families.

Maria Schranz

Players: 2-4

Age: 8+

Time: 45+

Designer: Leo Colovini

Artist: Marko Fiedler

Price: ca. 25 Euro

Publisher: Piatnik 2013

Web: www.piatnik.com

Genre: Position, set collecting

Users: For families

Version: de

Rules: de

In-game text: no

Comments:

Adaptation of the basic mechanism in Cartagena

Excellent family game

Very attractive components that need some dexterity in assembling

Compares to:

Cartagena, Atlantis and other games with card-driven movement in relation to field colors.

Other editions:

Currently none

My rating: 6

Maria Schranz:

Simple and yet entertaining game which is clearly targeted at families, but can be fun for more experienced players, too. If you only buy few games, one of them should definitely be Golden Horn.

Chance (pink): 3

Tactic (turquoise): 3

Strategy (blue): 2

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 1

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 1

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0