Why yes, there’s a reason Medici is a classic

I have long known that Medici is considered to be one of Knizia'a classic designs. Back in the day, it was considered to be part of Kniza's Auction trilogy, a concept so sprawling that it eventually became Kniza's two auction trilogies. And, intellectually, I have always appreciated it. However, I had almost never played it. Mostly because no one in any of my circles owned a copy so I was much more familiar with Modern Art, and Ra and High Society and Aman-Re, among other Knizia designs. (Sadly, I have yet to play any incarnation of Dream Factory, also considered a highlight of his auction games)

That changed during a recent reunion with old gaming buddies. One of them had added Medici to their gaming library and it became the game we played more than any other during that weekend. And my intellectual appreciation of Medici became a true appreciation.

Out of all Knizia's auction games that I've played (and I'm honestly not sure how many the man has published), Medici is the absolute purest. Even High Society, which is arguably less complex, has more little twists. In Medici, there is only one type of auction, one around with the current dealer going last. You are competing for majorities in categories that don't change. And points and money are one and the same, which makes things both simpler and more anxiety inducing at the same time.

Scarcity is what gives Medici its edge. Players are merchants in Rennaissance Florance, which I guess makes this sort of a trading in the Mediterranean game (Is that joke still a thing?) You are loading up boats but each boat has cargo space for only five cards. Over the course of the three rounds of play, you will only get fifteen cards. Unless the game gets nasty. Then you might get less. You have no room for chafe. And you have to focus on only a couple of types of good. If you can't corner a couple markets, you will discover the sorrows of bankruptcy.

Where the game really lets you learn to hate each other and the number random generator gods is dealing out the cards for each auction. The dealer can deal out one to three cards but there has to be at least one player who can take that number of cards and if the load is bigger than your empty spaces, you can't make a bid. if you're not getting locked out of bids, everyone is being too nice. And the dealer can push their luck and end up with a lot that adds up to garbage.

Every element of Medici is simple. And that's something that Knizia often does. So many of his games aren't intricate but instead offer complex choices in a simple framework. Medici is a shining example of this. It offers a much fuller, richer game experience than an overview would make you expect.

Medici isn't perfect and it can be very unforgiving. If you go into the third round underwater, I honestly don't think you will be able to pull ahead. You have to have a gameplan from the start. I think Ra is more forgiving, so I do like it more, particularly for a general audience. However, there is a reason Medici stays in print and stays on the table.

My September Gaming

September ended up being my heaviest gaming month of the year so far and probably will be for the year on a whole. That’s because I went to a convention as a reunion with a bunch of old gaming friends.

I learned:

Paper Pinball - Mall Bats

The Walking Dead - Surrounded

Food Truck Madness (Alexander Shen)

Scout 

Portal Heroes

Last Light

Cursed Court

Spicy

Biscuits and Battles

Hadara 

Cat Ass Trophy

Point Salad

Dinks and Donkeys (playtest)

Last Light was the heaviest game I’ve learned in a while. In a past life, I’m not sure if it would have qualified as heavy, just toyetic. (A word I just learned existed, thanks to reading an article about the development of the Paw Patrol franchise lol) With that said, I was glad that I was able to follow along and enjoy myself.

I also really enjoyed Hadara. It doesn’t quite cross the line into being a Civ-light game but it is the kind of game that got me into board gaming. Enjoyable choices and a tempo that keeps the game going.

While it wasn’t a new game to me, Knizia’s Medici was the hero of our table. I played it more in one weekend than I ever had before. It is such a ridiculously pure auction game. I still like Ra more but Medici earns its reputation as a classic.

And I also learned some solitaire games as usual. The Walking Dead - Surrounded is a nice little tile laying game that gets a lot of its value through its advanced play.

Yeah, it was a good month.

A highly uninformed view of Medici

Since I've already written about Modern Art and Ra, I really feel like I should cover Medici. After all, it is the third game in Reiner Knizia's auction trilogy. 

My problem is I've only played the game twice face to face. Almost all of my experience with the game is on the iPad against the AIs, which really doesn't give me a good sense of the game. 

(I am not big on playing against computers but I think they are particularly weak in auction games or negotiation games. I am just a human elitist in that regard.)

However, there is no denying that Medici is an important part of Knizia's auction games and auction games in general. And since I have had at least a little bit of experience with it, I am prepared to say something. Just take it with an even smaller grain of salt than usual :P

Modern Art is defined by having a wide variety of auctions and dynamic market values. Ra is defined by having a push-your-luck element and an intricate network of scoring elements. Medici is defined by being a pure as the driven snow auctions. Even High Society, with its special tiles and poorest loses rule, is more watered down than Medici.

You could argue that Medici does have elements of push-your-luck and set collection. But, unlike Ra where those are their own chunk of the gameplay, Medici just uses those  elements to facilitate auctions and evaluate them.

The story in Medici is that you are all Renaissance merchants trying to earn the most cash through buying low and selling high on your shipments. But even by the standards of Euro games, the theme in Medici is pretty thin. You strip away all the art and replace the goods with colors and you'd barely affect the gameplay experience.

Medici is played out in three rounds where each player will be collecting five tiles or shipping five lots of goods. The tiles come with two different pieces of information on them. There will be one of five different goods and have a number ranging from zero to five, not counting a gold tile that has a ten on it.

On your turn, you choose one to three tiles to flip over for auction. You can't flip over more than you have empty spots for. Then, there's a once around auction with the person who flipped the tiles going last. You bid straight up points. When everyone has five tiles, it's time to score them up.

You earn points based on two things. The total value of your tiles, er, shipment, and the number of each type of good you've shipped throughout the entire game. There's a first place, second place, etc. And each place is a set amount of points, with ties dividing the points. You also get a bonus if you get to the top of the goods track.

And, of course, who ever has the most points at the end wins.

I have to make a special note about player counts. You blindly discard tiles with the fewer the players meaning the more tiles go bye bye. And more scoring positions get added for more players.

Medici has been around since 1995, over twenty years. It's gone out of print in a regular basis but it always swings back around and comes back into print. Folks keep on loving it. It might not be a juggernaut Catan but it's no flash in the pan.

So, this is my uneducated, haven't-played-Medici-enough guess as to why: the economy of the game is so brutally tight. The return on your investments is set and that's the only way you have to get points. 

Other games have money equals points but they usually have other ways of earning money. Auctioning off paintings in Modern Art, for instance. In Medici, even a small overbid can be catastrophic. Sometimes, you can get ahead by paying as little as possible but that can sink you if that's all you do, unless you are very lucky and the other players play very badly.

In short, I think Medici works by taking the auction and honing it to a razor's edge. That might be too sharp for some folks. Too sharp for me some of be time, to be honest. But I can see why the gameplay is so strong.

Huh. I see a card game version is coming out. Looks like, just like the Modern Art card game, the auctions have been removed. That worked surprisingly well with Modern Art, with the use of special abilities and the changing values market. With Medici, that leaves a fairly simple push-your-luck element and a fairly simple set collection element. I don't know if that's enough and it definitely seems like it should be a much lighter, less brutal game.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/46/medici