Dale Yu: First Impressions of Comuni

Well, this week things are still a bit busy around the house – and I promise that I’ll be able to share all the activity with you next week just before the holidays (or just after them for those observing Hanukkah) – so I thought I’d take a quick look at one of the games that I’ve been introduced to this fall.  Now, I’ve been careful not to term any of these reports as a review as I’ve only played this twice, and I really try to play a game (of normal length) three times before giving a full review. 

Comuni (Tenkigames) -

I had heard nothing about Comuni before I made it to Essen this year, but it was certainly one of the games that had a lot of positive buzz at the fair.  In fact, the buzz was so strong that Comuni ended up #2 on the Fairplay Scout Ranking list by the end of the week.  Many of the people I usually talk to at Essen had great things to say about the game.

The game is set in Medieval Italy.  Each player takes on the role of an Italian city, and over the course of the game, the players are striving to be the most prestigious city (by having the most victory points).  Points are scored by constructing buildings as well as being the most helpful town as Italy fights off invaders.

The board has a tableau of spaces where town developments (playing cards) are displayed.  Depending on the column, anywhere from one to three cards will be offered up together.  These town developments are useful for two reasons.  First, they score victory points at the end of the game.  Second, the four different types of buildings each can produce their own type of resource which can help the player later in the game.

On each turn, players initially choose from one of three actions: 

1) They may use one of their three pawns to bid on a column of cards.  If they choose to make a bid, the place their pawn (as well as any number of gold tokens as a bribe) on one of the columns.  If there is competition for a particular column of cards, any newer bids much have at least one more gold token than the current bid.  And, if this displacement occurs, similar to Amun-Re, the displaced bid gets a chance to settle on one of the other columns of cards before anything else happens. 

2) They may collect any columns of cards which they currently have the high bid in.  So, as you can see, there is a bit of a delay between placing a bid and collecting on it.  At best, you would have to wait one full turn before being able to collect any cards.  However, as it is a bit more efficient to collect multiple columns at one time, players may try to coordinate their bids to allow them to collect two or more columns simultaneously.

3) They may collect income – which is collecting a base set of cubes determined by the city they represent as well as resources from any recently constructed buildings.

After a player has had a chance to manipulate their bids or collect income, then the player gets a chance to build.  Players will use the town development cards that they have collected thru the bidding process outlined above.  Buildings can be built up to 4 stories high.  The building cards are numbered from 1 to 4, and you must use a card whose number is at least as much as the floor of the building you wish to construct.  If the number is not high enough, you can use a builder cube to make up the difference. Each building phase, players can build one building and one city wall for free.  City walls can be built to aid in the defense of their city. If players wish to build more, they have to use up a builder cube for each extra building they wish to build.  You may only keep 2 cards after the end of the build phase, so you need to plan accordingly to not waste any cards.

There is some benefit to building a lot of buildings. The first person to build a 2nd floor of one of the four building types gets the Guild Master for that type of building.  Not only is the Guild Master worth victory points at the end of the game, it also provides the player that owns it with extra cubes each time that they collect income.  These markers change hands similar to the Longest Road in Settlers where the new owner must have more building floors than the previous owner.  Also, each time a new floor is built to a building, that player immediately scores VPs.  You score 1VP for a ground floor card, 2 VP for a 2nd floor card and so on.

Each player goes thru all the phases (bidding/collecting income then building) and this pattern continues until the attack card is drawn from the deck.  There are at least 15 building cards between the attacks.  The four attacks in the game are of progressively increasing difficulty.  When the attacks occur, the players finish the building phase and then resolve the attack.  There are two goals for the players in each attack.  First, they want to make sure that they have enough military strength to fight off the attack.  If they don’t, their city is plundered by the invaders and the player will lose victory points.  Second, the players will want to try to support the common defense of the cities as the players which provide the most support will receive bonus VP tokens for their contributions.

However, the interesting thing about the attacks is that each player may have a different strength needed to fight off the attackers.  Through the course of the game, players score points for the buildings that they build.  When the attack comes, whichever player has the most VP at the time has to take on the full brunt of the attack (at full value).  All other players get a “discount” in the attack they face equal to the number of victory points they have less than the leader.  It could even turn out that a particular city didn’t have to fight off the attackers if they are far enough behind the leader!

Once the attack strengths are set for each city, the players have to go about defending their cities.  To do this, they use military tokens (produced by the military cities).  Each player secretly and simultaneously puts whatever number they want into their two hands.  The cubes in the left hand are contributed to the general defense.  All of these cubes can be used by all players to fight off the hordes.  All cubes in their right hand are placed on city walls and will only help the particular city of that player.  However, based on the height of the city wall, the strength of the army cubes can be multiplied by as much as a factor of 4.

So, why would players contribute to the general defense fund when those cubes can be used by the opponents to also save their own cities?  Well, the two players that contribute the most each are awarded Heroism tokens which provide VPs at the end of the game.

The game continues until all four attacks have occurred.  At that point, the final scores are tallied.  Remember that players have already scored VPs during the course of play by building their buildings.  Each Guild master card scores the current owner 3 VPs.  The player who has the most of each type of resource token scores 2VPs.  And in a Knizia-like twist, each player scores points for the type of building they have the smallest building in.  Add up the points, and the most points wins!

The game is a fairly tense affair with some interesting timing issues.  The whole thing about bidding for a column of cards on one turn and then having to wait at least one turn to collect them is nice.  Also, there is a lot of room for clever play to try to get multiple columns at once.  Bidding can get a bit tricky as sometimes you need to put out enough gold cubes to prevent others from taking the bid away from you without using too many cubes which would deplete your stores.

It’s also a difficult decision at times to have to choose to generate income.  You’ll need the different cubes in order to accomplish the things you want to do, but it can be really hard at times as you end up giving up a turn of placing or collecting a bid in order to get your cubes.  I found the timing aspect in this phase of the game to be the most intriguing this about Comuni – and it is the reason I want to play the game again as I still want to figure out how to best play this part of the game.

The way in which the different color buildings each generate their own type of cube (each with its own use) is also very nice.  From what I’ve seen, it’s hard to do well without some of each type of cube, so it forces you to diversify the buildings that you build.  Additionally, since only your newly constructed buildings provide you with cubes when you collect income, the game constants causes you to build new buildings of the different colors.

The game also has a very nice catch-the-leader mechanism in the handicaps given in the attacks.  The attacks are harder for the person in the lead, so it causes the leader to expend more resources in order to fight off the attack.  Of course, the leader could spend the most cubes for the common defense and get the heroism bonus, but in the later attacks (when the bonuses are the largest), the leader often has to use cubes on his own city walls to take advantage of the multiplier bonus they offer in order to fight off the leader.  As a result, one of the other players can sneak into the lead in the common defense to get the heroism bonus.

The one thing that I didn’t realize early enough in my few plays of the game is how to concentrate on the endgame bonuses while still doing everything else in the game.  The Guild Masters provide a nice 3VP bonus at the end, but your timing has to be good as you have to control the Guild Master at the end of the game in order to get the bonus.  Also, setting yourself up for the attacks with lots of black army cubes is a good idea if you’re going for the heroism bonuses (which can be as large as 6VP).

Overall, I like what I have seen thus far about Comuni.  It’s a well designed game with mechanics that work well together.  Though my gaming time is limited this winter, this is a game that I’m definitely looking forward to playing again, and it’s one of the games from Essen that will remain in my collection.

Until your next appointment,
The Gaming Doctor

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