Game Preview: Comuni

by Andrea “Liga” Ligabue
October 18, 2008

Publisher: Tenkigames
Designers: Acchittocca
Players: 2-5
Ages: 12+
Playing Time: 90 minutes
Release Date: October 2008

Editor’s note: Comuni was first mentioned on Boardgame News in Liga’s interview with Acchittocca back in February 2006 and now the game is finally coming to fruition. To open the preview, let’s look at the game description from the publisher:

A thousand years ago, Italy was in the grip of the Middle Ages. Various comuni competed for dominance over the peninsula. As the ruler of a powerful comune, you must guide your people in the development of all aspects of society: economics, religion, culture, and military. The other comuni are also waking from the long dark sleep of the Middle Ages, and they will compete with you for supremacy in these areas. In the end, only one comune will stand dominant, so the struggle will often be fierce!

Foes lurk at the edges of your domain, awaiting the opportunity to strike against you. No comune could hope to stand alone against these mighty foes, so you will have to set aside your differences long enough to prepare a common defense with your competitors! Can you balance the needs of development and defense and guide your comune to its rightful place at the pinnacle of achievement? Or will you be just another quiet town among the comuni?

Comuni is a great, strategic game set in one of the most fascinating periods of Italian history. In line with the Acchittocca style exhibited in Leonardo da Vinci, the game mechanisms are well developed and there is almost no randomness.

Each player controls one of the five famous comuni – Lucca, Firenze, Siena, Bologna and Milano – and uses his three envoys to bid on projects needed to create buildings within his region. Buildings come in four types – economic, religious, military and cultural – and generate different types of income according to their type and size. The size of the buildings, which ranges from 1 to 4, also affects victory points. The game includes four kinds of resources – armies, gold, craftsmen and pilgrims – and the ability to use these effectively and aquire the right projects is the road to victory.

Time in the game is measured by four project decks, and after each deck is exhausted, there will be an invasion (Venezia, France, Pope, Emperor). After the fourth invasion, the game ends with a final scoring.

Each player starts with a different amount of resources depending on the comune he controls. Ownership of the comuni also determine the order of play during the game. The gameboard has place for the four invasion decks, the project cards, heroism counters and the invasion track, which displays the project cards that remain before the next invasion.

The number of project cards available each turn depends on the number of players, ranging from 8 to 14. Each project card displays a number and a symbol, with the number being the value of the card and the symbol representing the type of building. (Some cards can be used for more than one type.)

The core mechanism of the game is in the projects phase, which takes place first each turn. In this phase, a player must choose whether to place a bid, claim projects, or collect income. To place a bid, you place one of your three envoys and some amount of gold on the project cards column you want. Some columns also supply a free resource. If another player’s envoy is already present on the column, you must outbid that player, which makes gold important because you need it to bid. When an envoy is outbid, the player who owns it can spend one pilgrim resouce to move that envoy and its gold to another projects column. Thus, pilgrims are useful because they can save your gold and your bid; in addition, two pilgrims can be traded for any one other resource.

Instead of bidding on a new projects column, you can claim all of the projects on which you are currently bidding. The bidding system is clever and simple: If you bid, you have to wait a full turn before collecting the project, which lets other players outbid you. Placing additional bids before collecting a project is risky, but if you’re unchallenged, you can reap a windfall.

The third option during the project phase is to collect income: Every comune gives two resources, usually one fixed and one of a player’s choice. Then you get income based on the largest building you have in each category, with one resource for each level of the building: armies with the military building, gold with economic, pilgrims with religious, and craftsman with culture. If you’re a Guild Master – more on that below –you receive an extra resource of the appropriate type.

During the subsequent construction phase, you can build or improve one builiding and expand your city walls. You need craftsmen in order to do any building; to construct a new building, you also need the right type of cards, while to improve a building you need to use a card with a value at least as great as the building’s current level. Any time you build or upgrade, you score as many points as the level of the building.

The first player to build a level 2 building will take the corresponding Guild Master card, which works like the longest road in Catan, passing on to anyone who subsequently scores more points with the same kind of building. In the final scoring. every Guild Master card is worth 3 VP.

You can build city walls using any type of card (turning the card face down), and the walls follow the same rules for upgrading as buildings. Walls are useful in defense, and higher walls are better, although no wall can top four levels.

You fill the empty project card slots at the end of each project phase, and if the deck runs out, the game stops while players fend off an invasion. During the invasion, all the comuni have to face the same enemies, similar to the invasions in Kingsburg. You can use your army to defend the comune, and you can use as many armies as you have walls, with armies in higher walls providing better defense. Two gold can be spent on mercenaries to supply one army. Losing a battle gives you plunder tokens that are worth negative points at the end of the game, unless you rid yourself of them before that time.

You can also send armies to the Defense League that protects all of the comuni; the player contributing the most to the Defense League, in case of victory, receives a heroism counter worth 1-2 VP in the first invasion to 3-6 in the final one.

After the final invasion, a final scoring takes place, with players scoring for Guild Master cards, for having more resources of one kind, for heroism counters, and for the lowest building they have.

Comuni is really well balanced and tense. The theme is well tied with the mechanisms, the resources are all important, and there is the possibility of developing a lot of different paths and strategies to victory. Comuni is another really good gamers’ game from Acchittocca.

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