Observations after playing a few games | Masters of Venice

Jerome Chan

(eviltofu)

Singapore

The Trader is great is you want to fulfill guild orders. With the Trader you can buy 2 cubes and trade for 1 cube. Guild orders require 3 cubes.

When placing cubes from the shipping office into the docks, you WANT to group cubes of the shops you own shares of into as large a pool as possible. This encourages other players to buy these cubes and sell them at your shops to boost share prices. And if they don't you can always buy and sell them yourself.

Visit the church if there are people who keep bidding zero.

Last edited Tue Dec 7, 2010 1:32 pm (Total Number of Edits: 1)
Posted Tue Dec 7, 2010 1:28 pm
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quohog the great

(quohog)

United States

Tennessee

good observations, but IMO the trader is even more utility than you give it credit. yes throughout the game you can use it to get the cubes you need, especially if there are little to none on the board. but you can use it to specialize in one or possibly two resources while still mostly staying cost effective or maybe even making a profit. Don't underestimate selling a resource that's higher price to get the money you need to get something more costly/specialized (resources for money or guild orders) then turning around and trading some scrap you have in order to get the same cube back. i've come to realized that the trade is quite good.

As for the shipping office i've never considered trying to bait my opponents into buying and selling my primary resources by grouping them together. I'll have to try that and see how it works. it seems like it would be an interesting change from trying to keep things segregated.

As for the church i've only seen it used in one game, but it was used very effectively. IMO the timing must be dead on to use it effectively because you need to be able to go there and still benifit from the shared actions.

Posted Tue Dec 7, 2010 2:03 pm
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Jerome Chan

(eviltofu)

Singapore

I've actually had a brief analysis of the Trader and [Mercato -> Shops] / [Mercato -> Docks -> Shops] actions but that relied on hanging on to Trader for 9-10 turns. Not really feasible in a game.

Anyway here it is.

To push a share price to 105 from 40 is 13 slots.

[Mercato -> Docks -> Shops] = 3 + x cubes per 3 turns. Pushes share / resource prices by 3 + x in 3 turns. x > 1 if you are to exceed the efficiency of the shorter route below. If x = 2, you can split the stocks in 9 rounds.

[Mercato -> Shops] = 3 cubes per 2 turns. Pushes share / resource by 3 in 2 turns. You can split the stock in 10 rounds.

So when gathering cubes of the same colour, [Mercato -> Docks -> Shops] only when there are 2 or more cubes you want in a dock. Otherwise [Mercato -> Shops] is more efficient.

When you don't have the Trader card, [Mercato -> Shops] when there is 0 or 1 cubes you want in the dock. You don't enable the other players to share your actions. And [Docks -> Shops] when there is 2 or more.

Last edited Tue Dec 7, 2010 5:19 pm (Total Number of Edits: 1)
Posted Tue Dec 7, 2010 5:14 pm
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Jerome Chan

(eviltofu)

Singapore

I think that Trader [Mercato -> Guild Hall -> Mercato -> Guild Hall] might be a good opening. If you claim all the money and no VPs, you can get +350 ducats in round six with 2 more bidding rounds and 8 more operational rounds to go.

Will have to try this and see what happens! Is there another way to make more money consistently?

Last edited Tue Dec 7, 2010 5:43 pm (Total Number of Edits: 3)
Posted Tue Dec 7, 2010 5:38 pm
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quohog the great

(quohog)

United States

Tennessee

eviltofu wrote:

I think that Trader [Mercato -> Guild Hall -> Mercato -> Guild Hall] might be a good opening. If you claim all the money and no VPs, you can get +350 ducats in round six with 2 more bidding rounds and 8 more operational rounds to go.

Will have to try this and see what happens! Is there another way to make more money consistently?

that does make double use of the trader and gives you an out in the fourth round. though i do belive it does revolve heavily on the guild orders you have and the amount of orders.

there is a lot in this game that is very situational and revolves around the number of players and the metagame. in one of my groups we don't use the shipping offices much and in another they are constatnly being used.

i've toyed with the idea if the number of players are right to make an early shop run with the trader. using your starting resource and ability to buy a somewhat expensive good only to flip it the next turn. thing is you need to be dead on with your bid as well as hope you aren't hit by the gondoliner interrupt. another thing to take into account is early stock market actions.

in theory you can bid around 40 for the trader but the orders on something with only 1 or 2 cubes out mercado for that resource bringing it to 40 or 45, trade for a third of that color. then flip for 240 or 270 as early as round 2.

i can say this seems very risky and very dependant on several thing. and most of the time i see people go with a guild order rotation they fall behind elsewhere.

Posted Thu Dec 16, 2010 4:28 pm
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Subject: Observations after playing a few games