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quohog the great
United States
Tennessee
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This is a review of Masters of Venice - Mini Expansion by R & R games. This game caught my attention here on geekdo when I noticed that there was an expansion due to release at Essen 2010. Frank can probably attest to my gung-ho attitude after the event as to how I can get my hands on it once it reached stateside, and I got it as quickly as possible. Now it is available through the geek store.
This review is an overview of the expansion and how in my experience they enhance and change the game.
Quick Breakdown of what you get
7 character cards (cardboard plaques)
- 5 new roles
- Tax collector replacement with proper wording
- Instructions for game setup with the new role cards (on a card itself)
Roles and Mechanics
Tax collector – This role is simply a replacement for the original and should clarify any questions that the old role card posed.
Dock Master – This role allows you to get a free resource from the bag once per round when anybody visits the docks.
Money lender – When visiting the stock market you receive one free share of stock
Minstrel – Can raise or lower orders by one or two once per turn by paying 25 or 50 ducats.
Carpenter – When visiting the shops can you can sell wood for twice the current price
Porter – When visiting the shops you can sell 2 different items
Gameplay
Gameplay isn’t changed mechanically with the addition of the new roles. Though strategy and priority is effected on many levels. Orders can be manipulated outside of bid rounds by means other than rumors and favors. Stocks can be even more important than they already were. And you can effectively force your opponents hands a little more depending on the combinations that are out there. Here are some specific experiences while playing with the new roles.
Moneylender – In my experiences this is a highly valuable role, with a number of ways to use it. Early you can try to corner one or both docks, or even gain one just to sell in order to get more spending cash. In mid to late game you can use is to help take over shops or lessen the effect of an opponent getting a stock split. This is becoming my new favorite role, though once the stocks are emptied its not as useful.
Minstrel – this role in my experiences hasn’t been useful in early game because money is incredibly tight. Though in the final 3 commerce rounds it can be a savior or a saboteur depending on who gets it. Its expensive to adjust orders this way but sometimes you can’t help it, and it you are trying to fill a multi color guild order which doesn’t have orders its saves you 2 trips to the church.
Dock Master – Very similar to the harbor master and the thief from the base game, you get a free good when you or someone else goes to the dock. This allows you go about your business elsewhere and still have the opportunity to benefit from selecting this role. The drawback is its random but it doesn’t effect prices like the thief does. I think that it’s a good midrange role but may not be something that you set out for as a first pick.
Carpenter – This has seen no use in my game groups, but I do see the benefit of it. You don’t have to worry about orders and its quite possible to get a big sale since wood often has a high price due to guild orders. The game where this was available there was an extreme shortage of wood and a total of 2 cubes made it to the either the shipping offices or the dock, so it wasn’t a good game for this role. I look forward to some strategies I’ve been working on for this role.
Porter – This is the only role I’ve not have hit the table in the games I’ve played. I do see its benefit and I can see it being critical if your trying to control orders in certain colors. Though I don’t foresee being able to successfully being able to make two big sales on the same turn. But I can see it used late game for cube elimination in order to not deal with taxes at end of game.
Components/Quality
Component quality is good though different from the main game. The colors are different from the originals so you can identify them if you want to separate them.
The Pros
 Great addition to gameplay – The base game was not stale or even close to becoming that way, but these additions add more variety and more strategy. Focus on player interaction is greater and having random roles (except the Gondolier) every game makes things ever changing.
Great mechanics – I don’t think that the new roles break the game but some are clearly better in mid to late game where other are good overall.
The Cons
 The only con I have at present is that the cards are colored differently. Yes it differentiates from the base game but in my groups opinion you need a randomizer in order to get an unbiased selection. This was averted by adding a d10 to the box for pre-game setup
Overall
I really enjoyed the base game to start with, and I believe nothing was wrong with it or needed to be fixed. These are additions give more of a variety to the game and so you don’t have the same game over and over. It was weird when one of my favorite roles wasn’t selected and I needed to find a way to work around it. I was even surprised when a role was taken due to no reason other than it was the best of what was left, and have it turn out to be very good. The game is very enjoyable and now there is more flavor. If you like the base game and have a group that plays this I would recommend it as repetition can lead to groupthink and this opens the doors wide to new strategies and counter strategies.
Thank you,
Q
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Zé Mário
Portugal
Senhora da Hora
Matosinhos
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It's a pretty cool expansion, but I think some of the roles are mighty powerful. Selling at two stores? Free shares? Weeee.
Thanks for the review. 
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quohog the great
United States
Tennessee
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well selling at 2 stores can be powerful but you still need orders at both stores so managing a big payoff is much harder. i can see it useful for a big sale and maybe a cube or two in the late game in order to get rid of usless cubes.
for the free share, its the stock market equal to the trader. I would have to say its likely the most valuable of these 5, as there is a lot of diversity you can have with it.
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Zé Mário
Portugal
Senhora da Hora
Matosinhos
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Well it's not that hard to have two stores with enough orders for a major sale, especially if we're controlling them.
 Of course that depends on the group we're playing with.
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quohog the great
United States
Tennessee
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your right there, different groups and different players would lead to different markets and games. I would think it would be somewhat tranparent in strategy for someone to build up enough for 2 big sales at the same time and would almost force a block of somesorts. number of players would matter as well. but extreem double sale would have to take place either closing the third quarter or sometime in the fourth quarter, as you would have to amass enough cubes to make it worth it as well as 1-2 bidding rounds to set the order unless going ot the church.
I may be off base here but i can see putting a good bid into getting ht orders you need for a 5+ cube sale and getting choice of picking the porter but then those that follow would or should either drop those orders or drop the orders on your other good size group as low as possible to eliminate the advantage.
there are many point and counterpoints which is what i love about this game, someone picks the porter you don't go to the shops. make them chose it and then use your turn order to maximize that choice to your benefit.
kudos to frank for designing this game.
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Mak Mak
United States
California
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need clarification.
carpenter: when selling wood at the shops, will that raise the market price of wood per unit of wood sold as it does with other goods?
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quohog the great
United States
Tennessee
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in short yes it would.
see here for more infomation
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