Designer: Nicola Iannone (Paolo Bertollo, Simone Silini, Paolo Mazza)
Artist: Nicola Iannone, Omar Savoldelli, La Figlia del Brigante
Publisher: prototype (Self-published)
Year Published: prototype looking for publisher
Numper of Players: 3-5 SET BASE (max 10 players with SET EXPANSION)
Suggested Ages: 14+
Playing Time: 240 minutes or more
Language Dependence: Extensive use of text - massive conversion needed to be playable
Category: Civilization, Economic, Medieval, Miniatures, Negotiation, Religious, Wargame
Mechanic: Area Movement, Auction/Bidding, Dice Rolling, Partnerships, Simultaneous Action Selection, Trading, Variable Phase Order
Primary Name: MedioEvo Universalis
Subtitle: Game of commerce, diplomacy, strategy and conquest
Website: http://www.medioevouniversalis.org/Mail: nikianno@alice.itLIST OF COMPONENTS: (hypothetical, to be assessed with the publishing house)
1 MAP OF THE GAME
63 MEANS OF TRANSPORT
15 MEANS OF SIEGE
12 CATHEDRAL / MOSQUES
22 CIVIL BUILDINGS
80 MILITARY BUILDINGS
175 ARMY OF PLAYERS
45 OF ARMED barbaric
22 DICE
96 GOODS
300 COINS
150 TOKENS
6 DECKS OF CARDS (EMPIRE, TECHNOLOGY, EVENTS, CALAMITY, TREASURE, TARGET)
5 TABLE OF PLAYERS
5 PANELS OF PLAYERS
5 SHEETS OF PLAYERS
MedioEvo Universalis is a management boardgame set in the second half of the thirteenth century. Players will have to manage one of the great Kingdoms, developing a commercial network, improving the technological evolution and weaving diplomatic pacts with other players. Many unforeseen events, including random events, disasters and barbaric peoples hinder military conquests and the creation of an Empire.
MAIN CHARACTERISTICS:- Number of players: 3-5 with BASE box, 6-10 with EXPANSION box. Added the "dead", which has rules to reinforce himself, attack and rebel territories of players poor defended.
- Terrain: various types of terrain combined with city's fortifications and technologies give modifiers for movements and overpopulation.
- Trade: players have at their disposal sea and land transportations to trade 8 types of goods in 36 cities on the map to earn florins.
- Technological advancement: 38 technologies deployed in 6 families on a maximum of 4 levels improve their Reign in economy, trade, military and diplomacy. These technologies implement the features of other playing cards or allow to protect yourself from Calamities.
- Very rare events: calamities can disrupt and modify a lot all strategies... If the player is prepared, he will able to survive almost unscathed, otherwise ...
- Random Events: a series of positive and negative random events, but less catastrophic, will hit the various areas of land or sea in which the map is divided: storms, missions required by the Pope, tournaments between players, merchants who offer trade … etc.
- Development: the player has the opportunity to expand their cities, increase the fortifications and defenses, armies, military and commercial transport... and more.
- Playing cards: allow to improve armies and defenses, the construction of fortifications, taxes, diplomacy, the purchase of new mercenary's armies ... etc.
- Combat: the combination of technologies with the card game allows you to get a bonus set of modifiers during battles... and how about a nice Crusade? Don't forget to Corsairs, pirates and Mongol invasions.
- Diplomacy: 6 diplomatic options and Casus Belli with other players; 1 player also controls the Pope and must organize the Crusades... if the others Christian kingdoms try to refuse, Pope can excommunicate them... and if the Mamluks conquered Rome?
- Expansion: the player is invited to expand his Kingdom to create an empire.
- AIM of the game: get the most Honor Points from the various aspects of the game as: military expansion, killing an enemy General, conquering a Kingdom, winning a crusade, completing a mission of the Pope … etc.
OTHER CHARACTERISTICS:Each player has to start match one of the major Kingdoms of the era:
Sultanate of Hafsids
Kingdom Mamluks
Horde gold
Byzantine Empire
Novgorod Republic
Kingdom of Hungary
Holy Roman Empire
Kingdom of France
Kingdom of Castile
Kingdom of England
Map is modular, divided in SET BASE according to play up to 3-5 players and 3 EXPANSIONS to play up to 10! The player has available land and sea units to trade 8 different types of goods in 36 cities on the map, so fiorini obtained can be invested to increase the cities, building fortifications, buy new units, recruit new General, build siege machines or new cathedrals/mosques to have more control over the population, specialize the cities in a commercial sector, and more.
With fiorini also you can buy technologies to improve some aspects of the game; technologies are divided into 5 kinds, up to 3 layers, so if I will have STREETS, I must buy ARCHITECTURE and MATHEMATICS before yet.
The technologies also help me to eliminate or reduce the effects of CALAMITIES: MEDICINA against PLAGUE, AGRICULTURE against FAMINE, etc etc etc.
There are also game cards, named EMPIRE that allow the player to do more things: spying your opponent's cards, earn more by trade, taxing better territories, ask truce during a war, get bonuses during attack or defence etc etc etc.
Many of these cards have combinations with technologies, for example the GENIUS has + 1 bonus during attack or defence, but if it is accompanied by the ENGINEERING he take + 2 bonus... and so on... MERCHANT with COINS, TEMPLARE with MONOTHEISM, MERCENARY with ARMY etc etc etc.
As you may have noticed, I used the colors to help you learn many components of game, there are references and descriptions on each card and also I inserted in front of the player a summary of the game turn and 3 summary tables of classic 50 questions that a player always stolen ... so I have dramatically reduced learning time and in fact, when I played with my friends younger (13-14 years) the thing was very useful.
In addition to CALAMITIES cards there are random events which affect only 1 areas of the map; I added other units on the map, the neutral (or dead, barbarian, as you prefer), which with simple automatic rules can expand its neighbours or attack weaker player or rebel territories with low defense... to move even more the game.
The territories have 5 different terrain types: plain, hill, forest, mountain, desert and in addition the rivers ... all this leads to limits of population or costs in movement.
Also diplomacy: there are 6 diplomatic options that can be broken at any time (so look back!), obviously players take consequences (for example, if a player Christian declares war to another Christian would almost certainly the excommunication of the Pope and therefore would fall out of favor).
The sequence of players is random, if now you are the 1st, in the next turn you could be the 3rd or last ... pay attention to your enemies!
Object of the game is to get as many HONOR POINTS ... during the game, depending on what you do, you may gain or lose HONOR POINTS.
So you can play: by TIME, with a MAX NUMBER of points to reach or with a defined number of TURNS.