The Bottom Line
Palazzo is an auction and drafting game that is suitable as a medium weight game for gamers, but, because of some fiddleyness and poor theme to mechanics integration, is not the best choice for non-gamers or as a gateway game. I recommend it only if you have gamers to play with, and need to add variety in the middle weight, forty-five minute niche.

The Rules
In Palazzo players represent renaissance era architects attempting to build the highest and best Palazzos that they can. Palazzos are considered better, and are awarded more points, if they are constructed out of a homogenous material (there are three construction materials available: marble, brick, and limestone), if they have a lot of windows and doors, and if they are at least three stories tall. In the end, the player with the most points wins.

Players are given money in four different suits with which to buy the components of their Palazzos. Three of the suits each represent a different currency, the fourth is wildcards which can be any currency. Money may only be spent if it is all of a matching currency (wildcards can be added to any currency). One exception is if three money cards are played each from a different suit but of a matching denomination, in this case the three cards together are worth 15 regardless of their denomination. Such a “15 point set” can also be created by playing 3 wildcards together.

Money is spent on “stories” which are used to construct the Palazzos. Stories come in one of three materials and with one to three windows. Additionally, each story is numbered from between one to five. The stories must be placed on a Palazzo in ascending order. In other words a Palazzo may start out with story one, then have story three, then story five, but it can’t have story one then story three then story two. The maximum height a Palazzo can achieve is thereby five stories. The material of a Palazzo may be mixed and matched but there is a point bonus for making homogeneous Palazzos.

Game play is as follows:

On a players turn he may choose to take one action from the following three options.

1) Take Money – If a player opts to take money he deals, face up, a number of money cards equal to the number of players plus one. The active player then selects any two of the money cards to add to his hand. The remaining players select, in turn order, one money card each. There is no limit to the number of money cards a player can have nor to how many times in a row this action may be taken (at least until the money deck runs out).

2) Build – If a player opts to build he turns over one tile from the appropriate tile deck (there are three tile decks of increasingly valuable stories. In this way the stories come out in a reasonable progression) and places it in the central market place (see picture below). He then takes a second tile and adds it to one of the quarries on the periphery. This is done by counting the number of windows on the tile and then counting that number of quarries ahead the Master Builder pawn. In this way more valuable tiles are place further from the Master Builder.



The active player then must decide if he wants to buy from the central market or from the quarries. If he opts for the central market then he may buy one or two tiles and each one costs ten minus the number of tiles that were present in the market at the beginning of his turn. So, for example, if there are three tiles in the central market a player may purchase one for seven, or two for fourteen. When a player pays he may overpay, but he may not make change for his payment.

If the player decides to buy from the quarries then he advances the Master Builder pawn one quarry clockwise, and all of the tiles in that quarry will be auctioned off to the highest bidder. The active player gets a free bid of three. Bidding proceeds in turn order with each player either increasing the bid or dropping out until only one player is left. That player pays his bid and takes the tiles in the quarry. Once again, players may add to their bid but cannot pick up their previous bids and make change.

There is one exception if there are four or more tiles in the quarry. In this case there is no auction. Players take turns selecting one tile from the quarry for free, any excess tiles are discarded.

After a player acquires some tiles he must add them to his Palazzos. He may add a tile to an existing Palazzo as long as the story number of the new tile exceeds the highest story on the Palazzo. A player may also start a new Palazzo simply by placing a lone tile in front of him. There is no limit on the number of Palazzos a player may have. And a player is never forced to keep a tile he just acquired (it’s sometimes a good idea to discard a tile you just purchased because single story Palazzos are worth negative points.) Some sample Palazzos are shown below.



3) Rearrange – A player may opt to rearrange one story in his Palazzos for the cost of any single money card. A player may take a single Palazzo and insert it into a Palazzo of several stories as long as the story numbers on the new Palazzo are all ascending. Alternatively, a player may remove a story from a Palazzo and place it as a single story Palazzo. Besides those two options a player may also choose to discard a single story Palazzo. The key to the rearrange action is that it must start or end with a single story Palazzo. It can go single -> multi, multi -> single, or single -> discard.

The game ends when the fifth “mural” tile is drawn from the third tile deck (thus it’s a random ending).



Players total the scores for their Palazzos and determine the winner.



The Components
The components are ok. The Palazzos tiles look nice, but sometimes there is a functionality question, especially with the first story tiles. Does a door count as a window? Sometimes there’s a person in the scene making it harder to count quickly (answer: yes, I believe a door counts as a window).



The graphics on the market place and quarries are kind of muted and confusing to me. Plus the tiles are cut with a weird border that looks like they should fit together in a puzzle but they don’t. I’m not a big fan of these but it doesn’t detract from game play.



The money looks fine but, like the Ticket to Ride cards, is hard to shuffle because the cards are small.



Overall, the presentation is pedestrian. It’s not bad, and it’s not offensive, but it doesn’t excite either.

Theme to Mechanics Integration
In short, there is none. The most egregious offender of theme is the rearrange action. How can you lift up a whole Palazzo and insert or remove a story? Did they have giant cranes in fifteenth century Italy, are these things made of legos or something?

Also, the differentiation of market places makes no sense. Why is it a straight buy at the central market place but an auction at the quarries? How are they quarrying different materials at one location? Why are they building interchangeable stories at the quarry site?

There are three currencies that can’t be mixed or matched, ok fine. But why then can you make a set of all three currencies if they’re of the same denomination? None of this makes much thematic sense, but it all works well enough from a mechanics standpoint.

If you are looking for theme look elsewhere. If you are looking for some solid and slightly original (or at least combined originally) mechanics then this game should suit.

The Random Element
There is a large random element in the game, but in my opinion it does not exceed the weight or duration of the game (in other words a light and short game can stand more randomness, and that’s the case here, the randomness is present but at an appropriate level).

I think the main source of randomness is the tiles that come out. You can get real lucky and have the exact tile you need fall into the central market when you build, in which case no one can prevent you from buying it at a fixed price. Or, you can get unlucky and watch your tiles show up in a quarry down the road where you won’t be able to get to them for awhile and must win an auction once you do.

The game end can also be painfully random when you just need to do one more rearrange action but the fifth mural comes out before your turn. That will often cost you the game so it’s vital not to save those actions for the bitter end.

There is some randomness in how the money is distributed, but it’s actually not that much. Certainly this affects the game less than the tile randomness.

Overall, I was not put off by the amount of randomness. You certainly will get lucky or hosed a few times, but you feel like you have the tools to roll with the punches also.

Strategy vs. Tactics
At first blush the game is purely tactical, but I believe there is some strategy in there. For one thing you have a very good idea of how many Palazzos you need to complete (or have made good progress on) before the game even starts. For four players you’ll need two well built Palazzos, add one more Palazzo for each fewer player in the game. This gives you some structure on which to plan your turn by turn actions.

Also, there are really two resources in the game: money, and actions. You have to realize that actions may be a limiting feature of how many tiles you can acquire. You have to be careful to leave yourself the resources to acquire tiles out of your turn, i.e. when someone else puts a quarry up for auction. This requires some planning and money management strategies.

Overall, I’d say the game is more tactical than strategic, but you do have to spend some time thinking about future turns in a general sense.

Scalability
Scalability, I believe, is one of Palazzos strengths. It seems to work perfectly well with any number of players (from two to four) you just have to build more Palazzos with fewer players. In fact, it’s one of the rare auction games that I’ve found works well with two players. I wouldn’t buy it purely for a two player game, but it can be used as such.

My Opinion
My opinion is that Palazzo is a mechanically sound game, but it is fiddly, and not good for non-gamers. I’m happy to play it occasionally, but it’s not the highest game on my list for its niche. I think it’s best suited to a group of gamers who play a lot of medium weight sub one hour games. In that context it could add variety and interest to their rotation.

The bottom line is that Palazzo is ok for gamers, not recommended as a gateway game. I give it a 6.5 on the BGG scale.



For more in the "Bottom Line" series of reviews see:
Taluva

Last edited on 2007-11-13 10:51:44 CST (Total Number of Edits: 4)