aaahh...serenissima, queen of the seas...a game about trade and negotiation, money management and warfare...(bah! warfare! what is it good for???)

First up, Bevyn was Walenthia, steve the genoans, rob the venetian blinds and me the back stabbin rug makers, the turks...

after some quick rule explanation, we delved quickly into the game with round 1 bevyn attacking genoa for being too greedy, attempting to grab BOTH gold ports, this resulted in both galleys weak, with one sailor in each galley, making it a difficult decision whether to take the port, and lose galley and commoditys, or sell commoditys and limp home...i think it was the latter for both...

while this was amusing play from the venetian and turks perspective, worse was to come..round 2 saw rob attack my galley anchored at Antioch with 2 goods, with a galley where he had one good...even with all diplomatic skills at full bore...the robert markley blinkers were on, and he attempted the shirley manoveur and killed every one of my sailors before stealing my galley, my goods and then my prospective port and selling above listed for a handy sum...

this is serenissima...right??

this resulted me in a retalitory strike which sunk my remaining galley, which meant by about round 3 i was ducatless with a couple of weak galleys that could ill afford to do anything...my only gain was a worthless port right beside the venetian capital.

really by mid game steve was down to one galley also, and although he had more money than me he had no ability to expand his galley empire and was overshadowed by evil quidding.

rob, on the other hand, now had free run almost of the eastern mediteranean, and looked like he was going to be the only person who would get anywhere near filling his home port, so i began plans to perform my last act of terrorism. rob trundled in with a galley containing 3 goods to fill his home port, upon refusal of passing through my territorial waters, his galley was stranded, next to my 4 sailor galley. obviously threatened, he brought up a fully laden warship to take his galley back if things turn nasty. This eventuated in a battle against his commodity laden vessel, where i let it sink with all its booty. Rob was devastated, and promptly sunk my vessel. There was to be no home ports filled in this game.

Final round resulted in a military build up largely between rob and bevyn, with ports being taken by both parties.

Yet another game of serenissima, where the strategy has changed. first game a home port was filled, giving an extra 10 vp points, 2nd game all home ports were filled but extra ducats by jonathan again, won the day. 3rd game melissa prevailed without a shot fired, and this game, treachery, piracy and warfare was the order of the day...

Rob won with Bevyn close on his tail...steve and I trailing in the distance.

here’s the final breakdown..


bev steve rob me
27, 15, 31, 16