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Designed By	Richard Hamblen
Art By	Charles Kibler George Parrish, Jr. Regina De Simone
Published By	Avalon Hill
Year Published	1988
# of Players:	1 − 6
User Suggested # of Players	Best with 4 players Recommended with 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 players (25 voters) [poll]
Playing Time	180 minutes
Mfg Suggested Ages	12 and up
User Suggested Ages	10 and up (3 voters) [poll]
Language Dependence	Some necessary text - easily memorized or small crib sheet (6 voters) [poll]
Category	Economic Exploration Science Fiction Space Exploration Transportation Show More »
Mechanic	Pick-up and Deliver
Primary Name	Merchant of Venus
Alternate Names	Merchants of Venus
Expanded By
Families

	Description Edit \| History

This classic title from Avalon Hill uses many elements which come together to form a very interesting game. Players take on the roles of space traders who move their ships through interconnected systems discovering new alien worlds to trade with. As players start to make money delivering commodities in a very unique supply and demand system, their earnings can be used to purchase better ships and equipment (shields, etc...), or to buy ports (which speeds up trading) and factories (which create better commodities). Variations included in the rule book allow for inter-player combat. The player with the who is the first to acquire enough ($1000, $2000, $3000, $4000) in cash and port/factory deeds takes the day.

	More Information Edit \| History

Microbadges
Merchant of Venus Fan - Nebula crossing
Merchant of Venus Fan - Space Port
Merchant of Venus Fan - Alien Nik
Merchant of Venus Fan - Technology

The GENERAL Vol.27,No.6
- Merchant of Venus – “Venus Smuggler" - The Black Market in MERCHANT OF VENUS (Variant Discussion) by Wesley Kawato

BGG Marketplace

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Pg. 1

Good	€90.00	8-Nov-2009
New	€115.00	17-Aug-2009
Very Good	£120.00	8-Jul-2009
Like New	$169.95	31-May-2009

		Browse \| Add Recent \| Ending \| Fixed Price \| Complete	Pg. 1

21d 1h 34m

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Forum	Hot \| Recent \| Active
[Browse »] [Post »] [Search »] All \| Reviews \| Sessions \| General \| Rules \| Strategy \| Variants \| News \| Play By Forum	Pg. 1/11 » 11

3	General replacement pawns	2009-10-13	Herr Niemand	4
2	General Remake in the works?	2009-10-13	jcikal	11
6	General Favorite End-game Target? (2000, 3000, 4000?)	2009-09-24	JohnRayJr	11
0	Variants Which is better: Lost planet version A or B?	2009-09-22	bonnyaclyde	2
0	Rules Cash: Public or Private?	2009-09-17	Beorndog	8
3	Variants Fast Set-up ( from The General mag, v26/#1)	2009-09-12	kswingruber	5
0	General Dathkadan Redesign: Possible to get an consistent set of files (high resolution jpg's preferred)?	2009-08-29	d0gb0t	6
6	News 2009 WBC Merchant of Venus Report	2009-08-24	rri1	3
0	Rules Starting a turn on a penalty space	2009-08-14	Windopaene	8
5	General Choose One Element Deserving of Praise. Choose One Element in Need of Tweaking.	2009-08-07	JohnRayJr	9

	Recommendations

Standard Recommendations
2038	Tyranno Ex

Weak Recommendations
Time Agent	RoadKill	Down With The King	Air Baron
Titan	Magic Realm	Fast Food Franchise	Rail Baron
Age of Exploration	Princess Ryan's Star Marines	Iron Dragon	Geronimo
Outpost	Freedom in the Galaxy	Image	Point Of Law
Hoax	Wizard's Quest	The Beastlord	Mystic War
Suzerain	Circus Maximus	1830: The Game of Railroads and Robber Barons	Kingmaker
Kings & Things	Age of Renaissance	Blackbeard	The Baton Races of Yaz
History of the World	Kremlin	Civilization

Very Weak Recommendations
Das Regeln Wir Schon

Files		Title \| Hot \| Recent
[Browse »] [Upload File »]		Pg. 1 of 8 »

MoV Rastur Play-mats

Mats to de-mark Rastur Tokens' state of play, based on Darthkadan's art. Print, fold, glue and cut for best effect.

Slev

2009-11-18

Racial Ship Cards - New Art

Ship upgrade cards for the racial ships variant (from The General) based on Darthkadan's art. Print, fold, glue and cut for best effect. 5 of 5

Slev

2009-11-17

Venus Smuggler Counters - New Art

Equipment counters for the Smugglers variant (from The General) based on Darthkadan's art.

Slev

2009-11-15

Green Taters - New Art

Counters for Richard Irving's (rri1) "Green Taters" variant based on Darthkadan's art. Original work is here: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/40367

Slev

2009-11-15

Example of How to play this game with Cyberboard

This is the referee file from a 5-player game. You can trace through it in order to see how the game was set up and how each player played it out.

ermd

2009-11-09

'vanilla' Cyberboard scenario file

This file will allow you to more easily set up and run a game using Cyberboard. It does not include any variants.

ermd

2009-11-09

Dathkadan Custom Board with Solamar Errata lined up and patched into the board

Dathkadan Custom Board with Solamar Errata lined up and patched into the board so that you can have the whole thing printed if you haven't done it or would like it without paste ups

lordunborn

2009-11-08

Mercenary Counters (redesign)

Counters for the Mercenaries variant based on Darthkadan's art. Designed for 1" discs.

Slev

2009-10-26

Bases & Agents

Board 6 of 6 to accompany the updated pawns for the expansion rules from The General, based on Darthkadan's art.

Slev

2009-10-25

Merchant of Venus Teaching Notes (v1.1)

A slight adjustment to version 1.2, regarding movement. Teaching Notes 1.0 indicated it’s ok to stop at any designated orbit spot, even if you have movement points remaining and there is no spaceport there yet. I carried that information through in my 1.1 and 1.2 versions, but (now that I have obtained and skimmed through the full rules again) I'm pretty sure the original rules do not allow it. Version 1.3 makes this clear.

Quantum Shaman

2009-06-06

GeekLists		Title \| Hot \| Recent
[Summary »]		Pg. 1 of 41 »

751	Plays best with 2? 3? 4? 173? You tell me! Ultimate Optimum # of Players List (BGG Top 288)	2007-02-09
593	Always alone... the definitive list of single player games.	2005-11-30
379	Arts Cow Card Sets - Direct Links	2009-03-12
358	75 GeekLists About Number Of Players: 2,3,4,5,6,7,8	2004-09-26
289	Year after year: The Best Games (From 1934 to 2009!)	2008-11-18
279	Avalon Hill: The reprinted and the not reprinted.	2008-02-19
269	One Game Per Year	2009-03-09
262	Making bad games into good ones	2008-06-28
246	What Specific Game Mechanics Make You Say "Cool!"	2008-06-15
244	Games worth gold!! (they easily sell for about $100 USD or more on the current market)	2005-08-09

	Statistics

Board Game Rank:	235
Num Ratings:	1274
Average Rating:	7.18
Standard Deviation:	1.46
Num Views:	85256
GeekBuddy Analysis:	Analyze
Similarly Rated:	View
Avg. Game Weight:	2.8
Fans:	25

Personal Comments:	504
Users Owning:	1482
Users Wanting:	262
Users Trading:	31
Has Parts For Trade:	4
Want Parts In Trade:	8
Price History:	View
Total Plays:	1131
Plays This Month:	19

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Merchant of Venus entry at Wikipedia	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchant_of_Venus	2008-05-24
Official Variants published in the General 26 No 1	http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/prbolduc/boris/varian...	2006-01-18
Game review a La Tana dei Gobin	http://nuke.goblins.net/modules.php?name=Reviews&r...	2004-04-03
World Boardgaming Championships Merchant of Venus Event Preview/Result	http://www.boardgamers.org/yearbook/MOVpge.htm	2003-10-13
Upgrading Idea using pawns from "Wide World" or "Conquest"	http://www.thegamesjournal.com/articles/Upgrading....	2003-02-17
Random Planetary Events (alternate site)	http://dougal.chm.bris.ac.uk/~mbt/mov.html	2002-05-05
Ersatz Relics Counters by John Cudmore	http://www.viennamob.com/ersatzrelics.pdf	2002-04-19
Ersatz Relics Rules Variant by John Cudmore	http://www.viennamob.com/relics.htm	2002-04-19
Luding's Two-player Game List	http://sunsite.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/luding/re...	2001-11-02
Non-Random Movement variant by Derek Hohls	http://grognard.com/variants/mervenus.txt	2001-11-02

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