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The game Siena takes place in the Middle Ages, in the town of Siena. The players start off as Peasants and gradually climb in social status. The goal is to become a member of the city council.
My first impression of the game was that it would be played in two parts. During the first part, you’d earn a lot of money, until you thought you had enough. Then, you’d enter the second part, similar to “Game of Goose” where you’d lose a lot of your money. Should you reach the end with any money left, you would win the game. I must say, the game turned out to be a lot more intelligent than that. In fact, it has quite a lot to think about.
Game Components
The inspiration for this game came from a fresco that can be found in Siena. It has been painted in 1338, and it shows the city, the nearby farmlands and the merchants coming to and leaving the town. This fresco is depicted on the board. At first, this is a bit inconvenient, because there are no clear markings on the fresco. Squares and icons as you find them on other gameboards are not present on this one. There are some markings on the edges of the board, and that’s it. The same is true for the playing cards: on each card, part of the fresco is depicted, and sometimes a name or some numbers. There is no indication of what the effect of the card is.
After some plays, however, it turns out that there isn’t that much happening on the board (in fact, it could easily be replaced with a smaller board). The number of different cards is also quite limited, and their meaning is quite straightforward. All in all, the game isn’t that unclear any more after you’ve played it once.
It seems there was not too much money spent on the other components. The players all have a number of wooden discs that double as pawns, indicator of social status and building blocks. In addition, there are a number of wooden blocks, of which the meaning varies depending on the position on or near the board. It would not hurt this game if there where a bit more different parts for the different roles. The quality of the cards is not that good either; they seem to be lacking some kind of coating, which makes them easier to damage or to get dirty. These lower production standards are understandable, though, since the game is produced by a starting producer, who probably cannot afford big investments.
Finally: the rules. These are not too well structured, and in the translation from Italian to English and German some nuances seem to have been lost. Even though the game is not that complex (rule-wise), it still takes some trouble to decipher the rules.
Gameplay
The game is played in rounds. At the start of each round, each player gets two chances to buy a card (with a limited set of cards to choose from). After that, each player gets a turn to play as many cards as he likes. What cards you can play and what you can achieve with them depends on you social status.
The players start of as peasants. As peasant, you can produce corn, wine and oil. Production is done through the playing of production cards. Each of these cards depicts a number of goods with a number indicating how many labourers are placed on the board for that good. When enough labourers have been placed for a good, one unit of that good becomes available for selling. If you’ve played a card depicting a good that is available for selling (whether you’ve produced it or nor), then you can sell it.
When you earned enough money through selling goods, you can become a merchant. As merchant you can produce and sell cloth and spices, which earns more money than corn, wine and oil. As a merchant you also get the option to play travel cards to go on a business trip, which also brings in money. However, the most important advantage that being a merchant has over being a farmer is that you can donate money to charity every time you make a profit. These donation bring in the consent of the townspeople (victory points).
An important feature is that the cards played by the merchants also help the peasants produce their goods, and vice versa. This means that production goes fastest when there are both merchants and peasants in the game. The first players who become a merchant can usually make a lot of profit because of that, while the players who have to remain farmers for a long time usually can make a lot of money near the end. They do earn less points, though.
A merchant who has increased his fortune sufficiently can become a banker. When you are a banker, the game changes drastically. You are no longer producing goods outside the town, but you are doing business in the town itself. As a banker, you place a pawn on the city, which you use to walk around with. Depending on the district you end up in, certain actions are available to you.
First of all, there are a couple of districts where you can make a big business transaction, which will bring in a lot of profit. Making such transaction, however, does require playing a special card. There are not many of those cards, and they are auctioned off during the game. Determining when you want to buy such a card and for how much is very important. You can make a decent profit with the card, but during the game, you can only have seven cards at any time. If you have got a lot of cards that will become useful when you are a banker, and not before, you have little hand space left to collect cards to make a profit with as a peasant or merchant. So, you need not only pay attention to your money, but you also have to manage your cards carefully.
There are some more ways to earn money in town. As a banker, you have a fixed income every turn, and in some districts, some more money is earned. But the most important districts are those where you can get rid of your money. Donating your money to the various charitable projects in town increase your chances of entering the town council.
The first place to loose your money is the Duomo, the cathedral. The priest are happy to accept a donation to the church. You can make such a donation once during the game, and the amount you need to donate depends on how much money you’ve got. The number of points it brings in does not depend on the height of the donation, so most often, the cathedral is visited by bankers when they are nearly out of money (and other options).
More important is the inn. In the inn, various artists loiter about. For a fee, they can make a work of art for the city. If you enter the inn, you can decide to auction off an artist. You yourself will know how many points his work of art will bring you; others have to pay for this knowledge with either money or a special card. Everyone can enter the auction, even if they do not know what they are bidding for. This action is not very useful most of the time, since you might spent your turn to help someone else get some point (when you do not win the auction yourself). But this action is useful for a banker if few others have become bankers. One of the last artists is the one who has made the fresco the game is based on. When he has been auctioned off, the game ends. Anyone who is not a banker by then has automatically lost the game. This means that farmers and merchants cannot bid too much money, since they still need to become a banker in time. The bankers can earn some relatively cheap points this way, and then hope to end the game before the others can convert their money into points.
The final option is to help build the Torre del Mangia. The points you earn doing that are in general less than those earned with the other options, but there is no chance of helping the other players (as there is when auctioning an artist). The tower is finished when seven floors have been built; this also ends the game. By the time everybody has become a banker, the game usually becomes a race to build the tower, as it offers the best possibilities to gain some points before the end of the game.
Balance
Siena has a balancing mechanism that gives advantages to the players with the least money. Poor players get first choice when selecting new cards and pay less for those cards. In addition, the poorest player determines who plays his cards first.
It appears this mechanism does not work well. First of all, the poorest player is not always the one in the weakest position. This is not a problem per se, but during the beginning of the game, it can be abused. When you are a farmer, there is no reason to play your cards until you can cash in a lot of money, or when you are forced to do so because of a money shortage. This means you can afford to stay poor for some time, while picking up the best cards. The richest player, who may not even have that much more money, can become stuck because there are no useful cards left for him. In effect, he is forced to skip a few turns.
Another effect of the mechanism is that the poorest player will attempt to select such an order of play which will allow him to sell as many cubes as possible. Quite often, this is to the detriment of the player who is poorest-but-one. His turn will be after the poorest player has sold all goods, so unless there was a lot to be sold, he seldom gets anything.
Finally, bankers need not keep any money in reserve. After they’ve spend some money, they are often more poor than the merchants, even when they are clearly in the lead. This is not a big problem, but it does feel a bit off.
The banker’s nightlife
Next to the strange effects of the balancing mechanism, there is another effect that can disrupt the game every now and then. By playing a courtesancard, a player can place a courtesan in the inn. The courtesan will slow down a banker’s progress through town, and it will cost him some money. Placing a courtesan can be used to decrease the amount of money an opponent has, or to slow down other players when racing to build the tower.
However, the courtesans can also be placed before anyone has entered the city. There is no limit on the amount of courtesans that can be placed. The first player to encounter them has to pay them all. Players who are behind, and players who are protected, will place those courtesans to hinder those in the lead. This can result in nobody entering the city, because no-one manages to build up the necessary financial lead to pay the courtesans and still have a chance to win the game. Eight or more ladies is too much even for our virile bankers, and can get the game stuck, or at the very least, delayed for quite some time.
My opinionThough the game has got some imperfections, they do not always need to be a problem, especially when they are known. But every now and then, they can seriously disrupt the game. The other times, however, Siena is a very interesting game. It is heavier than one would expect, and there are some tough decisions to make. Next to this, the game is very original. Partly, this is caused by the fact that it is based on a work of art, which makes that it has an unique atmosphere and gameboard. In addition, there are few games that are similar to this game. It is a combination of a game outside the town and a game inside the town, which works remarkably well, better than I’d expect. This reinforces the special feel of this game. All in all, this game is definitely worth a try.
Some advise: unless you like studying rules, you should have someone who has played before explain this game to you. The rules and the game are not easy to get. Also, try to play the game at least twice. It is so different and heavy that you are unlikely to play it well the first time.
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Posted Mon Nov 7,2005 02:10 pm
