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Game Info
Year
2009
Collection
Mechanic profile
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Vibe profile
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Description
Colonia in the Middle Ages. The largest city of the Holy Roman Empire is renowned for its famous cathedrals and versatile trade. Reputable patrician families hold influential positions in the City Council and are in control of the city’s fortune. They are always striving to increase their riches and to consolidate their power. Each family wants to be the most influential - but only one may achieve this goal!
The players take on the role of influential patrician families in Medieval Colonia. They strive to lead their family to the most powerful position by acquiring precious relics. In order to achieve this, players must buy commodities and produce and sell goods. Only families selling their goods for a high price can afford expensive relics. The player owning the most valuable collection of relics at the end of the game will be the winner.
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All mentions
Browse transcript mentions, sentiments, pros/cons, mechanics, topics, quotes, and references.
Total mentions: 2
This page: 2
Sentiment:
pos 2 ·
mix 0 ·
neu 0 ·
neg 0
Showing 1–2 of 2
Video uWJ94yrIhqo
Review at 0:04 sentiment: positive
video_pk 68515 · mention_pk 164780
Click to watch at 0:04 · YouTube ↗
Overall sentiment (raw)
positive
Pros
- Plays smooth and fast due to simultaneous play.
- Highly interactive.
- Deep experience despite simultaneous play.
- High variability through different tiles (investment, company, objective).
- Beautiful anime style art.
- Solid design.
- Solo mode works well.
- Shines at higher player counts (3-5 players).
Cons
- Two-player rules make the game too brutal/confrontational for some players.
- Difficult to win solo; requires significant improvement in gameplay to reach record points.
- Two-player variant is a 'vicious knife fight' which is not fun for 'care bears'.
Thematic elements
- Competing to run the best companies
- A floating city in the sky
Comparison games
- Earth
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- action selection — And then finally, every round, we do a little bit of cleanup at the end. So we're starting out with the planning phase. Uh and the first thing you do there is you place a new tile.
- area majority — Then um we do some area majority stuff.
- card drafting — Each player draws four and keeps two building cards.
- Dice rolling — I'm going to use these dice. And by the way, these are the cool upgraded dice. They have like a little picture of our player character instead of the one on them.
- drafting — In a multiplayer game, you just take the top one from the randomized stack, you put it out here... But in a solo game, you actually draw two and pick one.
- engine building — And then um yeah, we are set up ready to go. Now, there's a couple more things in the solo game. ... I start with another special power card. It's the blue player. I am the excellent assistant or maybe I have an excellent assistant. So, I have this power uh in the solo game. And what I don't have is access to these investments.
- secret goals — We also draw to and pick one company and sponsor card. This gives me a special power and this gives me a secret goal that I am trying to complete that nobody else knows about even though they can score it too.
- set collection — My secret end goal is every crystal I have left over at the end of the game is six points to a maximum of 30.
- Simultaneous Play — And yet it's incredibly interactive. So remember in a normal game I would just draw one and put it out here. It would be the financial district but in the solo game I get to pick one. ... And now, everybody's playing simultaneously.
- Variable player powers — We also draw to and pick one company and sponsor card. This gives me a special power and this gives me a secret goal that I am trying to complete that nobody else knows about even though they can score it too.
- worker placement — It's the reconfiguration facility. But in a solo game, you actually draw two and pick one. So, I can pick the trade port or the reconfiguration facility. Those are both good ones. ... I'm going to use these dice. And by the way, these are the cool upgraded dice. They have like a little picture of our player character instead of the one on them. ... These are upgraded versions of my workers I can send out into the city.
Video topics + discussion points
No key topics recorded for this video.
Quotes (from this video)
- Always watch with the cling on subtitles turned on because Paulo would have pointed out I forgot one step in the solo game.
- Not only is he a talent designer, he's a great artist. The game has a beautiful, beautiful anime style look to it.
- The biggest one is the rules for two-player. I have not actually played this with my wife, folks. I'm sorry to say I would have really liked to, but the way they make it work for two-player is to turn an interactive but not directly aggressive game into a pretty vicious knife fight.
References (from this video)
No references stored for this video.
Video yTzZpopDFsA
Review at 0:02 sentiment: positive
video_pk 68066 · mention_pk 164396
Click to watch at 0:02 · YouTube ↗
Overall sentiment (raw)
positive
Pros
- Worker placement is great.
- Area control is quick.
- Investments add interesting choices.
- High variety with different tiles, characters, companies, and buildings.
- Solo mode is good and allows more control over fate.
- Worker placement moves incredibly quickly in competitive play due to simultaneous action selection.
- Worker cubes staying on the board if a building isn't activated helps mitigate frustration.
Cons
- Solo mode can feel too explosive or crazy due to solo points, potentially making the game too long.
- Solo mode might be too easy if things go well, allowing players to 'crush things too well'.
- Randomness in dice rolls and available buildings can lead to frustration.
- Potential for a runaway leader problem in competitive play, especially if a player gets ahead early with worker/dice count.
- Resource availability can be random, leading to situations where buildings requiring specific resources don't appear frequently.
- The new rule change for solo where the Automa keeps more than one cube on a location makes it tougher and locks out players more often, compared to the older rule.
- The reviewer forgot to spend some solo points in one instance.
Thematic elements
- worker placement
Comparison games
none
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- area majority — Players compete for control of locations by having the most cubes, which grants benefits.
- card drafting — Players draft building cards and other cards to add to their hand and play.
- Dice rolling — Dice are rolled to determine the placement of sabotur cubes and can influence worker placement options.
- engine building — Players construct buildings that provide ongoing benefits, resources, or victory points, creating an economic engine.
- Investment/Monetization — Players can spend victory points (money) on investment tiles that provide ongoing benefits or immediate advantages.
- Resource management — Players gather and spend resources like electricity, green, yellow, and crystals to build and enhance buildings.
- Simultaneous action selection — All players select their worker placements simultaneously behind a screen.
- Variable player powers — Each character has a unique power that can be used during the game.
- worker placement — Players place workers (cubes) on location tiles to gain actions and resources.
Video topics + discussion points
No key topics recorded for this video.
Quotes (from this video)
- I love the worker placement. It is a little bit busier in solo because you're dealing with multiple colors. In competitive, it is just the smoothest thing ever because each player puts out their stuff all at once.
- The core play of this is great. Love the worker placement. Love how quick like the area control is. Uh, love the little choices here with investments.
- Solo gives you so much uh mitigation with the solo points that you don't really see it as much.
References (from this video)
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Showing 1–2 of 2