Golden Horn: From Venice to Constantinople

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Golden Horn: From Venice to Constantinople
Game data
author Leo Colovini
graphic Marko Fiedler
publishing company Giochi Uniti , Piatnik
Publishing year 2013
Art Board game
Teammates 2 to 4
Duration 45 minutes
Age from 8 years

Awards

Game of Games 2013

Golden Horn: From Venice to Constantinople (Italian: Golden Horn: da Venezia a Costantinopoli ) is a board game by the Italian game designer Leo Colovini from 2013. The game for two to four players, ages eight and up, takes about 45 minutes per game. It is a strategy game in which the other players as traders have to exchange goods between Venice and Constantinople , the Golden Horn on the Bosporus, as quickly as possible .

The game was first published in 2013 by the Italian publisher Giochi Uniti and the Austrian publisher Piatnik . In the same year it was awarded the main prize of the Austrian Spielepreis Spiel der Spiele .

Style of play

Theme and equipment

The game is a trading simulation and is about exchanging goods between the ports of Venice and the Golden Horn in Constantinople. They have to pick up goods with their ships in the ports and use their cards to bring them to the other port as quickly as possible. At the same time they initiate pirate attacks on their competitors and are attacked by pirates themselves.

In addition to the instructions, the contents of the game box consist of:

  • twelve ships with the coats of arms of the players and sails in the colors of the six goods,
  • four department stores with the players' coats of arms,
  • four sea route maps,
  • three ports (Venice, Constantinople and Modone ),
  • 90 colored goods stones in six colors,
  • 54 cards in the six commodity colors that can be used as wind and pirate cards,
  • a starting player figure and
  • a cloth bag.

Rules of the game

Before the first game, the three-dimensional ships and warehouses must be built. Each player chooses a coat of arms and receives the three ships and the warehouse of the respective trading family. Depending on the number of players, the playing field is built up from the ports and the sea routes. With four players all ports and sea routes are used, with three players only two ports and all sea routes and with two players all ports and only two sea routes. The players distribute their ships of their choice between the ports of departure Constantinople and Venice. Then all goods stones are placed in the cloth bag and nine stones are randomly drawn for each port of departure and placed in the respective port. Each player also receives five playing cards as hand cards, the remaining cards form a face-down draw pile.

Actions per turn
  • Send pirates out (voluntarily)
  • Move ship (compulsory)

The game is clockwise starting with a starting player. In each turn, a player can take two actions in any order: he can send pirates to attack enemy ships at any time during his turn, and he must move a ship each turn. Then the turn ends and it is the next player's turn.

If a player starts his turn in one of the starting ports, he loads all goods cubes of one color into his ship before his turn. He is only allowed to choose colors that appear on the ship's sails. The goods stones in the port are then immediately refilled to nine, as long as this is possible by pulling out of the cloth bag. The player always moves his ship at least one space and must always place it on a space so that its bow , the front part of the ship, points in the direction of travel. The direction may not be changed during the journey (unless the ship was attacked by pirates and completely emptied) and only one ship may be on each space of the sea route. The ports are an exception: in the ports of departure Venice and Constantinople, any number of ships can be anchored; in the intermediate port of Modone, two or three ships can be moored, depending on the number of players. The player moves his ship to the next free space in the direction of travel, thus jumping over occupied spaces and thus moving faster. If it lands on a space whose color matches that of one of its sails, it may advance further. If the colors do not match, the player may play any number of wind cards in the relevant colors and place them on the discard pile in order to move forward. A player may cancel his turn at any time. As soon as a ship arrives in a port with a free anchorage, the train ends - if it is a destination port (Venice or Constantinople), the goods are unloaded and placed in your own warehouse. The empty ship can be reloaded in one of the next trains and sent on its journey. For each ship that arrives in one of the three harbors, the player receives new cards from the face-down pile into his hand, the number of cards depending on the number of sails on the ship. On a ship with a three-colored sail he receives one card, on a ship with a two-colored sail he receives two cards and on a ship with a monochrome sail he receives three cards.

If a player decides in favor of a pirate attack, he can also use the wind cards for it. With the help of pirates he can steal goods from another ship by playing 2 pirate cards, each of which matches one of the colors of the sail on the ship in question. Only ships on the high seas may be attacked. The two cards are put on the discard pile and the player takes a commodity from the ship in question, which he immediately puts into his warehouse. If the robbed ship has no more goods on board after the attack, the player concerned may change the direction of travel on the next turn and return to the port of departure.

End of game and scoring

As soon as there are no more goods in a starting port, Venice or Constantinople, or if a player owns at least one of each of the six types of goods and announces the end of the game, the game ends. In this case, the round is ended, after which the game is evaluated.

Only the goods that are in the respective department stores are considered for scoring; goods on ships do not earn you victory points. Each commodity in a department store is scored with one victory point; sets of different commodities earn additional victory points (a set with 4 different goods +1 victory point, a set with 5 different goods + 2 victory points and a set with 6 different goods + 4 victory points); each commodity may only be rated for one sentence. The winner is the player who has the most victory points at the end of the scoring.

Extension Dominio da Mar

In 2015 Piatnik released the expansion Dominio da Mar , which brings 20 soldier figures, 16 wooden cubes and five new harbors into the game. In the expansion, soldiers can be loaded onto ships with which new harbors can be conquered, which bring additional victory points.

Expenses and reception

The game Golden Horn: From Venice to Constantinople was developed by Leo Colovini and published in 2013 by the Italian publisher Giochi Uniti and the Austrian publisher Piatnik as a new release for the International Game Days (SPIEL '13) in Essen. The graphic design was done by Marko Fiedler .

In the year of its publication, it was awarded the main prize of the Austrian Spielepreis Spiel der Spiele . In 2015 Kaissa Chess & Games published a Greek version of the game, in the same year Piatnik released the Golden Horn: Dominio Da Mar expansion for German-speaking countries.

supporting documents

  1. ↑ a b c d game instructions Golden Horn
  2. ↑ a b Golden Horn: Dominio Da Mar in the board game database BoardGameGeek (English); accessed on June 30, 2017.
  3. ↑ Versions of Golden Horn in the BoardGameGeek game database; accessed on June 30, 2017.

Web links