Medici Review – Bid your way out of friendship

Trading commodities and buying items at auction are familiar territory in board games, but Medici sets itself apart with its fast pace, opportunities for griefing, and genuinely tense gameplay.

Medici casts the players as traders in 16th-century Florence, with everyone acting as merchants on behalf of the Medici family. That’s the limit of the story here, as it’s just the framework for everyone trying to bring back the most valuable items by outbidding each other. 

Designed by the legendary Reiner Knizia, Steamforged Games has revived this classic auction game for modern audiences. But how does it fare in an industry full of similar experiences? 

Key Details

• Developer: Steamforged Games
• Price: $39.99
• Players: 2-6
• Time to play: 40-60 minutes

Becoming the best trader of the Medici family

Steamforged Games

In Medici, the aim is to have the most florins at the end of three days. In this case, florins are the currency you use to buy items, so you must be careful about how much you spend each day.

The basic gameplay loop involves one player putting 1-3 items up for bidding from the “commodity deck.” The bidding then goes from player to player, ending with the person who put up the items. Whoever bids the most wins that product. You only have room for five items, so you have to bid wisely.

Each item you have is worth a points value of 0-5, except for one gold card worth 10. Once everyone has filled their ships or the deck runs out, the day ends, and everyone tallies up the points on their cards, earning florins based on how high their points are.

There’s another aspect to bidding, however, as there are five different kinds of commodities: cloth, spices, grain, dye, and furs, each with color-coded cards.

This is where Medici’s board comes into play, as each of these five commodities has a track. If you end a day with a commodity, you move up its track, earning money depending on how far ahead you are of the other players.

While scoring points from your five items is important, you can also beat the other players by mastering commodities, as they can also provide lots of florins if you max out their track quickly enough.

Shutting down your friends as you become the commodity master

Steamforged Games

The commodities are the most strategic aspect of Medici, as maxing out the purple dye cards, for example, means you’ll be earning lots of money at the end of the day.

This means that players not only have to worry about buying high-scoring cards and landing their own commodities, but they also have to think about shutting down their opponents’ ambitions. If you know another player values purple dye, then it could be in your best interest to stop them buying some during a bid, even if that card has low point values.

The current florin position (as seen on the board) is a great touch, as you know exactly how much a player can bid before running out of money, especially as Medici doesn’t allow for trading or borrowing cash. This means you can also strategically bid to ensure your opponent can’t buy items, even if you have to pay a high cost yourself.

Medici is the kind of game that puts friendships to the test, as it’s all about screwing over the competition in return for gains. Bidding against your opponents is as much about messing with your opponent’s plans as boosting your own, so expect insults to be shot back and forth during a play session.

Where Medici excels is bringing out the petty oneupmanship in players, as they win auctions by a single point, but that’s all part of the game. It’s the nerf bullet effect of taking a hit but not being hurt by the after effects. 

This all plays to Medici’s main strengths – easy to explain but difficult to master. It took around five minutes to explain the basic rules and concepts during play sessions, with little confusion from players once everything was established.

Medici is an ideal opening title for a game night, as it gets the brain moving without overwhelming the players. While it might seem like a maths-heavy game, it doesn’t deal with high numbers.

Once you’ve played Medici a few times, you’ve seen all it has to offer. Plenty of board games have countless permutations leading to a wide variety of experiences, but Medici doesn’t have that level of depth due to the limited number of commodities and card types on offer, ensuring games can only go a few different ways. It’s not ideal for playing all night on its own, but it has a lot of replay value for multiple sessions.

Medici’s Production Values

Steamforged Games

Steamforged Games’ Medici uses the same rules & gameplay as previous editions. The biggest change in the Steamforged iteration involves the pieces. New artwork has been created for the characters & tokens, with some gorgeous illustrations across the board.

The physical board also looks lovely, though one major problem involves the grain and spices cards, which are red and orange, respectively. These differences are noticeable on the cards, but they look similar on the board, making it easy to get them mixed up when you’re learning the ropes.

As more of a personal preference, I’d have preferred larger cards for the commodity deck. This is mostly because you’ll be handing it from player to player, which is a bit finickier with smaller cards. It’s also harder to shuffle a smaller deck, which you’ll be doing between days.

The Verdict – 4/5

Medici doesn’t have the long-term enjoyment of some more in-depth board games, but it’s great as an hour-long play for one or two sessions. It’s easy to explain to new players and it won’t take long until the backstabbing begins.

The game might not have the incredible minis that Steamforged Game is known for, but it’s an overall pleasing package and well worth the price tag. If you’re looking for a game to spice up your collection, you can’t go wrong with Medici. 

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