Designer's Comments

Dirty deeds in Renaissance Italy

Oh, look, it’s another game with a political background providing reasons for conflict! I’ve long been deeply interested in the renaissance period and the French invasion of the Italian states Page 2 of 7(there wasn’t a unified ‘Italy’ then). It provides an interesting dynamic of a group of states in an uneasy piece but with tensions building that then have to respond to the appearance of a third party. All the Italian states teams had an internal game which could give rise to varying and changeable responses to the French intervention.

A particularly interesting aspect that arose during the first run of the game was the desire by players to explore the glories of the renaissance in terms of painting and buildings which would build the prestige of the state and particular players. I was happy to run with this and various ‘artworks’ and paper buildings soon decorated team tables. For the second run of the game I bought several old art books and separated the pages to produce suitable props for the game (this was, of course, pre-internet. It’s the only time in my life I’ve ‘vandalised’ a book and it took some willpower to actually do!). This cultural aspect has since been a theme in many of my games (megagames and ‘club-sized’ games) and is one that proves popular.

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