Background: These are the sounds you hear as you walk through the Italian marketplace. In Medici, you are a merchant owner whose job is to buy the most valuable loads for your ship and to increase the value of your goods by dominating the associated commodity markets. However, your ship can only carry a maximum of five loads of goods at a time. Therefore, you have to be careful in your bidding at the auctions where one, two or three loads are available for purchase as a lot. The other merchants are also bidding for these valuable goods - driving up the price of the more valuable lots. Once you have purchased your five loads, you are finished buying for this session. When the session ends, the merchants sell the loads on their ships. The more valuable the items you are carrying, the more florins you will receive, and the higher your share in each of the five different commodity markets, the greater your reward.

Object: After three buying sessions, the game ends and the merchant who has the most florins wins.

Rules: Each turn the active player turns cards from the deck face up, one at a time. The dealer decides to stop turning over cards after one, two, or three cards have been revealed. Most of the cards contain one of the five commodities (colors) and a value of 0 to 5. There is also one special, colorless card with a value of 10 (representing gold). While this card increases the value of your load, it does not help you corner any of the commodity markets. When the dealer is finished turning up cards, the revealed cards are auctioned off amongst the players. Each merchant gets one bid on the revealed cards, starting with the player on the dealer's left and ending with the dealer. The high bidder takes the cargo and adjusts his money marker. The deal then passes to the left and the process continues. Repeat until all of the players have five cards or the deck is exhausted. Once the buying session is complete, the merchants sell their cargoes. Each player totals the value of the cargoes carried on his/her ship. The merchant with the greatest total value receives 30 florins, the next highest merchant receives a lesser amount of florins and so on to the merchant with the lowest value who receives no florins. Then the players adjust their commodity market markers by one step for each associated commodity purchased in this buying session. Then merchants with the greatest and second most of each commodity receive 10 and 5 florins respectively. In addition, if a merchant has purchased six or more of any commodity cumulatively over the three buying sessions, the merchant will receive bonus florins during the payment for the individual commodity as shown on the board.

Format: Players may participate in as many of the three heats as desired. All games will have 4, 5, or 6 players (with most having 5 players and a preference for 6 players over 4 players). All winners advance to a 16- or 25-player semi-final Sunday. The semi-final size is the minimum needed to accommodate all heat winners who are present. Should more than 25 winners be present, standard HMW tie-breakers will be used to pare the semi to 25 winners. A few second place finishers will likely advance to fill in the remaining spots; second place finishers will be advanced based on the number of second place finishes. Winners and top alternates will be listed on the kiosk following each heat. The Final immediately follows the semi-final. No alternates will advance to the Final under any circumstances.

Time: Each heat will last approximately 90 minutes. There will be no announcements. Pairings will be assigned roughly two minutes after the designated starting time. Do not be late. Late arrivers will be assigned to tables only if they can find four additional players. No one advances from games whose paperwork is not turned in 110 minutes after the designated starting time. To assist players in finishing on time, the following policies are in force during each game:
* If a player leaves the game table for any reason that player's moves are skipped until s/he returns. While being skipped, a player passes on all bidding opportunities and does not draw cards. Please remember to visit the restroom before the game.
* On his/her turn, a player must announce the start of an auction by placing the deck of cards in front of the next player to the left and stating, "Your bid", "Go", "What do I hear for this fine lot," or something similar.
* Negotiations are prohibited. Table talk is OK provided it does not slow down the game and does not make agreements.
* The GM will announce the 60-minute marks. Games which have not finished the first and second buying sessions respectively should pick up the pace substantially.
* The GM will also announce the end-of-game 90-minute mark. One final round will commence at the 90-minute mark. The winner of the game should turn in all player records.
* Keep in mind that an individual player's total playing time for the entire game should be roughly nine minutes! Decide what you are willing to bid before the option comes to you.
* * The player whose turn it was should adjust the buyer's money marker and commodity market markers once the auction is complete while the player whose turn it is now is drawing cards. Unpurchased loads should be set aside face down in such a way that the number of such cards can be observed. Optional: The players in a game may agree that a single volunteer will handle all recording with the markers throughout the game.
* The GM and assistant GMs may assign timers or penalties in any game perceived as proceeding slowly or even remove a player from a game altogether. The timer may be assigned with any amount of time remaining the official believes is appropriate. Any decision can be appealed - and will be decided by two other officials (with the original decision being the tie-breaker). Such a decision process occurs while the timer of the player making the appeal is running.

Version Differences: Rio Grande Games released an American version of the game which has a few differences from the German version. How the differences are handled is specified below:
1. For simplicity, all players begin with 30 florins no matter how many players are in the game.
2. The American version has an extra 5-florin bonus space on the third highest level of each of the commodity markets which is not present in the German version. In the tournament, the 5-florin bonus will not be paid.
3. The payment for total cargoes will be as follows.

Version	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th
4-players	30	20	10	0	-
5-players	30	20	10	5	0