medici [Updated April 2006]

MED   
     20  
   13   
   19      21     9     

  Ballroom B 

Gary Noe, FL

2005 Champion

2nd: Eric Brosius, MA

3rd: James Pei, VA

4th: Marc Houde, VA

5th: Charles Faella, RI

6th: Fred Minard, PA
Event History
1999    Kevin Wojtasczyk       86
2000    Harald Henning       84
2001    Doug Galullo       95
2002    Ann Cornett     115
2003     Tom Stokes     118
2004     Peter Staab     109
2005     Bruce Reiff       98

AREA Ratings:

GM: Bruce Reiff

Fine porcelain! Bolts and bolts of fabric! Spices for sale!

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. In addition, you are also trying to corner one or more of these 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 in a lot. You also have to watch out because there are other merchants that are also bidding for these valuable goods. Once you have purchased your five loads, you are finished buying for this buying session. Then each of the merchants sell the loads on their ships. The more valuable the items you are carrying, the more florins you will receive. You will also receive florins for purchasing the most goods in any of the five different commodities. After three buying sessions, the game ends and the merchant who has the most florins wins.

Each turn, the dealer turns over up to three cards, one at a time. The dealer can decide to stop turning over cards after one, two or three cards have been revealed. Most of the cards contain one of the five commodities and a value of 0 to 5. There is also one special card with the value of 10 representing very valuable bulk cargo. This card is neutral and representd any of the five commodities. So while it is helpful in letting you have the most valuable loads in your ship, it does not help you corner any of the commodity markets. The revealed cards will then be 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 indicator. The deal then passes to the left and the process continues. This happens until all of the players have five cargoes or until the deck is exhausted.

Once the buying session is complete, the merchants sell their cargoes. The players adjust the commodity markers to indicate the commodities purchased in this buying session. Each player totals the value of the cargoes carried on their ships. 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 receives no florins. Then each of the commodity markets is evaluated. The merchants with the greatest and second most amount of each commodity purchased receive florins. 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.

There will be three heats of the game, one each on three different days. Players may participate in one or more heats of the tournament. Each heat is scheduled for one hour. I will try to limit each game to five players, although there may be some four- or six-player games to fill out the field. The winners of each game in each heat plus enough runner-ups to complete a field of 25 will then advance to a single elimination semi-final round. The winners will advance to the final immediately following. It is possible, but unlikely, that there will be more winners than available seats in the semi-final round. In that case, advancement will be determined by the WBC standard MESE tie-breaker rules as follows:

MESE ADVANCEMENT TIE-BREAKERS: In Multiple Entry, Single Elimination events for multi-player games, players possibly qualify for Single Elimination play in the second round by winning any of up to four preliminary Heats. Occasionally, players may advance wihout winning a heat. Players can enter one or more Heats without limit. All MESE events for multi-player games consist of three rounds; an opening Round consisting of two to four Preliminary Heats, a semi-final and a Final. The semi-final round will advance a predesignated optimum number of players to fill the second round; i.e., 25 players for a five-player game, 16 players for a four-player game, etc. but in all cases will advance no more than half of all players which participated in the Preliminaries. If insufficient players advance to warrant a semi-final round, the scheduled semi-final will instead become the Final.

NEW MESE TIE-BREAKERS: A Preliminary Heat win will NOT in itself guarantee advancement. All MESE events will advance the optimum number of players to the next round based on the following tie-breakers without exception.
1. Win in first Heat entered
2. Most Wins
3.Win in second Heat entered
4.Win in third Heat entered
5.Win in fourth Heat entered
6. has brought a copy of the game if needed for next round; otherwise GM may substitute game specific tie-breaker
7. average finish in all heats entered; e.g., a 2nd and two 3rds = 2.67 and beats two 2nds and two 4ths (average: 3)
8.high dice roll

"Win and you're in" is no longer a given although it is a strong possibility. This system of tie breakers encourages repeat play in Heats without requiring it. A single win (especially in the first Heat entered) will probably advance that winner but is not guaranteed to do so. Conversely, players who continue to play additional heats after winning a Preliminary game only enhance their chances of advancement without damaging their prospects, but a player who wins their only Preliminary game will probably advance without investing further time in Preliminary play. Meanwhile, non-winners who continue in Preliminary Heats will have additional chances to qualify in search of that elusive first win since in most events, a single win will still advance you to a semifinal round.

Please note that some players prefer adjusting the markers on the individual commodity markets after each auction while some players prefer to wait until the end of the round to adjust the commodity markers. I do not care which way the participants do this as long as the players agree. However, if the players cannot reach an agreement, markers will be adjusted at the end of the round. In addition, please note that the seating order will be random for the semi-final and final. However, for each heat, the players may use random seating or not at their discretion.

As many of you probably know, Rio Grande Games released an American version of the game, which has a couple of differences from the German version. I understand that the game designer (Reiner Knizia) approved the changes in the American version before it was published. Every year I seem to flip-flop on the one rule and I am doing so again this year because players seem to like the American rule better. If I receive enough requests to change the rules next year, I will do so again. The two rules that are in conflict are listed below with the rule I am using in the tournament specified.

1. In six-player games, the player who has the third highest total cargo receives 10 florins in the German version of the game, while the American version gives the third-place player 15 florins. I am going to use the 15-florin award for the third-place ship if there are any six-player games required.

2. The American version has an extra 5-florin bonus space on the third highest level of each of the commodity markets that the German version does not have. Currently, this space will not be in effect for this tournament.

This is your tournament, which I am happy to run for you. Therefore, if you have any ways that I can improve this tournament, please let me know. I can be contacted via e-mail, snail mail or personally at the WBC. I will consider all ideas presented to me for future tournaments.

 GM      Bruce Reiff  [1st Year]   NA
    BDReiff@aol.com   NA 

2005 Results Page | View the Icon Key | Return to main BPA page
Boardgame Players Association Last updated 5/9/06 by kae.
© Copyright 2006 by the Boardgame Players Association.
Trademarks are property of their respective holders.