OH just a hunch.

I played a boardgame called Masters of venice yesterday. It took about 4 hours before we called it. We were about 80% done. The game mechanics included a stock market, commodity trading, and some quest fulfillment to obtain points. It was basically a big old market trading type game which I really enjoyed. And it was really well done in that regards with certain commodities soaring in value under high player demand while lesser commodities lagged. You had to anticipate which commodies players were going for and get in on it.

The biggest problem with the game though, is that there were a few balance issues that the developers could have spent a little more test play and time on to iron it out. Example, each player is supposed to select a job in the beginning (like puerto rico), but the jobs are definitely unequal in value. Some jobs are absolutely worthless to get. The first player ALWAYS selected the tax collector as that job was optimal in money intake/turn. The Wood commodity which was supposed to be a low-cost abundant commodity turned out to be the most rare. Which sucked because a lot of the quests that I GOT required wood and it was almost impossible to obtain.

I ended up winning the game because I monopolized a lot of the cheap stocks and then luckily the commodity prices drove up and made a huge profit windfall.

Masters of Venice
Gameplay: 8 stars/10 stars
Balance fixes: 4 stars/ 10 stars