 Cover of original Battleline edition, 1977, also used by Avalon Hill in 1980 | |
| Designers | S. Craig Taylor andJames B. Wood |
|---|---|
| Publication | 1977 |
| Players | 4-8 |
| Setup time | 5-10 minutes |
| Playing time | 4-12 hours |
| Chance | None-Low |
| Age range | 12+ |
| Skills | Tactics Strategy Psychology Negotiation |
Machiavelli is aboard game published byBattleline Publications in 1977. Set inRenaissance Italy, the board is controlled by theRepublic of Florence, theRepublic of Venice, theDuchy of Milan, theKingdom of Naples, thePapacy,Valois France,Habsburg Austria, and theOttoman Turks.
The game shares most of the basic rules of its predecessorDiplomacy, and introduces many new rules such as money, bribery, three seasons per year, garrisons, and random events such as plague and famine. It features scenarios tailored for as little as four and as many as eight players.
Machiavelli is designed to be played by a group of 4 to 8 players. Each one of the players controls one of the available powers.
The game board is a map of theItalian Peninsula and its nearby countries, including the southeast ofFrance,Switzerland,Austria,Hungary, the coasts of theAdriatic Sea,Tunis, and the Mediterranean islandsCorsica andSardinia. The board is divided in 73 different areas. There are two types of areas:provinces andseas. Some of the provinces have a city, that in some cases can be fortified. Some of these fortified cities have aport.
Each player has a set of tokens that represent three types of military units: armies, fleets and garrisons. All of a player's tokens have the same color. Also, the game includes other tokens, such as assassination tokens, rebellion tokens, famine tokens and ducats, the coinage inMachiavelli.
Machiavelli includes two 6-sided dice that are used only with some optional or advanced rules, such as natural disasters or assassinations.
The game includes a rulebook and eight cheatsheets, one for each player.
To win a game ofMachiavelli, a player must get the control of a certain number of provinces before the other players. Usually, the game ends when a player gets the control of 15 provinces, though a longer game can be agreed in which the winner needs to control half of the provinces (i.e. 23 provinces).
A game is divided in years and each year in three seasons (spring, summer and fall). Each season is, in fact, a game turn. The turns of all the players are played simultaneously; they must secretly write down their orders and these orders are read aloud when all the players have finished. This system makesMachiavelli a suitable game toplay by mail.
The rule book describes four official scenarios that explain the initial setup of the military units of each player.
In the basic game, in which no advanced or optional rules are applied, every year is played by the following sequence:
In the orders writing phase, the player can assign an order to each one of his units. The available orders areHold,Advance,Besiege,Support andConvoy.
The advanced game adds the following rules:
Also there are some optional rules to make the game more fun and add some randomness:
Machiavelli was designed byS. Craig Taylor andJames B. Wood, and released commercially in 1977 byBattleline Publications.
In 1980 Battleline was taken over byAvalon Hill, who subsequently republished the game under their logo but using the same cover art as the Battleline edition.
In 1995, Avalon Hill reissued the game with new cover art by Kurt Miller.
In the 1980 bookThe Complete Book of Wargames, game designerJon Freeman liked the components, commenting, "Machiavelli is one of the most attractive games available; color is rampant, and the counters, each with the particular emblem of the country involved, are spectacular." He did note one issue, saying, "The only major lack is a system for handling religion, a prime motivating factor of the times." Freeman found the game was well-balanced — perhaps too well-balanced. "In most of the scenarios — especially those with fewer players — an initial period of land-grabbing is followed by endless turns of stalemate, as most countries assume positions of unmovable strength. In essence the game is too well balanced, and only an unusual change of fortune can move it." Freeman gave this game an Overall Evaluation of "Good", concluding, "YetMachiavelli is still good fun."[1]
Machiavelli was chosen for inclusion in the 2007 bookHobby Games: The 100 Best.Mike Breault explained "With all this depth, richness, and historical context,Machiavelli's gameplay still flows smoothly and swiftly along. It's a tribute to its outstanding design and development thatMachiavelli works so well on so many levels. From a basic rule set that itself surpasses any other game of its type, multiple gameplay-enhancing layers can be added as desired, to weave a tapestry of intrigue and interaction unrivaled in hobby games."[2]
