Amalfi: Renaissance

Amalfi: Renaissance is a game about the age of sail. You manage a fleet of ships which helps you obtain all sorts of goods from distant lands. With these goods you can recruit characters which give you various abilities. You can secure private contracts, which give you exclusive rights to some trade destinations. You can buy great works of art. They have various benefits. They tend to be expensive, but they are often worth many points. You can and should expand your infrastructure. Build more ships to help you do more. Build lighthouses at popular trade destinations so that when others visit, you get a small benefit. The game is played over four rounds, after which the highest scorer wins. 

The main game board

The player board

The most important mechanism in the game is how you use your fleet to gain resources. You only have a limited number of ships you can use every round. They start at sea, which means they are available for use. To make a trade journey, usually you spend one ship to send several others to a destination producing a specific resource. At your player board, you shift these ships from the sea to the section representing the specific resource type. Now each ship represents 2 or 3 of that resource, which you can spend to buy other things. When you spend resources, those ships are shifted back to the sea, becoming available again. You can choose to shift them back even when you don’t need to use their resource type. However when you do this the resource they represent will be converted to a basic resource - food. 

Some things can be bought using food. More importantly, food is needed when you want to launch a trade expedition. Depending on how many ships you own, at the end of a round you must have enough food to pay for maintenance. Failing to do so leads to a harsh penalty. 

You score points in many ways. Things you buy give you points - private contracts, works of art, and some characters too. At the end of every round there is a scoring condition evaluated. There are also three goal cards you can work towards. The earlier you achieve a goal compared to others, the bigger the reward. 

A character

Various trade destinations you can visit.

Works of art

Private contracts are a special type of trade destination

Goals are randomly drawn during setup

Special scoring at the end of each round

Amalfi is a heavy Eurogame in which you try to generate resources efficiently and spend them well to expand your infrastructure and buy stuff which help you score points. Managing your resources is challenging. You need to make sure you have decent cash flow, i.e. food. If you get a good combination of characters, their abilities can help you greatly. There are many different criteria for round end scoring and there are many goals. These create variability. 

I did not find the game interesting. For me it is just another complex resource management game. It is challenging enough. There are many ways to score points. One difficulty I have with games with many ways of scoring points is they feel like yet another Excel exercise. I'm just figuring out efficient ways to produce goods and turn them to points. I feel like I have been doing this same thing in too many other games. I am not experiencing anything new. One thing nice about the game is the characters. They are based on historical characters and it is satisfying to be able to put together a team which synergises well. 

This was my player board at game end. I had 7 characters. 

Han had 9 private contracts! And he had built all his ships and lighthouses. He won by a mile.