Rialto

In Rialto the players are trying to get the most influence in Renaissance Venice by constructing buildings, bridges, gondolas – and, not least, getting their councilmen on the board to control the six regions of the city.

How all this is done is through a series of bidding rounds, using cards. At the start of each round (there are six rounds, one for each area on the board) several hands of six cards are dealt face-up. Players choose one set for themselves, add two extra cards (i.e. unseen by the other players) from the deck, and then discard one of their cards to leave them with a hand of seven.

The cards are made up of several suits: Doge, Gold, Building, Bridges, Gondolas, and Councilmen. Each card, when played, performs an action on your behalf: Doge cards move you up the Doge track (furthest ahead wins ties, which are very common in Rialto), Gold cards gain you gold (which can activate any buildings you’ve built), Building cards allow you to, you guessed it, construct buildings (which give you in-game advantages when activated) , Bridges get you victory points, Gondolas get more councilmen into your supply, and Councilmen get your councilmen onto the board – no benefits for this during the game, but crucial at the final count-up, where the player with most councilmen in a given area scores twice as many points as the player in second.

Everyone’s cards when played have the above effects, but the playing of cards also functions as bid, as the player playing the most during any of the rounds gets an additional benefit: extra spaces on the doge track, extra gold, placing a bridge on the board (these define the value of areas at the end of the game), placing a gondola (and a councilman), placing an extra councilman.

As well as the simple yet strategic cardplay, there are also the buildings: they have value of 1-4 which is both the cost to build them and the points they give you at the end of the game. During the game they give you benefits too: extra cards, or extra councilmen for instance. Finally there are also Joker cards that can serve as anything you like, as long as you have at least one of the card you want your joker to represent (two jokers can represent one card you don’t have any of).

Rialto is a game that rewards several plays – as with many boardgames, the first experience will involve checking the rules and kind of muddling through to an extent. But it’s not a long game, and is deceptively simple.