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Augsburg 1520
Author: Karsten Hartwig
Publisher: Alea/Ravensburger
Year: 2006


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Lending the influential nobility large sums of money, and asking favours in return that normally, money can’t buy: Jakob Fugger was very good at this, and in Augsburg 1520 we follow in his footsteps. We lend money to five noble families, and use the promissory notes to bribe them into granting us privileges that allow us to prosper and increase our status. Everybody has a player board depicting three ‘categories’ where progress can be made: agencies, peerage and offices. Agencies bring in money, peerage results in prestige points, and the offices entitle the players to extra cards. The progress in these three categories needs to be carefully balanced in order to lead to victory. The winner is the player that manages to earn the most prestige points.
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The game plays in four to seven rounds, depending on the number of players. The rounds are divided into two phases. At the beginning of the game, the players receive a number of promissory notes (cards). Each promissory note depicts a noble, and the sum of money concerned, ranging from 150 to 400 guilders. There’s also a number between 1 and 17 on each card: the higher the sum of money, the higher this number. Players may decide which cards they want to keep: they have to pay the sum of money depicted on the card to the bank (this sum has been lent out to the noble). A player may buy as many of the promissory notes as he can afford.
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In phase 1, the players visit the five nobles. The idea is that the players confront the nobles with their debts, by flinging the promissory notes in their face. The player that lent out the largest sum of money to the noble can coerce him to grant him a favour. Technically, these visits are presented as auctions. First, we show up on Philipps doorstep. Beginning with the starting player, players bid with the promissory notes showing the portrait of Philipp. Only the number of cards they bid is important, not the value of the cards. A player may raise the bid of the previous bidder, or he can hold the bid, which means that he bids the same number of cards.
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This continues until either all players but one have passed, or until all players that are still participating in the auction decided to hold the bid, and the bid has not been raised for an entire round. In the first case, the only remaining player wins the auction. In the second case, all players have to reveal their bid, and the player that bid the card with the highest value wins the auction.
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The winner may choose a privilege card from the display, and he may perform two of the three depicted privileges. The privileges correspond to the three categories agencies, peerage and offices. When a player decides for ‘agencies’, he may choose to take the next level agency-tile and place it on his player board. This entitles him to extra income in phase 2. Alternatively, he may use the ‘right’ depicted on his current highest level tile. For the agencies, this ‘right’ is: immediately receive 300 guidlers from the bank.
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With the privilege ‘peerage’, we can color our blood a bit more blue: we all start as citizens, but we can climb up to the status of baron, count or even prince. This scores extra prestige points in phase 2. Also in this category, a player can choose to use the ‘right’ associated with his current status, instead of increasing his status. A baron doesn’t have any rights, but a count can take a weapon, which scores 1 to 4 points in phase 2, and a prince can take a patent of nobility, which scores 2 to 5 points. In the third category, ‘offices’, additional promissory notes can be earned. As ‘right’, a player can take the mintmaster, that entitles him to one free promissory note per round, or the builder, that allows the player to build a church or a cathedral as an additional action.
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These buildings are important, because a player without a church may not pass 25 points on the scoring track, and a player with a church but without a cathedral may not pass 40 points. Players without a builder are also allowed to build a church or cathedral, but this costs a privilege. The first player to build a church pays 900 guilders, but every subsequent church is cheaper: the fifth player pays only 100 guilders! A cathedral costs between 1200 and 100 guilders.
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