Leonardo da Vinci – Review

Leonardo da Vinci was published in 2006 and is designed by “Acchittocca”, a team of four Italian designers. This is a resource-management game where the aim is to procure resources to complete inventions requested by Leonardo. This review was originally posted on BoardGame-Reviews.com.

Leonardo da Vinci:

• Designed by: Acchittocca
• Published by: Mayfair Games
• Number of players: 2-5
• Playing time: 90 minutes
• Player ages: 12+

A Quick Overview

This game is a resource management game where the aim is to acquire a combination of resources (wood, glass, rope, brick, metal) to research certain inventions requested by Leonardo.

Players vie with each other by sending out their apprentices to various parts of the city to obtain resources at the best rate, develop new research labs, buy mechanical robots to tinker in the labs and so on.

Once the inventions have been researched, Leonardo will award the inventor a sum of Florins.

The winner is the one with the most Florins at the end of the game.

Game Play

Players will typically begin with a lab, a few apprentices and the master along with some Florins. A few inventions are revealed and play starts.

The game lasts for a total of nine rounds. In the first seven rounds, players are able to visit the city and obtain resources and research. In the last two rounds (rounds eight and nine) players can only perform research on requested inventions.

The whole game is about balancing the money you receive for inventions (Florins) with the items you need to buy to research/develop better inventions.

The most valuable inventions are “Gold” inventions which provide the lab that completes it 20 Florins! This is where the large majority of points are obtained. However, the “Gold” inventions also require 15 weeks of research!

Successful players are the ones that are able to carefully time their inventions, raw materials and money to complete a variety of inventions.

Summary

In the rule book, there is a suggested setup for new players and an “Expert” setup. Personally, I find the “Expert” setup to be far more rewarding to play than the normal setup.

It allows you to start the game with an idea of several strategies to develop.

Leonardo da Vinci is a game that I consider “dry”; i.e. it is a numbers and efficiency game. For some, this may be boring but I like it and it has stayed in my game collection since I purchased it a couple of years ago.

There are a number of things that I like about this game. First, I like the short playing time. Typical games last about 75 minutes which I have found to be the optimal playing time for a number of people that I have introduced this game to. Keep in mind, however, that your first game or two will last about 90 minutes or so.

Another element of the game that I enjoy is the worker placement. Players are free to add workers to any part of the city but once placed, they may not add any more workers to that area. Masters, of course, are able to join their apprentices as needed!

This makes for interesting tactical and strategic decsions. Do you secure your position for a particular resource and limit yourself? Or do you place conservatively and react to others’ decisions?

For resource management games, there are usually many decisions that need to be made with a limited number of actions. This is quite interesting and lends itself well to repeated plays. As well, there are a number of strategic paths that players can explore.

I haven’t yet introduced this game to younger gamers (12 and under) because I think it involves keeping track of several elements throughout the game and that may be difficult for some of the younger players.

I think this game is a good introduction to the more complex, resource management games and I would gladly recommend it.

Happy gaming.

Thushyanthan