Leonardo da Vinci (2006)

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Theme:
Florence, fifteenth century. The inventors of the Renaissance created amazing machines for the Lord of the city. Become the protagonist of this age of unbelievable discoveries by realizing your inventions! You'll direct your team into the laboratories, workshops, among the shops and perhaps learn the intrigues of the palace. Only the best can rival the great Leonardo!

Summary:
A worker-placement game for 2-5 players with an interesting bidding mechanic. In many other worker-placement games, if an opponent beats you to a spot, you're out of luck. Not so in Leonardo de Vinci. Here, you can bid more workers to jump ahead in line. And people at the back of the line, can still get something, but they have to pay more to get it. The competition for resources is very dynamic and fun.

Your same workers that compete for resources may also power your laboratory, so you must balance acquiring resources with working in the laboratory so that you can complete inventions and not run out of Florins (i.e. manage cash-flow).

The key is planning your resources and production capacity to maximize the number of inventions you can make and therefore maximize the amount of Florins you can earn. The last two rounds of the game require extra careful planning because new resources cannot be acquired.

Meta:
A "gamers' game" by Acchittocca (a team of Italian game designers). Nr. 1 in the QWG Master Print Edition series