Designer: Alberto Barbieri, Luigi Cornaglia
Artist: Luigi Berio
Publisher: A.P.S. Che l'Inse - Demoelà project, Ghenos Games, Post Scriptum
The events of Zena 1814 take place during the eight months in which Genoa was an independent city, following the end of Napoleonic domination and lasting until the Restoration of the Congress of Vienna. As the city's great families did in reality, you must cooperate with your rivals to reap the rewards of shared commercial ventures and the prestige of successful military victories. But your ultimate goal is to surpass all the others in the race for prestige! Zena 1814 is a game in which cooperation and competition always go hand in hand — but in the end there can be only one winner!
The focus point is that is possible to place influence cubes on cards, including the ones played by opponents. This causes a very strong interaction among players and plenty of choices.
In each round, players can move their pawns through the game areas and play cards from their hand belonging to areas where they have at least a pawn. On each card are spaces that allow others to influence it; the player who played it must influence it, while the others can decide whether to do it or not to obtain the effect of the card. Each time a player chooses to influence a card played by another, this one gains a smaller one-time bonus. This participation aspect reflects what really happened among historically families in those years...