Board Game Arena

It is my great pleasure to announce that Medina is now available in beta!

Medina is a classic game by designer Stefan Dorra in which players collaboratively build a desert city of palaces, but try to claim the best ones for themselves. The game share some similarities with Carcassonne but has a unique Stop & Go feeling with tantalizing decisions to make.

The physical version of the game is actually quite impressive with huge wooden blocks:



And here is the adaptation for BGA, which I hope will do justice to the original game:
From the publisher:

The year is 1822. After years of decay, it is time to rebuild the medina, located at the foot of the Atlas mountains. The architects and engineers of the city work to erect large and beautiful palaces and to renovate the damaged city wall. As the reconstruction of the old city progresses, the city's inhabitants flock through the alleys, and the contours of the new city gradually reappear!

Each turn, players must place two pieces on the board, either augmenting an existing building or starting a new building if the current building of that color is finished. Each player will claim one building of each of the four colors by the end of the game, giving one point per wooden piece attached to the building.

Also, if you own the largest building of a particular color you get a bonus for that color. Finally, there are bonuses for the player who most recently connected one of their buildings to the walls, which grow from the four corners of the city.

As usual, please use the suggestions/bug report system for any report, available at https://boardgamearena.com/bugs?game=1339

Thanks for testing and have fun playing !

Very nic.e Thank you!!

Very nice implementation!

2 suggestions:

Would it be possible to change the neutral rooftops option so that it can be active when creating and waiting for a 4 player game?
If you then decide to play a 3 player game (because no more players turn up) the neutral rooftops are on.
Should you find 4 players the neutral rooftops are off, obviously.

Also could you explain the tie breaker?
It is not mentioned in the rules. The scoring screen, says: largest palace and if equal the most ancient palace.
Not entirely sure what this means.

Overall, I very much like this implementation. Plays nicely!

Hello and thanks for you comments.

Regarding the neutral rooftops, I am not too happy with the way it is, perhaps I will switch to something smoother like what you suggested.

The tie breaker is not in the rules, but the author suggested that for BGA we implemented that and I think it is a good idea (most needed for tournaments). So the idea is that in case of a tie, the player with the bigger palace wins. In case there is still a tie, the player (amongst the still tied players) that claimed his biggest palace first wins. I hope this is clearer now.

Benj

Thx for the reply.
I understand why the physical game does not have this tiebreaker, it can not always be seen from the endgame state of the board who built the palace first.
Off course it can be retraced by BGA.

On the endgame scoring screen the tiebreaker is described as "Player with the biggest palace (or most ancient one in case of a tie in palace size)"
I would suggest, if possible, using "Player with the largest palace (in case of a second tie: player with largest palace that has been claimed first)"
This is more clear to me, but it might be a matter of opinion.

I don't understand the option "Merchants on Watchers". What does it do?

Hello,

merchants on tower are awarded to the first player who claims a watcher tile (the ones that are claimed with walls). This is specific to the second edition and it a way to balance between watch towers (the one with the best score has no merchants, the lowest one has three merchants). I hope this is clearer.

@Nog_eentje_dan: great idea!

Benj

Ah I see. Thanks for clarifying

In that case it's just a translation issue that should be updated to "Merchants on Towers".

Those tiles are called Tower Tiles in the rulebook.

They might be considered "Watchtowers", but in English a "watcher" is a person who watches, never a building.

Changed in the game, thanks for your input.