A Struggle for Venice

I recently played the board game San Marco for the first time in several years. It's set in Venice, with player vying to establish control over the different districts of the city through careful deploying of followers, bridges, and a piece that causes scoring in the district where it lands.

The clever mechanic at the core of the game is the "cake cutting" technique used in folklore by parents against their arguing children. Players are paired off at the start of each round. One player in the pair must take his hand of cards for the round and divide it into two piles. He then presents these options to the other player in the pair, who selects which of the two piles he wants for himself to play that round. The divider keeps the other one and uses it.

It's an interesting little game that I mostly liked, but really wish I liked more. Because when it comes down to it, it seems to have a very compelling early and middle game with an unfortunate bust of an endgame.

The divide-and-choose system really lends itself to a lot of strategy. When you're the divider, you must always try to craft piles where you'll be happy with either outcome. But you must also take into account the chooser's board position. What may seem like two great options to you may be not at all equal in the eyes of the other player. Sometimes, you can create a real bargain for yourself by putting more cards in one pile, squared against a slim pile that happens to have a critical card the chooser is sure to want.

This strategy continues to grow in subtlety as the game moves on, becoming more and more enjoyable. But then you abruptly reach the end. The game is divided into three phases, and while players do have a bit of control over just when a phase ends, there isn't much wiggle room there. And when it does end, there can be enormous advantage for one player on that final turn. Knowing that there's "no tomorrow," it seems easy for one player to have a "super turn" to punch out with. It happened in this recent game of San Marco I played, and seeing it occur, I suddenly remembered how that had happened the last few times I'd tried it too.

So I'm ultimately not quite sure what to make of the game. It's really fun for the bulk of play, but then has this abrupt ending that can sometimes be just this side of random. I'm probably not going to give up on San Marco, but then again, I don't know if it's going to come into the "regular rotation" either.