De Vulgari Eloquentia: Deluxe Edition

Italy, late Middle Ages: players act as members of different social orders working to advance the vernacular language. They collect and decipher manuscripts, seek out important documents, and recruit patrons and specialists to help interpret dialects. Movement through social and religious careers lets players change roles—merchant to banker, friar to monk, cleric to higher church office—and gain status points. Victory points also come from money, political support, and assembling influential allies while exploring the Papal Library and regional centers of learning. The game uses card drafting, resource management, and role advancement as players compete to amass the most Volgare points.

Players: 2–5 best 3
Playing time: 90–120 min
Age: 14+
Complexity: 3.7 / 5

5.3 on LudoyaMedievalTravelTrack MovementEnd Game BonusesAction Points

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About the game

Design: Mario Papini
Art: Lamberto Azzariti
Eva Villa
Guido Favaro

On Ludoya's tables

Full stats in Ludoya

12
Plays logged: 13
Players: 1h 37m
Average play: 6
In collections

5.3/10

from 5 Ludoya reviews

Evan4.6
Unique and interesting game plagued by really terrible graphic design issues. Players start as merchants collecting money and book steps from various board spaces. When you collect the right combination of things, you can upgrade your character gaining an asymmetric ability but limiting your future ability to get money. The game is totally viable to play through without ever upgrading your meeple, but upgrades can be worth a ton of end game points if you collect enough vote cubes. This 2019 edition is a big improvement on the original, but it seems clear they never looked at printed proofs because the board is full of illegible help text and bad iconography. ☆ Art, Iconography and components functional ★ Clever or interesting mechanisms ★ Reasonably low downtime between turns with mildly AP players ★ Multiple plays stay interesting ★ Low or mitigatable luck elements ★★★☆☆ Raw enjoyment
First impressions · 1 play

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