Game Review - Mundus Novus

I've played Mundus Novus (by Asmodee games) 3 times now and wanted to post a review of this excellent game.  This is a fairly light game where players play shipping magnates in 16th century Spain trying to make a certain amount of money before any of the other players.  Alternately, if one player get a set of all 10 goods, they win immediately.

When the game begins, each player gets five cards.  They are ranked one to nine, plus one card that is wild.  Low numbers are more common, with higher numbers being rarer.  The trade master (random first round) chooses from two to four card and ALL players must trade that many cards.  Trading is not open, but structured with players choosing one card at a time from other players and each player ending up with exactly the same number of cards with which they began.  The player who offers the highest sum of cards immediately becomes the trading master.  This provides an interesting strategy choice as being trading master is a clear advantage, yet offering your best cards up for trade is quite the opposite.

After player trades, they can turn in sets of the same cards to get development cards which can give them more cards, the ability to save cards, income, and/or special powers.  They can turn in sets of different cards for money with the gains increasing with large sets.  Finally, they can turn in wild cards for even more money (although it may be better to increase the size of your different-card set).

There are events than can be triggered based on which development card is first in line when the round ends, therefore you have another factor to consider when you choose a development card.  You will definitely want to choose different cards based on whether you are trying to win by gettingn 75 doubloons or are trying to win by getting a set of all 10 different cards.  The game moves quickly and should play in under an hour (though the first play may take more).

Another high point is the beautiful card and box art by Vincent Dutrait, which is evocative and thematic.  A similar trading system was used in the game Mare Nostrum, which was a long, involved (and in my opinion, tedious) economic game which took place on a large map of the Mediteranean.  This game distills the most interesting piece of that game into a much quick (and much less expensive) package.  I highly recommend it.