NEWS: Mille Fiori Expansion

“Mille Fiori” (aka A Thousand Flowers) is shattering its own glass ceiling with a new expansion in the works! The Masterpieces (“Mille Fiori Die Meisterwerke”) is on its way and, as a predominantly 2 player gamer, I’m very excited!

If you haven’t played Mr Knizia’s beautiful, tile laying area majority game before, it’s a veritable point salad of VP grabbing. Every space on every section of the board is designed to pay out. The knack is knowing which diamonds to dive for and when.

Each area of the glorious board is part of the glass making and selling cycle; production, trade, and shipping. Every turn, you use a card in your hand to either claim a space or discard it in order to move your ship along its own track. Each area has a different scoring criterion, and in some cases you can profit from another player’s placements in order to trigger even more bonuses.

In truth, with so many spots available, the OG 2 player experience can feel quite open. And many gamers love that. But we hunt the crunch at home. There has been an unofficial variant (as published in the German magazine SpielBox) that involves closing off parts of the board to tighten the gameplay. And that’s the way we play, but house-rules aren’t my husband’s favourite thing to implement. With nothing from the publisher, I did wonder whether this would be a game-with-friends only option for us. But no! Schmidt Spiele has come out of the gate in 2023, glass blowing irons blazing!

Masterpieces promises a new 2 player board that is designed to make each decision more difficult. And as difficult usually means tricky trade-offs and some take-that play, I am very excited! Details are scant right now (and mainly in German), but meddling and messing with opponents’ plans amidst new Masterpiece goals seems to be in sight. The expansion will include lots of extra challenges (Doge and Dogete cards, another Council, a Signoria, and more) and point scoring potential for higher player counts too. But for me, the 2 player tweaks are where the awesome sauce will settle into a pool of delicious dilemmas!