1565: St. Elmo's Pay – The Great Siege Of Malta

Should this hit the table?

Quick read before the metadata.

Moderate level of interaction with a good mix of direct and strategic confrontation. Players need to pay attention to each other's actions frequently, but cooperation is not a major focus in the game.

Teach 2.3

Teaching signal

Replay 4.0

High replayability

Interaction 3.7

Highly interactive

Scaling 4.0

Scales well

Strategy 4.5

Deep strategy

Control 3.8

More strategic control

Table feel

Moderate level of interaction with a good mix of direct and strategic confrontation. Players need to pay attention to each other's actions frequently, but cooperation is not a major focus in the game.

Replay value

The game offers a high degree of variability with different experiences each time it is played. The presence of expansions adds new content and gameplay elements. There is deep strategic depth and room for players to improve their strategy over time. The game scales well with different numbers of players without compromising its appeal or balance. It is moderately easy to learn, providing a good balance between depth and accessibility. Overall, the game has a strong replayability score of 7.9 out of 10.

Luck profile

1565: St. Elmo's Pay - The Great Siege of Malta has a moderate level of luck. Random elements have minimal impact on the game outcome, and players have substantial ability to mitigate randomness through strategic decisions and planning. The game outcome is primarily determined by player strategy and decisions, with luck playing a minor role.

Overview

What ABG knows about this game

Relive the Greatest Siege in History! A vendetta spanning decades reaches its terrible and bloody crescendo! Suleiman the Magnificent's 30,000 strong armada descends on the 500 beleaguered Knights of St John and the defending people of Malta, with the express purpose of wiping them from existence, and changing the course of European history forever... 1565, St. Elmo's Pay is an asymmetric, competitive, tactical card game, and successor to the award-nominated 1066, Tears to Many Mothers, with which it is fully compatible. Each player, as either Ottoman Turks or Knights of St John, musters troops and resources to overcome the various obstacles in their path before the two armies clash in an epic siege over three fronts on the tiny island of Malta: Birgu, Senglea, and the doomed fortress of Saint Elmo. Every beautiful card in the game is inspired by a real person or event from the time. With a focus on quick, tactical play and a thematic re-imagining of the events of the time, the game is non-collectable, and there is no deck building required. Each player simply grabs their deck and shuffles, then play begins. Note on title: When, after a relentless show of strength, the small fortress of St. Elmo's finally fell to the Turks they butchered the bodies of the Knights and floated the corpses across the bay to the remaining two forts to deter them from resisting further, lest they suffer the same fate. Instead, the Maltese forces chose to fight with 'the spirit of St. Elmo's'. When they eventually turned the tides against the Turks and chased them away the people of Malta chanted 'St. Elmo's Pay' - an expression they still use today to mean 'no mercy.' —description from the publisher

Mechanism

3

Card Play Conflict Resolution Hand Management Solo / Solitaire Game

Family

6

Country: Malta Crowdfunding: Kickstarter Digital Implementations: Tabletopia History: Classical Age of the Ottoman Empire Misc: LongPack Games Players: Games with Solitaire Rules

Type

1

Wargames

Media

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