In Mille Fiori you take on the role of glassblower and trader. You focus on glass production through workshops, trade and own houses. Whoever invests the smartest will score the most points and win this beautifully designed game.
The Mille Fiori game board is divided into 5 different categories, each of which awards points in its own way. The five categories represent different phases in the world of glassblowing. Workshops are places where glass is produced. Houses are places where glass is used. Trading houses sell the glass and the port takes care of exports. There is also a category with people containing people who support your work. In each category you will find spaces where you can place diamond tokens, which score points.
You get five cards per round. During a turn, you choose one of these cards and pass the rest to the player next to you. Based on the card you play, you place a diamond token in one of the categories on the game board. When four cards have been played and passed in this way, the last card is discarded and the round ends.
In the “Workshops” category, you score one point for each token that forms a group with the newly placed token. If you place a token on a pigment field, this score is doubled. In the “Houses” category you get points for the field you place your chip on. If this spot is preceded by other tokens in your color, you gain the points from those tokens again.
The “People” category is shaped like pyramids. The higher you place your chip in the pyramid, the more points you get. However, you may not place tokens on higher layers until those below have been completed. If you have already placed chips in one of the previous layers, they will give you points again when new chips are placed in the layers above.
The “Trade” category has places for tokens, which show four different types of goods. For each token you place with a certain commodity type, you get points for all tokens of that commodity type. In the “Port” category you can move your ship on the harbor track instead of placing tokens. The further the ship goes, the more points you get. You can also place a token in one of the five rows of the port. Once a row is full, you get points for the goods placed in the “Trade” category next to the rows of the “Port” category.
Each category has options to play additional cards from an offer next to the game board. By smartly choosing cards and placing chips, you can cause chain reactions for more and more points. When someone places the last chip from their own supply or when all the cards are gone, the game is over. The one with the most points wins.