Patrician: Towers of Influence

Step into the Middle Ages as a master builder in Italy. Construct magnificent towers for wealthy aristocratic families known as the Patricians. Compete to add the most floors to towers across the cities and gain recognition. Completing towers earns prestige, and the builder with the most prestige secures the favor of the Patrician families, achieving great acclaim.

Michael Schacht delivers strategic area majority gameplay in Patrician: City of Influence, published by Calliope Games. It supports 2-5 players, plays in 20-50 minutes, for ages 8 and up.

Gameplay

Patrician takes place over several rounds where players play cards and build towers to score points. A player’s turn consists of five steps, outlined below. Players take turns in clockwise order and continue until all cities are scored.

1. Play a Building Card

Play one of the three cards from your hand to the table near you. On subsequent turns, place the played card on top of the previous card(s). You may look through your cards at any time, but opponents cannot see beyond your top card.

2. Place Tower Pieces

The card you played has one or two crests on it, and you will place a tower piece in each matching city. Each city has two building sites, and you may build or add to an existing tower on either one. Each city’s crest shows the total number of tower floors needed to complete it (split between the two towers).

3. Take a Building Card

Take the face-up card next to the city where you built and add it to your hand. If the city has no face-up card, draw from any other city on the board.

4. Perform Special Action

After building, you may take a special action if the building card shows one. Most cards show Patrician portraits (used in endgame scoring), but some show the Move Tower Floor action. This action lets you move the top floor of a tower in a city you previously built to the other building site in that city, following these rules:

• Choose a different city from where you placed a Tower floor this turn.
• You must own at least one Tower floor in the chosen city.
• Keep the move within the same city.
• Do not move a tower floor in a city that players have already scored.

Building cards with a ? on them allow you to take a building card from anywhere on the board as a special action.

5. Draw a Replacement Card

Draw the top card from the building deck and place it face up next to the city where you took the building card.

City Scoring

The total number of tower pieces (between both sites) completes a city when it matches the Roman numeral shown for that city. The player who contributed the most floors to the taller tower takes the higher value prestige token, while the player with the most floors on the smaller tower takes the lower value token. In case of a tie, the player with the floor closest to the top of the tower takes the token.

End Game and Final Scoring

Players end the game when no cards remain in cities or in any player’s hand. Now, score all cities. For final scoring, sort all your played building cards by Patrician portraits. Then score six prestige for each set of three matching portraits. Add your total prestige tokens for the final score.

The player with the most prestige points wins!

Impressions

Patrician: Towers of Influence plays great with the right group. Its theme didn’t resonate with my high school and junior high kids, but my gaming group loved it! It’s quick to teach, and within a round or two, everyone grokked it. Turns are fast, and there’s plenty of interaction to keep players engaged. The only “take that” moment comes from the special action to move a tower floor.

Players have agency and meaningful choices each turn. You might play a tower in a city to snag the building card at that location and set up your next move. Double-crested cards are especially valuable, and timing is everything when completing a city. Pay attention to which building cards other players take to gain insight into their plans, as they might build in your cities later.

In our games, it quickly became clear that focusing on just one or two cities isn’t the best strategy. In a five player game, I placed 4th because I got stuck fighting for dominance in two cities, while the winner diversified and scored nearly 20 points more. Collecting Portrait cards also pays off—six of the same portrait nets a solid 12 points!

Player Count and Variety

Patrician shines at higher player counts, with dynamic interactions and quick turns as long as players avoid analysis paralysis. When playing with two players, a dummy player called the Architetto takes part. It places towers when a building card with double crests is played, advancing tower building and competing for points—yes, the Architetto can win.

For more experienced gamers, Calliope Games includes two modules to add variety:

Trade Routes: In this mode, players add a +1/-1 marker on sign post spots near cities after playing star cards. When those cities score, players collect the markers. At the end, markers adjust final scores, creating strategic decisions and the chance to pass negative points to opponents.

Delegates: Players with the most 2-, 4-, and 6-point tokens gain Minor Delegate cards, which count as extra portraits for set collection. The player with the highest combined points in Verona, Parma, and Ferrara earns the Major Delegate card, adding one of each portrait type for final scoring.

Adding both modules enhances the game without adding complexity. Most experienced gamers will likely prefer playing with them, as they add depth and strategy without extending playtime.

Ready to leave your mark across Italy? Grab your blueprints and pickup Patrician: Towers of Influence from Calliope Games, or your friendly local game store.

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The Family Gamers received a copy of Patrician: Towers of Influence from Calliope Games for this review.