Tag: Closed Drafting

Closed Drafting is a mechanic in which a player receives a private pool of resources to select from. This pool of resources is often then passed to the next player.

Biblios

| T3d-1978
Biblios

Biblios

THE GAME CONCEPT
You are an abbot of a medieval monastery competing with other abbots to amass the greatest library of sacred books. To do so, you need to have both the workers and resources to run a well-functioning scriptorium. To acquire workers and resources, you use a limited supply of donated gold. In addition, you must be on good terms with the powerful bishop, who can help you in your quest.

OUTLINE OF GAME PLAY
The object of the game is to score the most Victory Points. You win Victory Points by winning any of the 5 categories: Illuminators, Scribes, Manuscripts, Scrolls, and Supplies. You win a category by having the highest total number of workers (Scribes, Illuminators) or resources (Manuscripts, Scrolls, Supplies) in that category. This is determined by the numbers in the upper left corner on the cards. At the start of the game, each category is worth 3 Victory Points. As the game progresses, the values on the Value Board will change and some categories will become worth more or fewer Victory Points than others. The game is divided into 2 stages: a Donation stage and an Auction stage. During the Donation stage, players acquire free cards according to an established plan. In the Auction stage, players purchase cards in auction rounds. After the two stages, winners of each category are determined and Victory Points awarded. The player with the most Victory Points wins.

GAME CHARACTERISTICS
The game involves a good deal of strategic planning, some bluffing, and a little bit of luck. The rules are easy to understand, but you have to play it a few times to develop a playing strategy. It plays differently from 2-4 players, but each game is equally fun and challenging.

Game Mechanics:

  • Auction/Bidding
  • Closed Drafting
  • Hand Management
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.68

On Mars

| T3d-1978
On Mars

On Mars

Following the success of unmanned rover missions, the United Nations established the Department of Operations and Mars Exploration (D.O.M.E.). The first settlers arrived on Mars in the year 2037 and in the decades after establishment Mars Base Camp, private exploration companies began work on the creation of a self-sustaining colony. As chief astronaut for one of these enterprises, you want to be a pioneer in the development of the biggest, most advanced colony on Mars by achieving both D.O.M.E. mission goals as well as your company’s private agenda.

In the beginning, you will be dependent on supplies from Earth and will have to travel often between the Mars Space Station and the planet’s surface. As the colony expands over time, you will shift your activities to construct mines, power generators, water extractors, greenhouses, oxygen factories, and shelters. Your goal is to develop a self-sustaining colony independent of any terrestrial organization. This will require understanding the importance of water, air, power, and food — the necessities for survival.

Do you dare take part in humankind’s biggest challenge?

On Mars is played over several rounds, each consisting of two phases – the Colonization Phase ​and the Shuttle Phase​.

During the Colonization Phase, each player takes a turn during which they take actions. The available actions depend on the side of the board they are on. If you are in orbit, you can take blueprints, buy and develop technologies, and take supplies from the Warehouse. If you are on the surface of the planet, you can construct buildings with your bots, upgrade these buildings using blueprints, take scientists and new contracts, welcome new ships, and explore the planet’s surface with your rover. In the Shuttle Phase, players may travel between the colony and the Space Station in orbit.

All buildings on Mars have a dependency on each other and some are required for the colony to grow. Building shelters for Colonists to live in requires oxygen; generating oxygen requires plants; growing plants requires water; extracting water from ice requires power; generating power requires mining minerals; and mining minerals requires Colonists. Upgrading the colony’s ability to provide each of these resources is vital. As the colony grows, more shelters are needed so that the Colonists can survive the inhospitable conditions on Mars.

During the game, players are also trying to complete missions. Once a total of three missions have been completed, the game ends. To win the game, players must contribute to the development of the first colony on Mars. This is represented during the game by players gaining Opportunity Points (OP). The player with the most OP at the end of the game is declared the winner.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • City Building
  • Closed Drafting
  • Economic
  • Hand Management
  • Set Collection
  • Tile Placement
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 90 – 150 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 4.66

Fall of the Mountain King

| T3d-1978
Fall of the Mountain King

Fall of the Mountain King

The gnome attack was sudden and relentless. They swarmed our tunnels, defiling our mountain home and driving us from our ancestral caverns. Trolls from every clan rushed to the heart of the mountain to defend our Great Halls. We’ve lost track of how long we’ve been beating back the endless waves of invaders. Soon, it will be time for a final stand. Will we rise up like champions, or be driven out to the wilderness to fight for survival? Sharpen your blades, brothers and sisters! Raise your hammers! If we trolls must fall, we’ll fall fighting like kings!

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Area Control
  • Closed Drafting

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.50

Agricola

| T3d-1978
Agricola

Agricola

In Agricola, you’re a farmer in a wooden shack with your spouse and little else. On a turn, you get to take only two actions, one for you and one for the spouse, from all the possibilities you’ll find on a farm: collecting clay, wood, or stone; building fences; and so on. You might think about having kids in order to get more work accomplished, but first you need to expand your house. And what are you going to feed all the little rugrats?

The game supports many levels of complexity, mainly through the use (or non-use) of two of its main types of cards, Minor Improvements and Occupations. In the beginner’s version (called the Family Variant in the U.S. release), these cards are not used at all. For advanced play, the U.S. release includes three levels of both types of cards; Basic (E-deck), Interactive (I-deck), and Complex (K-deck), and the rulebook encourages players to experiment with the various decks and mixtures thereof. Aftermarket decks such as the Z-Deck and the L-Deck also exist.

Agricola is a turn-based game. There are 14 game rounds occurring in 6 stages, with a Harvest at the end of each stage (after Rounds 4, 7, 9, 11, 13, and 14).
Each player starts with two playing tokens (farmer and spouse) and thus can take two turns, or actions, per round. There are multiple options, and while the game progresses, you’ll have more and more: first thing in a round, a new action card is flipped over.
Problem: Each action can be taken by only one player each round, so it’s important to do some things with high preference.
Each player also starts with a hand of 7 Occupation cards (of more than 160 total) and 7 Minor Improvement cards (of more than 140 total) that he/she may use during the game if they fit in his/her strategy. Speaking of which, there are countless strategies, some depending on your card hand. Sometimes it’s a good choice to stay on course, and sometimes it is better to react to your opponents’ actions…

Game Mechanics:

  • Closed Drafting
  • Economic
  • Hand Management
  • Tableau Building
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 6 Players
  • 30 – 150 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.64

Terraforming Mars

| T3d-1978
Terraforming Mars

Terraforming Mars

In the 2400s, mankind begins to terraform the planet Mars. Giant corporations, sponsored by the World Government on Earth, initiate huge projects to raise the temperature, the oxygen level, and the ocean coverage until the environment is habitable. In Terraforming Mars, you play one of those corporations and work together in the terraforming process, but compete for getting victory points that are awarded not only for your contribution to the terraforming, but also for advancing human infrastructure throughout the solar system, and doing other commendable things.

The players acquire unique project cards (from over two hundred different ones) by buying them to their hand. The projects (cards) can represent anything from introducing plant life or animals, hurling asteroids at the surface, building cities, to mining the moons of Jupiter and establishing greenhouse gas industries to heat up the atmosphere. The cards can give you immediate bonuses, as well as increasing your production of different resources. Many cards also have requirements and they become playable when the temperature, oxygen, or ocean coverage increases enough. Buying cards is costly, so there is a balance between buying cards (3 megacredits per card) and actually playing them (which can cost anything between 0 to 41 megacredits, depending on the project). Standard Projects are always available to complement your cards.

Your basic income, as well as your basic score, is based on your Terraform Rating (starting at 20), which increases every time you raise one of the three global parameters (which are temperature, oxygen, and ocean coverage). However, your income is complemented with your production, and you also get VPs from many other sources.

Each player keeps track of their production and resources on their player boards, and the game uses six types of resources: MegaCredits, Steel, Titanium, Plants, Energy, and Heat. On the game board, you compete for the best places for your city tiles, ocean tiles, and greenery tiles. You also compete for different Milestones and Awards worth many VPs. Each round is called a generation (guess why) and consists of the following phases:

1) Player order shifts clockwise.
2) Research phase: All players buy cards from four privately drawn.
3) Action phase: Players take turns doing 1-2 actions from these options: Playing a card, claiming a Milestone, funding an Award, using a Standard project, converting plant into greenery tiles (and raising oxygen), converting heat into a temperature raise, and using the action of a card in play. The turn continues around the table (sometimes several laps) until all players have passed.
4) Production phase: Players get resources according to their terraform rating and production parameters.

When the three global parameters (temperature, oxygen, ocean) have all reached their goal, the terraforming is complete, and the game ends after that generation. Count your Terraform Rating and other VPs to determine the winning corporation!

Game Mechanics:

  • Closed Drafting
  • Economic
  • Hand Management
  • Set Collection
  • Tableau Building
  • Take That
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • ~120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.25

Seasons

| T3d-1978
Seasons

Seasons

The greatest sorcerers of the kingdom have gathered at the heart of the Argos forest, where the legendary tournament of the 12 seasons is taking place. At the end of the three year competition, the new archmage of the kingdom of Xidit will be chosen from among the competitors. Take your place, wizard! Equip your ancestral magical items, summon your most faithful familiars to your side and be ready to face the challenge!

Seasons is a tactical game of cards and dice which takes place in two phases:

The first phase “Prelude” consists of a card draft: the goal during this phase will be to establish your own 9-card deck for the main part of the game and with it the strategy.

Once the Prelude is complete, each player must separate their 9 cards into 3 packs of 3 cards. They will begin the second phase of the game with their first pack of three cards, then gradually as the game progresses, they will receive the other two packets of three cards.

Next comes the Tournament: at the beginning of each round a player will roll the seasons dice (dice = number of players +1).

These cubes offer a variety of actions to the players:
– Increase your gauge (maximum number of cards you may have placed on the table and in play)
– Harvesting energy (water, earth, fire, air) to pay the cost of power cards
– Crystallizing the energy (during the current season) to collect crystals. Crystals serve both as a resource to pay for some cards, but also as victory points in the end.
– Draw new cards

Each player can choose only one die per turn. The die not chosen by anyone determines how many fields the “time track” would move forward.
In addition, all the dice are different depending on the season. For example, there are not the same energies to a particular season. Throughout the game, players will therefore have to adapt to these changes – also the “exchange rates” of energy to crystals vary during seasons – the energy not present on the dice in any given season is also the best paid during the season.

At the end of the game, the crystals are summed with victory points granted by the cards (minus some penalties, where applicable). The highest score wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Closed Drafting
  • Dice Drafting
  • Dice Rolling
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Tableau Building
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.78

Rising Sun

| T3d-1978
Rising Sun

Rising Sun

The great and forgotten Kami have returned from the underworld, displeased with the affairs of the Empire’s present Shōgun. At the start of spring in the Great New Year, the Kami have gathered their sacred clans with one quest: reclaim the lands of Nippon and return them to their honorable, spiritual traditions. However, each clan is bound by their own proud traditions to a unique vision for this great return and must wage a powerful diplomatic war across eight provinces. Alliances must be forged, betrayal is inevitable, honorable standing rises and falls. Political mandates must be navigated and devastating war must be fought, each won by expert skill and cunning negotiation. And only one may stand victorious at the coming of winter. You, honorable Shōgun, lead one of these great clans. Do you have the strength of honor, virtue, and spirit, as well as the mastery of steel necessary to deliver on this ancient promise?

Rising Sun is a board game for 3 to 5 players set in legendary feudal Japan. Each player chooses a Clan and competes to lead theirs to victory by accumulating Victory Points over the course of the Seasons. Each Clan possesses a unique ability and differs in Seasonal Income, Starting Honor Rank, and Home Province.
Over the course of the game, players will forge and break alliances, choose political actions, worship the gods, customize their clans, and position their figures around Japan. In the process, Honor is a palpable element in Rising Sun: Having high Honor gives several advantages, while having low Honor may grant the allegiance of the darker elements of the world. But above all, Honor settles all disputes: Whenever there is a tie, the tied player with the highest Honor wins.

In Rising Sun, players are encouraged to use diplomacy, negotiation, and even bribery to further their cause. Players can make deals at any point in the game but no deals are truly binding.
Victory Points can be gained in several ways, from winning battles, to harvesting the right provinces, to playing to the Virtues accumulated by your Clan.

The game is played over the course of 4 rounds or Seasons: Spring, Summer, and then Autumn; when Winter comes, the game draws to a close and players calculate bonuses to decide who is the winner.
Each Season is divided into five phases:
1) Seasonal Setup because every Season has a certain Season deck with different cards,
2) Tea Ceremony in which players sit down and negotiate their Alliances for the Season,
3) Political Phase during which players will select Political Mandates to prepare their Clans and position their forces,
4) War Phase, during which players battle over several Provinces, and
5) Seasonal Cleanup.

As already mentioned, the start of the Winter Season signifies the end of the game. Peace falls over the land as it gets covered in white snow, and a new Emperor will rise under the power of the great Kami.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Drafting
  • Area Control
  • Area Movement
  • Bluffing
  • Closed Drafting
  • Negotiation
  • Set Collection
  • Take That
  • Wargame

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 5 Players
  • 90 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.29

Newton

| T3d-1978
Newton

Newton

The middle of the 17th century was a period of great changes; with the advent of the scientific method came what we now call the Scientific Revolution. Many great scientists, with their theories and ideas, changed and shaped our perception of the universe: Galileo Galilei, Copernicus, Kepler, Bacon and, above all, Sir Isaac Newton.

In Newton, the players take the role of a young scientist who wants to become one of the great geniuses of this era. To reach their ultimate goal, they travel around Europe, visit universities and cities, study to discover new theories, build new tools and work to earn money.

The game is played over six rounds. Each round, every player plays five cards from their hand, and each played card allows the player to perform one of the many actions of the game. An action can have a variety of effects, which depend on the symbols on the board. At the end of the round, a player can take back all the cards except for one. One card has to remain on the board, which means that you give up one possibility of doing that action, but also that that very action will be carried out with greater strength. Fortunately, you can acquire new cards with additional powers to perform more actions.

After six rounds, you calculate your final score, and the player with the most VP wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Closed Drafting
  • Deck Building
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Tableau Building
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • ~90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.40

Inis

| T3d-1978
Inis

Inis

Inis is a game deeply rooted in Celtic history and lore in which players win by being elected King of the Island (Inis). Players can try to achieve one of three different victory conditions:

  • Leadership: Be the leader — i.e., have more clan figures than any other player — of territories containing at least six opponents’ clans.
  • Land: Have your clans present in at least six different territories.
  • Religion: Have your clans present in territories that collectively contain at least six sanctuaries.

Over the course of the game, players also earn deeds, typically chanted by bards or engraved by master crafters, that reduce by one the magic total of six for any condition. While one victory condition is enough to claim the title of King, a game of experienced players usually has a tight balance of power, emphasizing the leadership of the capital of the island.

At the start of each round, players draft a hand of four action cards (with 13 action cards for three players and 17 for four players) during the Assembly. Action cards not played at the end of one season are not held for the next. Players also have access to leader cards for the territories that allow it and where they were elected leader during the assembly. Each Assembly reallocates those cards. Finally, they collect “epic tales” cards that depict the deeds of the ancient Irish gods and heroes, like Cuchulainn, the Dagda, Lugh and many others. These will be kept and used to inspire the clans and achieve extraordinary feats…under the right circumstances. The cards provide a variety of actions: adding clans, moving clans, building/exploring, and special actions.

Careful drafting, hand management, bluffing (especially once players understand the importance of passing their turn), good timing, and a precise understanding of the balance of power are the keys to victory. After a discovery game you’ll be ready for a full and epic game, where an undisputed player will be king by the Assembly for his merit and wisdom.

While Inis has “dudes” that are “on a map”, it’s a beginner’s mistake to play this as a battle game because eliminating other clans reduces your chances of scoring a Leadership victory condition. Peace among different clans, with or without a clear territory leader, is the usual outcome of a clan’s movement. Battles will occur, of course, as the Celtic clans can be unruly and a good player will listen to his clan’s people (i.e., his hand of cards). That battle aspect is reflected in the clan’s miniatures representing warriors. Woodsmen, shepherds and traders complete the set of twelve minis for each player; these occupations have no impact on the game, but give it flavor.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Area Movement
  • Campaign
  • Closed Drafting
  • Hand Management
  • Wargame

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.88

Imperial Settlers

| T3d-1978
Imperial Settlers

Imperial Settlers

Settlers from four major powers of the world have discovered new lands, with new resources and opportunities. Romans, Barbarians, Egyptians and Japanese all at once move there to expand the boundaries of their empires. They build new buildings to strengthen their economy, they found mines and fields to gather resources, and they build barracks and training grounds to train soldiers. Soon after they discover that this land is far too small for everybody, then the war begins…

Imperial Settlers is a card game that lets players lead one of the four factions and build empires by placing buildings, then sending workers to those buildings to acquire new resources and abilities. The game is played over five rounds during which players take various actions in order to explore new lands, build buildings, trade resources, conquer enemies, and thus score victory points.

Game Mechanics:

  • City Building
  • Civilization
  • Closed Drafting
  • Hand Managment
  • Open Drafting
  • Tableau Building
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 45 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.77