Tag: Economic

Economic games encourage players to produce, distribute, and trade various resources.

Twilight Imperium: Fourth Edition

| T3d-1978
Twilight Imperium: Fourth Edition

Twilight Imperium: Fourth Edition

Twilight Imperium (Fourth Edition) is a game of galactic conquest in which three to six players take on the role of one of seventeen factions vying for galactic domination through military might, political maneuvering, and economic bargaining. Every faction offers a completely different play experience, from the wormhole-hopping Ghosts of Creuss to the Emirates of Hacan, masters of trade and economics. These seventeen races are offered many paths to victory, but only one may sit upon the throne of Mecatol Rex as the new masters of the galaxy.

No two games of Twilight Imperium are ever identical. At the start of each galactic age, the game board is uniquely and strategically constructed using 51 galaxy tiles that feature everything from lush new planets and supernovas to asteroid fields and gravity rifts. Players are dealt a hand of these tiles and take turns creating the galaxy around Mecatol Rex, the capital planet seated in the center of the board. An ion storm may block your race from progressing through the galaxy while a fortuitously placed gravity rift may protect you from your closest foes. The galaxy is yours to both craft and dominate.

A round of Twilight Imperium begins with players selecting one of eight strategy cards that both determine player order and give their owner a unique strategic action for that round. These may do anything from providing additional command tokens to allowing a player to control trade throughout the galaxy. After these roles are selected, players take turns moving their fleets from system to system, claiming new planets for their empire, and engaging in warfare and trade with other factions. At the end of a turn, players gather in a grand council to pass new laws and agendas, shaking up the game in unpredictable ways.

After every player has passed their turn, players move up the victory track by checking to see whether they have completed any objectives throughout the turn and scoring them. Objectives are determined by setting up ten public objective cards at the start of each game, then gradually revealing them with every round. Every player also chooses between two random secret objectives at the start of the game, providing victory points achievable only by the holder of that objective. These objectives can be anything from researching new technologies to taking your neighbor’s home system. At the end of every turn, a player can claim one public objective and one secret objective. As play continues, more of these objectives are revealed and more secret objectives are dealt out, giving players dynamically changing goals throughout the game. Play continues until a player reaches ten victory points.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Drafting
  • Civilization
  • Dice Rolling
  • Economic
  • Grid Movement
  • Negotiation
  • Racing
  • Trading
  • Wargame

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 6 Players
  • 240 – 480 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 4.27

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

John Company

| T3d-1978
John Company

John Company

In John Company, players assume the roles of ambitious families attempting to use the British East India Company for personal gain. The game begins in the early eighteenth-century, when the Company has a weak foothold on the subcontinent. Over the course of the game, the Company might grow into the most powerful and insidious corporation in the world or collapse under the weight of its own ambition.

John Company is a game about state-sponsored trade monopoly. Unlike most economic games players often do not control their own firms. Instead, they will collectively guide the Company by securing positions of power, attempting to steer the Company’s fate in ways that benefit their own interests. However, the Company is an unwieldy thing. It is difficult to do anything alone, and players will often need to negotiate with one another. In John Company, most everything is up for negotiation.

Ultimately, this game isn’t about wealth; it’s about reputation. Each turn some of your family members may retire from their Company positions, giving them the opportunity to establish estates. Critically, players do not have full control over when these retirements happen. You will often need to borrow money from other players to make the best use for a chance of retirement. Players also gain victory points by competing in the London Season for prestige and securing fashionable properties.

John Company engages very seriously with its theme. It is meant as a frank portrait of an institution that was as dysfunctional as it was influential. Accordingly, the game wrestles many of the key themes of imperialism and globalization in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and how those developments were felt domestically. As such, this game might not be suitable for all players. Please make sure everyone in your group consents to this exploration before playing.

The second edition is extensively revised and is not a reprint.

Game Mechanics:

  • Bribery
  • Dice Rolling
  • Economic
  • Negotiation
  • Push Your Luck
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 6 Players
  • 90 – 240 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 4.41

Gaia Project

| T3d-1978
Gaia Project

Gaia Project

Gaia Project is a new game in the line of Terra Mystica. As in the original Terra Mystica, fourteen different factions live on seven different kinds of planets, and each faction is bound to their own home planets, so to develop and grow, they must terraform neighboring planets into their home environments in competition with the other groups. In addition, Gaia planets can be used by all factions for colonization, and Transdimensional planets can be changed into Gaia planets.

All factions can improve their skills in six different areas of development — Terraforming, Navigation, Artificial Intelligence, Gaiaforming, Economy, Research — leading to advanced technology and special bonuses. To do all of that, each group has special skills and abilities.

The playing area is made of ten sectors, allowing a variable set-up and thus an even bigger replay value than its predecessor Terra Mystica. A two-player game is hosted on seven sectors.

Game Mechanics:

  • Civilization
  • Economic
  • Network Building
  • Tableau Building

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 150 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 4.38

FrostPunk

| T3d-1978
FrostPunk

FrostPunk

In Frostpunk: The Board Game, up to four players will take on the role of leaders of a small colony of survivors in a post-apocalyptic world that was hit by a severe ice age. Their duty is to effectively manage both its infrastructure and citizens. The core gameplay will be brutal, challenging, and complex, but easy to learn. The citizens won’t just be speechless pieces on the board. Society members will issue demands and react accordingly to the current mood, so every decision and action bears consequences.

The players will decide the fate of their people. Will you treat them like another resource? Are you going to be an inspiring builder, a fearless explorer, or a bright scientist? Is your rule going to be a sting of tyranny or an era of law and equality?

The game is based on a bestseller video game by 11bit studios, the creators of This War Of Mine. The original (digital) edition of Frostpunk is a highly successful strategy-survival-city-builder, a BAFTA-nominee that originally launched in 2018.

Game Mechanics:

  • Campaign
  • City Building
  • Cooperative
  • Economic
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 120 – 150 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 4.30

Coffee Traders

| T3d-1978
Coffee Traders

Coffee Traders

Thousands of coffee farmers all over the world support their families by using small stretches of hillside land for their coffee plantations. Farmers work day in and day out for very little, but the future of coffee farming is bright. Fair Trade organizations strive to improve living conditions for these farmers by helping them set up cooperatives. This enables them to establish better pricing agreements and take out loans for new plantations, all to help provide education and improve the quality of their lives, families, societies, and environment.

In Coffee Traders, set in 1970s Central and South America, Africa, and Asia, the delicious Arabica coffee beans farmers harvest are sold in Antwerp — and all over the world — to coffee roasters large and small. Work with your competitors to develop the regions you see fit for the best coffee beans while keeping a watchful eye on the market. Construct buildings to help your Fair Trade coffee plantations thrive while enhancing your network for trading coffee. Will your plantations fall to ruin, or will you rise to the top and become the world’s greatest coffee trader?

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Area Control
  • Economic

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 120 – 150 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 4.30

1880: China

| T3d-1978
1880: China

1880: China

In 1880: China, based on 1829 by Francis Tresham, the players become railway barons in the far east, experiencing China’s railway history in a game that was designed to represent related historical events as correctly as possible within its own game mechanisms. Being a classic 18xx game, the players compete to become the richest. In order to gain money, they buy and sell shares of China’s historical railway companies, build and expand their railway network, and let trains travel on the networks. Shares of successful companies are worth more, and owning them will increase the chance to win the game. In the end, the player with the highest wealth combined from cash and shares wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Auction/Bidding
  • Economic
  • Network Building
  • Stock Holding
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 7 Players
  • ~300 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 4.29

Wendake

| T3d-1978
Wendake

Wendake

“Wendake” is the name that the Wyandot people use for their traditional territory. This population, also known as the Huron Nation, lived in the Great Lakes region, together with the tribes who formed the Iroquois Confederacy, and many others. In this game, you will explore the traditions and everyday life of these tribes during the 1756–1763 period, when the Seven Years’ War between the French and the English took place in these territories.

But this white man’s war is only a marginal aspect of the game; the focus is on life in the native villages, fields, and forests. In this game, you won’t find the traditional tipis, which were used by southwestern tribes who moved their camps to follow the bison herds. The natives of the Great Lakes were more sedentary, living in longhouses. The women farmed beans, corn, and pumpkins, while the men hunted beavers in the forests, mainly to sell their pelts as leather.

In Wendake, you step into the shoes of the chief of a Native American tribe. You will have to manage the most important aspects of your tribe’s daily existence, thereby earning points on the Economic, Military, Ritual, and Mask tracks. The core of the game is the action selection mechanism: you will have the opportunity to choose better and better actions over 7 years (i.e., rounds), and the winner will be the chief who finds the best combinations of actions and uses them to lead their tribe to prosperity!

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Area Movement
  • Economic
  • Set Collection
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.61

Tzolk’in

| T3d-1978
Tzolk'in

Tzolk'in

Tzolkin: The Mayan Calendar presents a new game mechanism: dynamic worker placement. Players representing different Mayan tribes place their workers on giant connected gears, and as the gears rotate they take the workers to different action spots.

During a turn, players can either (a) place one or more workers on the lowest visible spot of the gears or (b) pick up one or more workers. When placing workers, they must pay corn, which is used as a currency in the game. When they pick up a worker, they perform certain actions depending on the position of the worker. Actions located “later” on the gears are more valuable, so it’s wise to let the time work for you – but players cannot skip their turn; if they have all their workers on the gears, they have to pick some up. 

The game ends after one full revolution of the central Tzolkin gear. There are many paths to victory. Pleasing the gods by placing crystal skulls in deep caves or building many temples are just two of those many paths…

Game Mechanics:

  • Civilization
  • Economic
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.67

Troyes

| T3d-1978
Troyes

Troyes

In Troyes (pronounced “troah”), players recreate four centuries of history of this famous city of the Champagne region of France. Each player manages their segment of the population (represented by a horde of dice) and their hand of cards, which represent the three primary domains of the city: religious, military, and civil. Players can also offer cash to their opponents’ populace in order to get a little moonlighting out of them — anything for more fame!

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Dice Rolling
  • Economic
  • Set Collection
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • ~90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.46