Tag: Open Drafting

Games with Open Drafting mechanics allow players to choose new resources from a shared pool. The pool of resources is public, meaning all players will see available options.

Trismegistus

| T3d-1978
Trismegistus

Trismegistus

You are an adept of the mysterious art of alchemy, seeking a way to become the successor of the greatest alchemist ever living — Hermes Trismegistus. In order to do so you will be transmuting mere metals into pure gold, performing experiments, and inventing artifacts to finally achieve everlasting greatness.

Trismegistus: The Ultimate Formula is played over three rounds during which you will draft exactly three dice. By expertly utilizing the potency of your drafted die, you will be able to transmute precious materials, collect alchemical essences, purchase and activate artifacts, and perform experiments that will progress you along four mastery tracks. You will also build a secret hand of publication cards which — together with the value of your experiments, the completed formulas of your Philosopher’s Stone, and your collected gold — will determine your final score in victory points and, perhaps, make you the greatest alchemist, someone able to rival Hermes Trismegistus himself!

The game features custom dice, the sides of which represent alchemical materials. At the beginning of each round, the dice are rolled and grouped by their respective types. On your turn, you must either draft a new die or utilize the untapped potency of a previously drafted die. Based on the material associated with your chosen die, you will be able to collect certain essences in addition to the material to which the die is keyed. Additionally, the color of the die will determine which types of transmutations you can perform, refining raw materials and increasing your mastery of the elements.

Acquire precious artifacts in order to maximize the effects of your transmutations. Conduct experiments. Increase your knowledge and expertise and discover the ultimate formula!

The game includes a solo mode by Dávid Turczi and Nick Shaw.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Dice Rolling
  • Open Drafting
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 90 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 4.13

Trajan

| T3d-1978
Trajan

Trajan

Set in ancient Rome, Trajan is a development game in which players try to increase their influence and power in various areas of Roman life such as political influence, trading, military dominion and other important parts of Roman culture.

The central mechanism of the game uses a system similar to that in Mancala or pit-and-pebbles games. In Trajan, a player has six possible actions: building, trading, taking tiles from the forum, using the military, influencing the Senate, and placing Trajan tiles on his tableau.

At the start of the game, each player has two differently colored pieces in each of the six sections (bowls) of his tableau. On a turn, the player picks up all the pieces in one bowl and distributes them one-by-one in bowls in a clockwise order. Wherever the final piece is placed, the player takes the action associated with that bowl; in addition, if the colored pieces in that bowl match the colors shown on a Trajan tile next to the bowl (with tiles being placed at the start of the game and through later actions), then the player takes the additional action shown on that tile.

What are you trying to do with these actions? Acquire victory points (VPs) in whatever ways are available to you – and since this is a Feld design, you try to avoid being punished, too. At the Forum you try to anticipate the demands of the public so that you can supply them what they want and not suffer a penalty. In the Senate you acquire influence which translates into votes on VP-related laws, ideally snagging a law that fits your long-term plans. With the military, you take control of regions in Europe, earning more points for those regions far from Rome.

All game components are language neutral, and the playing time is 30 minutes per player.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Movement
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.65

Through the Ages

| T3d-1978
Through the Ages

Through the Ages

Through the Ages is a civilization building game. Each player attempts to build the best civilization through careful resource management, discovering new technologies, electing the right leaders, building wonders and maintaining a strong military. Weakness in any area can be exploited by your opponents. The game takes place throughout the ages beginning in the age of antiquity and ending in the modern age.

One of the primary mechanisms in TTA is card drafting. Technologies, wonders, and leaders come into play and become easier to draft the longer they are in play. In order to use a technology you will need enough science to discover it, enough food to create a population to man it and enough resources (ore) to build the building to use it. While balancing the resources needed to advance your technology you also need to build a military. Military is built in the same way as civilian buildings. Players that have a weak military will be preyed upon by other players. There is no map in the game so you cannot lose territory, but players with higher military will steal resources, science, kill leaders, take population or culture. It is very difficult to win with a large military, but it is very easy to lose because of a weak one.

Victory is achieved by the player whose nation has the most culture at the end of the modern age.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Auction/Bidding
  • Civilization
  • Economic
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Tableau Building

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 4.17

Tawantinsuyu

| T3d-1978
Tawantinsuyu

Tawantinsuyu

The great Sapa Inca Pachacuti turned to his offspring and ordered them to worship Inti, the Sun God, and to expand the Inca Empire as far as the llamas roam. With Chinchaysuyu, Antisuyu, Qullasuyu, and Kuntisuyu — the four regions of the new empire — now ripe for conquest, the time has come for Pachacuti’s true successor to arise.

Gather your people from the villages below and use their unique abilities to strategically place them where they can perform the greatest tasks for you. Climb the steps of the Sun Temple, reaping the rewards of your piety. Build structures that both nourish your people and provide you with benefits no other has at their disposal. Muster an army and conquer villages in the four realms of Tawantinsuyu. Prove yourself a worthy successor to Pachacuti and lead the Inca to glory!

During Tawantinsuyu: The Inca Empire, players place workers onto various locations on the game board, performing actions, collecting resources (potatoes, corn, stone, and gold), constructing buildings and stairs, sculpt statues, expanding their military strength, and collecting weavings.

The game board features a hill located within the old Inca capital of Cusco, the sides of which are terraced and divided into five sections. Atop the hill sits the Coricancha, The Golden Temple, the most important temple of the Inca Empire. Within the Coricancha, each player has a High Priest. On the terraced sections below exist a variety of worker placement locations, interconnected by paths and individually marked by symbols. On your turn, you must either place a worker onto a location outside the Coricancha OR choose two of the following:

  • Recruit one worker.
  • Take two god cards.
  • Draw two army cards and keep one of them.
  • Move your High Priest one or two steps clockwise within the Coricancha.

When placing a worker, you must first discard a god card with a matching symbol or pay one gold. Once placed, the worker remains on the game board for the rest of the game! Each worker placement location is connected to exactly three action spaces. You must always perform at least one of these actions. However, for each adjacent worker (i.e., connected to your worker’s location via direct path through one of the action spaces) that matches the type of worker just placed, you receive one additional action!

While some locations will result in you being able to perform multiple actions, other actions and placements may be more desirable, especially since each of the five types of workers has a unique ability:

  • Warrior: Remove one of the adjacent workers, placing it in your player area.
  • Craftsman: Gain +1 action if placed onto a craftsman space.
  • Architect: Gain +1 action if placed onto an architect space.
  • Courier: Decreased placement cost; +1 action if it’s the first worker placed within a given area.
  • Priest: Take one god card; you may pay one potato to gain +1 action.

All god cards feature one of the different symbols found on the worker placement locations. Before placing a worker, you must either discard a god card with a matching symbol or pay valuable gold resources. God cards also depict special abilities that can be activated only if you have previously built a matching statue!

Army cards allow you to send one or more units to conquer villages in nearby regions. You must compete against the other players for control of each region as well as for valuable rewards that can be gained as a result of military conquest.

The position of your High Priest within the Coricancha has a significant impact on your overall strategy, affecting your access to powerful actions and determining any potential resource costs when placing your workers. More specifically, when placing a worker, you must pay additional resources the farther your worker is from your High Priest, from nothing all the way up to eight potatoes or corn!

Additionally, when moving your High Priest, you can activate powerful actions available only within the Coricancha:

  • Produce: Gain all rewards from your production buildings.
  • Worship: Sacrifice previously sculpted statues to gain permanent temple advancements.
  • Offering: Pay resources to gain temple advancements.
  • Conquer: Engage in military conquest of nearby villages.
  • Rejuvenate: Refresh previously activated buildings and military units.

Throughout the game, you score victory points whenever you construct stairs or sculpt statues. Gain bonus victory points whenever another player makes use of the stairs you have constructed. Score victory points from temple advancements and control of the four regions.

The game ends when the worker pool has become exhausted, symbolizing the full incorporation of nearby regions and villages into the newly risen Inca Empire. You then score bonus victory points from reaching the top of the temple, from your woven tapestries, and from various buildings and resources you have accumulated.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Area Control
  • Civilization
  • Economic
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Pattern Building
  • Rondel
  • Set Collection
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 4.07

Skymines

| T3d-1978
Skymines

Skymines

Fifty years ago, humanity began mining the Moon and the asteroids, and for decades that task was firmly kept in the hands of the World Government. But the turmoils of recent years have caused this enterprise to collapse. Now, adventurous companies and private investors take to the sky to revive this mining network.

As investors, you try to earn the most CrypCoin over the course of seven rounds. You do this by investing mined resources in companies and by spreading their outposts. You can improve your earnings by supporting your scientists’ research and by having them collect precious helium-3.

The heart of Skymines is a unique card programming and hand management system that requires careful and clever planning. It provides deep player interaction by letting you invest in any of the four companies as you see fit.

And as the combination of company abilities changes each game, there are endless synergies and strategies to explore.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Campaign
  • Deck Building
  • Economic
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Stock Holding
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 75 – 150 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.71

Pax Pamir

| T3d-1978
Pax Pamir

Pax Pamir

In Pax Pamir, players assume the role of nineteenth century Afghan leaders attempting to forge a new state after the collapse of the Durrani Empire. Western histories often call this period “The Great Game” because of the role played by the Europeans who attempted to use central Asia as a theater for their own rivalries. In this game, those empires are viewed strictly from the perspective of the Afghans who sought to manipulate the interloping ferengi (foreigners) for their own purposes.

In terms of game play, Pax Pamir is a pretty straightforward tableau builder. Players spend most of their turns purchasing cards from a central market, then playing those cards in front of them in a single row called a court. Playing cards adds units to the game’s map and grants access to additional actions that can be taken to disrupt other players and influence the course of the game. That last point is worth emphasizing. Though everyone is building their own row of cards, the game offers many ways for players to interfere with each other directly and indirectly.

To survive, players will organize into coalitions. Throughout the game, the dominance of the different coalitions will be evaluated by the players when a special card, called a “Dominance Check”, is resolved. If a single coalition has a commanding lead during one of these checks, those players loyal to that coalition will receive victory points based on their influence in their coalition. However, if Afghanistan remains fragmented during one of these checks, players instead will receive victory points based on their personal power base.

After each Dominance Check, victory is checked and the game will be partially reset, offering players a fresh attempt to realize their ambitions. The game ends when a single player is able to achieve a lead of four or more victory points or after the fourth and final Dominance Check is resolved.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Area Control
  • Area Movement
  • Economic
  • Hand Management
  • Negotiation
  • Open Drafting
  • Tableau Building

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • 45 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.83

Nations

| T3d-1978
Nations

Nations

From the humble beginnings of civilization through the historical ages of progress, mankind has lived, fought, and built together in nations. Great nations protect and provide for their own, while fighting and competing against both other nations and nature itself. Nations must provide food and stability as the population increases. They must build a productive economy. And all the while, they must amaze the world with their great achievements to build up their heritage as the greatest nations in the history of mankind!

Nations is an intense historical board game for 1–5 players that takes 40 minutes per player to play. Players control the fate of nations from their humble start in prehistoric times until the beginning of World War I. The nations constantly compete against each other and must balance immediate needs, long-term growth, threats, and opportunities.

Gameplay introduction

Players choose a Nation and a difficulty to play at, similar to the Civilization computer games series. After the growth phase, 2 historical events are revealed, which the players will compete for during the round. Then players take a single small action each, in player order, as many times as they wish until all have passed. Actions are:

  • Buy a card
  • Deploy a worker
  • Hire an architect for a wonder
  • Special action provided by a card

Players each have individual boards that represent their Nation. There are many ways that players affect, compete, and indirectly interact with other players. But there is no map, no units to move around, and no direct attacks on other players.

When all have passed, there is production, new player order is determined (every position is competed for), the historical events happen, and if this is the last round of an age, the books are scored. At the start of a new round, most old cards are removed and new ones are put on the display.

Victory points are gained and lost during the game, and also awarded at the end of the game. The player with the most victory points is the winner.

Game Mechanics:

  • Civilization
  • Economic
  • Open Drafting
  • Tableau Building

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • 40 – 200 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.54

Millennium Blades

| T3d-1978
Millennium Blades

Millennium Blades

Millennium Blades is a CCG-Simulator — A game in which you play as a group of friends who play the fictional CCG “Millennium Blades”.

In this game you will build decks, play the meta, acquire valuable collections, crack open random boosters, and compete in tournaments for prizes and fame. The game takes you from Starter Deck to Regionals in about 2-3 hours.

Multiple games can also be chained together to form a Campaign, going from Regionals to Nationals in game 2 and from Nationals to Worlds in game 3, with each game introducing ever more powerful cards and higher stakes, but also resetting the power of the game so that each player has a fair chance to win each ‘season’ of the campaign.

The game draws heavily on Manga/Anime inspiration for its art, and parodies Magic: the Gathering, Yugioh, and many other collectible games.

At its heart, it’s a commodity trading game, except that instead of cubes or stocks, the things you’ll be buying, selling, and speculating on are trading cards that can be used throughout the game in periodic tournaments. By trading wisely, playing the market, working together with friends, building collections, and winning tournaments, you’ll secure points and become the Millennium Blades World Champion.

The game features a system of card pods, where you will play with about 400 of the base game’s 600 cards every game.

Game Mechanics:

  • Deck Building
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Set Collection
  • Tableau Building
  • Trading

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 80 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.69

Heropath: Dragon Roar

| T3d-1978
Heropath: Dragon Roar

Heropath: Dragon Roar

Heropath: Dragon Roar is a fantasy board game in which heroes venture through an unknown land, discovering new places, fighting monsters and gaining power, skills, gold, arms and resources.

This game combines everything you love in a fantasy RPG such as: magic, skills, XP, levels and combat as well as resource management, which takes it to a new, higher level of gaming.

In this board game you will need more than war tactics, you will need to use your turn in the best way possible, in order to reach new places, engage in the proper forms of combat and gain skills and resources.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Area Movement
  • Deck Building
  • Dice Rolling
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Role Playing
  • Trading

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.75

Excavation Earth

| T3d-1978
Excavation Earth

Excavation Earth

A century from now all that remains of Earth is the detritus that humanity left behind. The races of a neighboring solar system have a penchant for artifacts left behind by extinct races. In Excavation Earth, you lead one of these races of alien explorers on their quest to excavate rare human artifacts and curate the ultimate art collection to sell off.

Excavation Earth is divided into three rounds, each of which starts with players drafting a hand of multi-use cards that will be used to perform actions. Players then take quick turns playing actions that allow them to move their explorers around the world map, excavate for artifacts, and deploy traders to bazaars and influencers to affect prices and wheel and deal on the black market.

The artifacts you dig up can be either sold to the bazaars housed on one of the aliens’ ships that landed on Earth or added to a collection that will be sold off as a coherent art collection to museums back home. Excavation Earth ends after three rounds and the player who makes the most money during the game wins.

Excavation Earth includes a solo mode by Nick Shaw and Dávid Turczi.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Economic
  • Open Drafting
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.71