Tag: Area Control

When playing games with an Area Control aspect, players are typically rewarded for controlling the majority of a particular space.

Spectre

| T3d-1978
Spectre

Spectre

In SPECTRE: The Board Game, you take on the role of one of the many iconic villains from the James Bond film franchise, competing with one another to become Number One of the Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion, a.k.a., SPECTRE.

Are you simply in the game to acquire gold bullion, or are your aspirations more philosophical, safe in the knowledge that the world would be better off with you running it? Each villain has their own plot inspired by films such as Dr. No (1962) and Diamonds Are Forever (1971) driving them along the path to becoming SPECTRE’s Number One. No matter how hard you try, though, 007 is always there, waiting to disrupt your plans and reveal your secrets.

SPECTRE: The Board Game features iconic weapons, locations, and characters from the James Bond films. You will be able to assemble devices, spy on your opponents, blackmail your rivals in order to build your own criminal empire, and strategically deploy your agents around the globe to infiltrate key installations. You need to work behind the scenes to develop your nefarious plots and become 007’s biggest threat, so grab your Persian cat and call your favorite henchman as you prepare your newest monologue — it’s time to get down to business and start building that moon base and world-destroying megalaser!

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Auction/Bidding
  • Cooperative
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 20 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.67

Smartphone Inc.

| T3d-1978
Smartphone Inc.

Smartphone Inc.

In Smartphone Inc., you become a CEO of one of the largest smartphone-producing companies in the time when smartphones were only beginning to conquer the world. Research technologies, develop your factory, build your worldwide office network, and outprice your competitors to become the most profitable and successful smartphone company in the world.

Smartphone Inc. is an economic simulation Eurogame. Over five rounds, players program their decisions about price, production, research, and expansion. The game features a unique mechanism of planning, which combines patching mechanisms with bidding and action selection. Each of the rounds consists of eight simple phases: planning, pricing, production, development, research, expansion, selling, and profits.

In the planning phase, all players simultaneously make decisions for the next year by overlaying (“patching”) their two plan cards and all of their development tiles. The actions they plan on their cards and tiles in this phase will determine what actions they can perform during all of the later phases.

In the pricing phase, players change the price they charge for their smartphones based on their plan. A lower price helps to go earlier and sell more smartphones on the market, but a higher price, while risky, helps players to earn more money.

In production, all players produce smartphones.

In development, players take development tiles, which expand their planning possibilities in future rounds.

In research, players discover new technologies. Each technology not only expands players’ ability to sell smartphones to customers, but also gives them special powers they can use during the game.

In the expansion phase, players open offices in neighbor regions, which allow them to sell in that region and develop their network of offices to more regions in further turns.

In the sale phase, players sell the phones they produced in regions where they have offices. But there is limited space in each region – and if your price is too high, cheaper rivals can block you from selling.

In the profit phase, players get income for their sales. Players gain the sale prices for all of their sold smartphones, and the player who sold the most phones in each region gains a bonus for controlling the accessory market. At the end of this phase all sold smartphones are discarded from the map – and a new round begins.

After five rounds, the richest player wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Economic
  • Network Building

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.74

Shogun Big Box

| T3d-1978
Shogun Big Box

Shogun Big Box

Shogun Big Box includes the base game of Shogun and its expansion Shogun: Tenno’s Court, as well as three small modules: Samurai, Military Leaders and Chambers, with the latter two unique to this release.

With Samurai, each player receives a stack of cards showing progressively better bonuses. At the beginning of each round, if a player controls provinces in at least four regions, they reveal the next card in their stack and select one of the bonuses depicted on it. These bonuses include war chests, armies placed directly into the tower tray, rice and victory points.

With Military Leaders, every player is given one military leader figure to place on one of their controlled provinces. A player’s leader provides extra benefits for performing actions in their province, such as reducing the cost for buildings or providing extra resources when collecting rice or taxes. At the end of a player’s turn, they move their leader to an adjacent province they control and leave a marker at the old location – if they don’t control any provinces adjacent to where their leader is, they move their leader to any of their controlled provinces without leaving a marker behind. The more markers a player has on the board at the end of the game, the more points will be awarded!

For Chambers, many offices have to be taken in order to rule the land. At the beginning of each round, six chamber markers are revealed and placed on the corresponding spaces on the chamber tableau, representing available offices that can be filled by the players. Whoever controls the most provinces in each region can fill the position by exchanging the chamber marker on the tableau with one of their own player markers. At the end of the game, players are awarded extra points for majorities in horizontal and vertical lines on the chamber tableau.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Area Movement
  • Auction/Bidding
  • Economic

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 5 Players
  • 120 – 150 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.25

Rurik: Dawn of Kiev

| T3d-1978
Rurik: Dawn of Kiev

Rurik: Dawn of Kiev

Rurik: Dawn of Kiev is a euro-style realm building game set in an 11th century Eastern European Kingdom. It features area control, resource management, and a new game mechanic – “auction programming.”

You play as a potential successor to the throne following the death of your father, Vladimir the Great, in 1015. The people value a well-rounded leader, so you must establish your legacy by building, taxing, fighting, and accomplishing great deeds. Will you win over the hearts of the people to become the next ruler of Kievan Rus?

Rurik brings to life the ancient culture of Kievan Rus with game design by Russian designer Stanislav Kordonskiy and illustrations by Ukrainian artist Yaroslav Radeckyi.

In Rurik, players openly bid for actions with their advisors. Stronger advisors earn greater benefits at the cost of performing their action later than other players. Conversely, weaker advisors earn lesser benefits but perform their action quickly. This planning mechanism (“auction programming”) adds a fun tension to the game.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Area Movement
  • Auction/Bidding
  • Civilization
  • Economic
  • Open Drafting
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.07

Ruination

| T3d-1978
Ruination

Ruination

The world ended so long ago that none remember its name. From its ashes rose the Khanate, whose citadel guards the last aquifer. The immortal Khan commands that only the most worthy may drink from its waters. Thus the hordes ready themselves for battle. Win, and lead your people onward… Die, and be forgotten!

Ruination is a 2-4 player area control and civilization game set in post-apocalyptic Eurasia. Using an innovative action system, players will gather resources to acquire advantages from the wreckage of the world before, bolster their armies with powerful exiles, and march across The Wasteland to war. Only the strongest and most canny horde will rule beside the Khan in this new world.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Area Movement
  • Dice Rolling
  • Open Drafting
  • Wargame

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.00

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

The Red Cathedral

| T3d-1978
The Red Cathedral

The Red Cathedral

Autumn is not the best time to climb up on a scaffold in Moscow, but it is still far better than doing so in the winter. Tsar Ivan wants to see results and our team will prove to him that we are the best builders in the city. We are sure to finish off those decorative arches with the brightest shining stones and ensure our place on the list of the government’s trusted workers.

Sheila Santos and Israel Cendrero make up the game designing duo known as Llama Dice. To date they have put out various titles with different Spanish publishers (1987 Channel Tunnel, Mondrian, Smoothies), and The Red Cathedral is the first game they have published with Devir. Pedro Soto (Holmes, Sherlock & Mycroft, Papua) and Chema Román (El mundo de Águila Roja) took care of the graphic elements of the game with a grand homage to Ivan Bilibin, an iconic Russian artist from the turn of the twentieth century. Despite being from a far later period, his mark is very recognizable in the game.

The Red Cathedral is a strategic, “Euro” board game in which the players take the roles of construction teams. Their job is to work together to put up St. Basil’s cathedral in Moscow, as ordered by Ivan the Terrible. However, only one of them will be able to gain the favor of the Tsar.

During the game, the players can carry out one of these three actions: assign a section of the cathedral, send resources to that section to build it, or go to the game board to achieve more resources. Each of these actions has its own mechanism and requires that the players pay close attention to what the other players are doing.

When the sections of the cathedral are assigned the players take possession of the spaces in each of the columns that make up their section. The more sections built and the completion of each with its own tower, the more points the player will be given at the end of the game.

The players can send resources to the cathedral sections that they have claimed. When they complete each of those sections they will obtain rewards in money and prestige points. They will also be able to install decorations on the completed sections to achieve even more recognition from the Tsar. This part of the game also works as a clock, since once any player completes the construction of their sixth section it brings about the end of the game.

The game board shows us the iconic rondel of The Red Cathedral. It is where the players obtain all the resource types needed to complete their work on the cathedral, as well as to get favors from the guilds and professionals to make the most of their trip to the market. In the central rondel the players choose the die they wish to use and move forward as many spaces as is shown on the top side of said die, in order to obtain the resources indicated in the space destined by the die.

The Red Cathedral is a very accessible game with regard to its rules because it is very easy to understand the various levels of the game, but it remains very interesting with regard to strategy. It is sure to please those who are more interested in the challenge offered by trying to strategically optimize their position in each game rather than the complexity of the rules.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Dice Rolling
  • Economic
  • Rondel
  • Tableau Building

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • ~80 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.82

Quartermaster General 1914

| T3d-1978
Quartermaster General 1914

Quartermaster General 1914

Quartermaster General: 1914 is the next title in the critically acclaimed Quartermaster General series by Ian Brody and creates a narrative of the First World War in Europe, reflecting the military, technological, and social changes that occurred over the following four years.

In Quartermaster General: 1914, each card has two different uses: one when played, and another when prepared. On your turn, you have the opportunity to both play and prepare a card. You can also spend cards to draft more troops, or use cards to attrition your opponents. However, your deck represents your overall resources, so moving too quickly through your deck early might result in your unsupported armies being swept away in the final rounds of the game. This is worth it if you can capture Berlin or Paris in 1915, but if your gambit fails, you may have a tough road ahead.

The game ends after 17 rounds of play, or earlier if one side has a commanding lead.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Campaign
  • Deck Building
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Team Based
  • Wargame

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 90 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.63

Plunderbund

| T3d-1978
Plunderbund

Plunderbund

You lead a guild striving to dominate the market for illegal goods in the Sprawl, a city rich in history and lawlessness. Recruit and task an army of agents, racketeers, spymasters and others to build your reputation by selling your goods and causing chaos for your rivals. Through a light deck building mechanism you attempt to create the strongest network of agents, racketeers and the most desirable black market goods. Winners and losers are determined by a fun, yet sophisticated, supply & demand mechanic.

Plunderbund combines the innate corruption and profiteering of prohibition Chicago and the lawlessness of the fantasy setting, the Sprawl.

It’s an era before cell phones, e-commerce and customer relationship management tools, an honest guild had to get business the hard way: thieving, sorcery, money laundering and bribery.

Plunderbund is your chance to lead your guild to fame, fortune or disaster as you navigate the whims of the notoriously picky Sprawl consumer and deal with underhanded tactics from rivals determined to steal your business.

Each player will lead a guild with the power to decide where your finite resources are invested. A light deck building mechanic enables you to acquire and improve your black market goods, add agents, add racketeers, disrupt your rivals’ operations or just wreak havoc. Cards are added to your deck through a simple snake draft from a limited selection of over twenty different recruits.

Your guild gains reputation (VPs) as a sophisticated yet simply implemented supply and demand mechanic helps you sell your black market goods to merchants. At the end of the game you will be compared to your rivals on the strength of your network of agents, number of racketeers and black market goods qualities. All this growth comes at a cost, you have to take favors as you try to build your operation without the benefit of any gold in your coffers. As they say “paybacks are hell”. Fail to payback your favors and you pay the price as you see your reputation diminished at the end of the game.

Over the course of twelve months, divided into four seasons, you will build your reputation on the backs of your guild recruits and their abilities.

All seasons have three months. Each month players:
1) Place demand coins
2) Draw cards and payback favors
3) Determine cards to put into play and pay for them
4) Calculate and receive goods

After three months have been played:
1) Compete for demand
2) Recruit guild member using a limited snake draft
3) Start the next season

After the end of the fourth season, the game is over and final reputation is tallied.

There are two key concepts in Plunderbund. The first is the supply and demand mechanism. The game starts with the placement of demand at open merchants. The demand generated is correlated with the products being offered by the guilds. In the early game, demand is mostly based on the appeal and ingenuity of the products. Later, as with any market, quality and price become more important. Each demand coin expresses a customer’s preference. Some customers want the best appeal, some want the best ingenuity, some want the best quality, and some want the lowest price.

Your goal is to win more demand coins than other guilds by having the best network of rogues and the best product. The rogues are your sales team. The more rogues you have in place, the more deals you can win and the more your guild reputation soars. Over the course of the game you will build out your ability to compete for demand.

To win a merchant’s demand coin, you must have an “Agent” on that merchant. If you have the only agent on a merchant, you are nearly certain to win. If another guild’s agent is on that merchant, then you must compete. The winner is the player who is leading in that product attribute. So, if the customer has expressed an interest in high quality then the guild with the best quality has a chance to win.

You can only win a demand coin if you can supply a good. Goods are earned (stolen, fenced, you name it) at the end of each month. The number of goods you generate each month is based on your investment in your supply chain (which lowers price) and quality. For each competition you win, you decide whether you want to take that specific demand coin or pass. If you pass, the demand coin either stays on the board or is won by a rival guild. Suffice it to say, you need goods to have a chance win Plunderbund.

The second key concept is the favor economy. Instead of paying money to get things done for your guild, you take favors. These favors are used to put your guild members to work (each card has a favor cost ranging from zero to four). These favor cards go in your discard pile. Fortunately, paying back a favor is easy. As soon as you draw the favor card into your play area, from your draw pile, it is immediately considered payed back. In this way, favors are an opportunity cost. If you end the game with favors that are not paid back, they are deducted from your end of game score. Favor management is an essential part of Plunderbund.

If you understand these key concepts, then you are ready to build your guild reputation and win Plunderbund.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Deck Building
  • Economic
  • Open Drafting
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 60 – 150 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.83

Petrichor

| T3d-1978
Petrichor

Petrichor

Petrichor is the earthy scent produced when rain falls on dry soil. The word is constructed from Greek (πέτρα) petra, meaning “stone”, and (ἰχώρ) īchōr, the fluid that flows in the veins of the gods in Greek mythology.

Welcome to the lush world of Petrichor; you are a cloud. Your entire purpose in life is to expand, sire other clouds and water crops. Unfortunately, your mates (who are also clouds) have a similar plan. It’s up to you to manipulate the weather and assimilate these rogue clouds to contribute to the growth of as many crops as possible – all in order to claim the title of Most Valuable Cloud.

Petrichor is a highly interactive board game, playable by 1-4 people (up to 5 with the expansion, see below). It’s an action selection/area influence game, with 4 simple actions which interact with the various fields in ever surprising ways. The players move clouds with water droplets, and then rain those droplets onto specific fields, to make sure they have the right amount of water for the Harvest. During a Harvest, crops that have been watered enough are scored! Players are able to influence when, and how often the harvest happens. Players need to strike a fine balance between maintaining control of the different fields as well as influencing Harvest, to make sure the two come together at the optimal time.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Hand Management

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 20 – 80 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.99