Tag: Area Majority / Influence

1347: De Nigrae Pestis Ludum

| OTSG Staff

The year of our Lord 1347: The Black Death has arrived via Eastern trade routes, bringing suffering and misery to the towns and countryside. The sole hope for relief from a slow and painful death lies in the hands of the plague doctors. Dressed in black cloaks, and masks stuffed with vinegar-rags and spice, the surgeons roam the Burgus streets searching for the infected. To these they offer salvation, saving their flesh from death, while gaining prestige with the princely court and — why not? — one or two shiny coins!

Will you prove yourselves as valorous surgeons, up to the tasks you’re called to resolve? Will you expand your influence with good works, draining infected swamps and building plague hospitals? Or will you give in to the facts of life, and death, raking in whatever coins you happen to find?

1347 is a strategic game in which players are plague doctors with the aim of gaining as much fame and prestige as possible to become the most important of the town. Each player has resource cards, money, grave diggers, and five influence tokens at their disposal to invest in order to defeat the plague and enrich themselves. There are three stages that will repeat for three periods (that will vary from 6 to 9 game rounds):

  1. Investments -> Each player, turn by turn, will invest one influence token (from 0-4 influence points) in one of the six areas of the board, each one with different actions allowed. All the investments are hidden. Investments go on until all players remain with no tokens.
  2. Actions -> Starting from Area 1, all invested tokens are revealed. The player who invested the most is the only one who can exploit the actions allowed from that area. The other players who invested can convert their “unused points” in money or grave diggers. So losing is also a strategy. In case of tie, the first player, or the nearest one in clockwise has priority, in any case the first player will change at the end of each round.
  3. Upkeep -> In this stage players collect money from the Agrus (the country), can heal their recruited plagued commoners, or can maintain their healed commoners. Healed commoners give players new influence tokens to invest and an ability to exploit as long as they remain healed.

There are many kind of actions players can do: recruit commoners, transform grave diggers in peasants to collect money, build expansions to enforce their influence to specific areas, etc.

At the end of the game, the players obtain 1 wealth point (victory points) for:

  • Each influence point (the value shown on each influence token held);
  • Every five coins;
  • Each subject card;
  • Each development held;
  • Every three gravediggers held (including the player’s reserve and those assigned to the Agrus).

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 50 – 180 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.82

Inventors of the South Tigris

| OTSG Staff

Inventors of the South Tigris is set during the height of the Abbasid Caliphate, circa 850 AD. Over the past decades, Baghdad has become home to thousands of mathematicians, astronomers, chemists, and physicians. As inspired innovators, players are eager to develop clever contraptions to impress their peers. Will your ingenious devices adorn the House of Wisdom, or are they destined for dust and decay?

The aim of Inventors of the South Tigris is to be the player with the most Victory Points (VP) at the game’s end. Points are primarily gained by Inventing, Building, Testing, and Publishing Devices. Players can also score points by training their Craftspeople, developing their Workshops, Researching, and Influencing the 3 scientific Guilds.

—description from the publisher

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 90 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 4.46

Impendium

| OTSG Staff

Immediately following the events of Nova Lux, you will take up the mantle of building the universe anew. Civil unrest and fear have caused factions among the star colonies to subvert the federation. As it works to ignite new stars and forge galaxies which can once again perpetuate life, your factions will position for power and prosperity in the new Galactic Order. But creation comes with a cost. As the inhabitants of your universe not only defy but reverse the natural law of Entropy, the Void takes notice.

On your turn you will move around the universe, undertake assignments from the federation to construct new stars or battle harbingers of the void, build star colonies to generate resources, and recruit new factions to enhance your abilities and expand your influence.

Once a player control enough of the newly constructed universe, they win!

Impendium is the stand alone successor to Nova Lux. The faction cards from Nova Lux can be used with Impendium.

-description from designer

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 6 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.50

History of the World

| OTSG Staff

History of the World works under the assumptions that all empires eventually fade and that the only things differentiating great empires from lesser ones is how much territory they conquer and how long it takes for their civilizations to disappear. The game is played out over 7 epochs or rounds, from the ancient 3000 B.C. Sumerians to the pre-WW1 Germany, with every player controlling a new rising empire from history. Some empires are stronger than others (like the Romans), but the game’s clever mechanisms can help balance that out. At the end of each epoch, players score points for all units of their color (from both the current and any previous empires) remaining on the board.

Before the start of their turn a player may play up to two Event cards from their hand. The Events played are resolved before the player starts his Empire’s actions. If the player’s active Empire has navigation a ship token is placed in each sea or ocean listed (if an ocean is listed all adjacent seas to the ocean have ship markers put into them). A Reallocation Greater Event allows an Empire with Navigation to exchange Fleets in seas and oceans for Coins that can be used to buy back defeated troops (1 coin per troop). If the active Empire has a capitol it is taken and placed in the Empire’s starting land with one unit of the Empire’s available troops. Since each land space may only contain one troop the player begins expanding from their starting land by placing troops in any adjacent land space that they wish to occupy or conquer. To conquer a land the attacker moves one unit into the land space either from adjacent land or through a sea with a ship in it. Then dice are rolled, the attacker gets 2 dice and the defender only one, unless the attacker traveled across a strait or the defender’s land has either a forest, the great wall of China, or mountains on the border of the land that the attacker came from. In this case the defender receives 2 dice as well. If the attack comes from the sea the defender gets 3 dice for defense. Highest score wins with ties killing off both the defender and attacker. In this case the attacker can merely place the next troop, if he has any left, in the now-empty land space.

At any time the active Empire player may exchange an unplaced troop for a fort. On later turns, a fort gives the player a +1 to defensive rolls in that land. Also, if the defender in a fort loses or ties with an attacker only the fort is removed and the battle continues. Whenever an army conquers a land with a capitol the capitol mini is flipped reducing it to a city (if it was a city to begin with it is removed from board when conquered). After the active player’s Empire is finished with it’s actions check to see if it conquered to land spaces with resource symbols, if so it can build a monument.

Then scoring takes place. Each area (Middle-East, Northern Europe, Eurasia, etc…) has a tile with 3 values for the current Epoch. One value is for having a presence in the area (at least one land). Another value is for having Dominance in the area (at least 2 lands and more than any other player in area). The last value is for having Control of an area (at least 3 lands and no other player has any in area). These values vary from Epoch to Epoch and Area to Area (Middle-East is more valuable in early Epochs and fades in later Epochs, for example). Total the scores from each area for all pieces of the player’s color from all Empires controlled that remain on board. Then add 2 points for each capitol controlled, 1 point per city and one point for each monument controlled. After all areas are scored the next Empire called takes its turn.

After all players have taken their turns and scored, for the first Epoch, the player with the highest score gets to take a pre-eminence marker and places it in front of him. These are secret bonus points (worth somewhere from 3 to 6) for the end of the game and may not be examined till then. This bonus to leader helps balance the Empire-draw mechanic and makes it valuable to score maximal points even early in the game, rather than tanking to get a better draw later. Then drawing begins for the next Epoch with the player having the lowest score drawing first on up to the person with the highest score drawing last (and likely being given a less than optimal Empire by another player).

After the last player has scored for Epoch 7 and the leader has drawn a pre-eminence marker, all players reveal their pre-eminence markers and add them to their scores. The player with the highest score wins.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 6 Players
  • 135 – 270 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.77

Heroes of Might and Magic III: The Board Game

| OTSG Staff

Do you stand beside Queen Catherine Ironfist and vanquish the lurking chaos? Do you help the power-hungry Mutare fulfill her plans and turn her into a dragon? Or, maybe you despise all of this and want, together with Sandro, to cover the whole world with the shadow of death? Move through the beautiful land of Antagarich, plunge into adventures and strategic battles with endless possibilities.

Heroes of Might & Magic III: The Board Game is an adventure-driven strategy game set in the cult fantasy universe. The game includes competitive, cooperative, and solo scenarios to battle and explore your way through. The adventure maps will be represented by tiles, with each tile divided into seven hexagonal fields.

Play different scenarios with different victory conditions, explore the adventure map to discover various locations, and play out epic battles using the unique miniature models that represent the iconic units from the original game. All battles will be performed with models on separate boards.

—description from the publisher

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 3 Players
  • 90 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.48

Hanamikoji: Geisha’s Road

| OTSG Staff

“Yoko… What lies ahead for us?” asked her friend Tomoyo.
Yoko stared out into the sea, calm and serene. “Today we are just maiko. But one day, we will complete our training and become known as geisha.”
“Yes, artists of the highest order. But then what?”
“Okaasan said that one day, perhaps some of us may be lucky to inherit the teahouse… if fortune favors us and our hard work.”

Welcome back to Hanamikoji! In Hanamikoji: Geisha’s Road is a two-player based on “Hanamikoji” with a new Geisha movement and roundel system added to the game design to make the strategy more diversified. It’s competitive strategy game full of implicit intentions, veiled messages, and hidden actions, players represent rival but friendly patrons supporting Yoko, Tomoyo, and others along their journey from apprentice (maiko) to full geisha (artist) and perhaps even the owner (okaasan) of their own establishment.

To do so, players help their favored geisha advance and build prestige through performing their art at different teahouses. Geisha start as apprentices (maiko) but become full geisha and score prestige points after accruing the necessary patronage to return to their original teahouse (ochaya) for the graduation ceremony (erikae). Some geisha may continue their path further and eventually inherit the teahouse (upon a second return) to become the new okaasan, recognized with more prestige points.

At the end of the game, the player who provides the most support to each geisha is recognized. The player who has supported the most prestigious group of geisha wins the game.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 Players
  • 25 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.18

Great Wall, the

| OTSG Staff

The Great Wall is a new asymmetric worker/soldier placement game with engine building themes and a twist in form of a constantly attacking AI (Mongolian Horde) that requires players to sometimes cooperate in order to defeat it. This is a new major board game from Awaken Realms.

Players will control ancient clans in China trying to defend against invading Mongolian hordes and build a Great Wall. While every player will want to win (by earning VP = Honor) they also need to sometimes cooperate to defend against the hordes. Each clan will be asymmetric through its chosen Leader (resource production/starting resources/starting workers and units) and this asymmetry will increase as the game progresses (players will hire Advisors with unique skills, often creating unique engines).

In The Great Wall, the players take the role of Generals defending the Wall against the Mongol Horde. The game is played over a series of turns called Years, each divided into 4 parts called Seasons.

During Spring, new barbaric hordes invade the fields in front of the Great Wall and prepare to launch their assault. Summer is the time when generals prepare for the assault and mobilize their forces. During Fall, players take their turns, playing Command cards, resolving their effects and Activating Locations to gain various benefits. In Winter, the last layer of Defense is activated, then, the hordes try to assault the Walls.

During the course of the game, players will create their own unique engines based on their clan strength as well as interact with other players during all phases of the game, trying to get the most Honor points, which can be gained in a lot of different ways.

At the end of the game, the player with the most Honor wins.

—description from the publisher

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 120 – 180 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.91

Gift of Tulips

| OTSG Staff

In Gift of Tulips, tulip enthusiasts explore Amsterdam’s tulip festival to build colorful bouquets, give tulips to others (scoring points in the process), and manipulate the value of the market.

The deck includes tulips of four colors, with values 2-4. Lay out four festival cards based on the player count, with these cards showing the number of points scored for giving away tulips, keeping tulips, and having a majority of certain colors at the end of the game. Draw two cards of different colors, and place them under the festival cards in first and second place based on their value. Deal two cards to each player; keep one card face up in front of you and add the other face down to the “secret festival” pile.

On a turn, draw a card from the deck and KEEP/GIVE/ADD it, then draw a second card and take one of the actions you didn’t just take. The actions:

  • KEEP: Place the card face up in front of you, scoring points for it if that color is currently ranked third or fourth in the festival.
  • GIVE: Give the card to another player, who places it face up in front of themselves; you score “giving” points based on the current ranking of that color in the festival, plus points equal to the value of that tulip.
  • ADD: Place the card face down in the secret festival or add it face up to the festival, altering the ranking of colors if needed so that the color with the highest sum is first, etc.

When the deck runs out, shuffle the cards in the secret festival, then draw five at random and add them face up to the festival, adjusting the ranking as needed. (If fewer than five cards are in the secret festival, add all of these cards to the festival.) For the three highest ranked colors in the festival, whoever has the most and secondmost cards in these colors scores points as listed on the festival cards; in games with five and six players, the player with the thirdmost cards of a color also scores points. In case of a tie for card count, the tied player with the higher value of a color wins that tie. Whoever has the most points wins.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • ~20 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.77

Druids of Edora, The

| OTSG Staff

The Druids of Edora is a game of strategic dice placement. Walk through ancient forests in the footsteps of fairy folk, past monolithic menhirs, and under strands of mistletoe. As druids you will place dice to take actions to gather provisions, gain knowledge, brew potions, and gain bonuses. Build stone structures, collect herbs, and leave your mark in the sacred wood.

Each turn is a few simple steps that with the right strategy will earn you prestige points and bring you closer to victory.

Dive into this fantastic new strategy game from the team behind The Castles of Burgundy.

Prove yourself worthy of the ancient ones and bring glory to your forest.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.04

Galileo Galilei

| OTSG Staff

“And yet it moves”, he said.

Galileo Galilei is a Euro-style game in which you take on the role of an astronomer who will discover new planets, find unknown star systems, develop their telescope, and make a scientific breakthrough in the difficult ages of obscurantism.

Use your telescope to select one of the five actions available, with you being able to evolve these actions into better ones. Collect cards of different planets and star systems. Collect lenses of the three main colors to make a discovery. Be wary of inquisitors as they might arrive unwelcomed and ruin your fame in no time. Better find a way to profit from their visit instead.

Game Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 50 – 100 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.04