Tag: Set Collection

Games with Set Collection mechanics require players to collect resources in sets to achieve various rewards.

Speakeasy Blues

| T3d-1978
Speakeasy Blues

Speakeasy Blues

Speakeasy Blues brings players back to 1920s Prohibition Era New York City when hooch smuggling, mobsters, dirty cops and the rich and famous ruled the nights. In order to make your mark as well as your fortune, you’ll need to create the most prestigious speakeasy of the time before the 18th Ammendment is repealed.

Collect expensive items such as yachts or cars to prove your worth. Invite in well known historical figures of society of the time to class up the joint. Make deals with mobsters while being careful to hide them from view during classy soires lest they detract from your reputation. Do favors for dirty cops to add to your set collection as well as to allow you to bust any mobsters on the attack from competing hooch vending entrepreneurs.

Of course, there is Jazz to liven up the night and add bonuses to your action selections as well as Soires to provide additional cash flow and reputation to your gin joint. So roll the dice, draft a set for worker placement and enjoy a strategic and thematic delve into the high society, law breaking, liquor driven endeavors of the time. May the most hoppin’ and shakin’ speakeasy win!

Game Mechanics:

  • Dice Rolling
  • Set Collection
  • Take That
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.86

RiverBoat

| T3d-1978
RiverBoat

RiverBoat

Riverboat posits each player as the owner of a 19th century farm on the bank of the Mississippi River. You need to organize your workers to ensure that the fields are ordered according to their type and harvested when ready so that the goods can be shipped to New Orleans.

In more detail, the game lasts four rounds, and at the start of each round players draft phase cards until they’re all distributed. The phases then take place in numerical order, with the player who chose a phase being the first one to act. In the first phase, players place their workers in the fields, with each player having the same distribution of colored field tiles, but a different random placement for each player. In phase two, players organize their crops, trying to group like types together, with some fields requiring two or three workers. In phase three, players harvest crops and load riverboats, with a dock needing to be filled with all the goods of a single type before it can be loaded. In phase four, the boats are launched and players can take special actions, with additional victory points possibly coming in phase five.

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Drafting
  • Open Drafting
  • Set Collection
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.90

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

Rise to Nobility

| T3d-1978
Rise to Nobility

Rise to Nobility

Five years after the events of Cavern Tavern, where a fragile peace was brokered between The Five Realms, the High Queen Tabita Orestes has ordered a new city to be built. The city of Caveborn will be the capital of the Five Realms, a place where all the races will learn to live together in harmony, with the main purpose being to bring them closer and prevent another war.

The Queen needs to keep the alliance between the races and ensure that Caveborn is peaceful and prosperous. To that end, a Settlers Council has been formed with Berk the Town Clerk as its chairman — but Berk is getting old and needs a successor. Are you that person?

Rise to Nobility is a worker (dice) placement game set in the same fantasy world as Cavern Tavern. You each own a small piece of land in the newly built city, and your job is to rise from anonymity, make your way to the title of lord, and take over the head seat at the Stone Council.

You can achieve this by upgrading your land and increasing its value, satisfying the demands of the settlers’ council, attracting and housing as many settlers as you can, accommodating their needs, finding them jobs, and helping them develop from apprentices to guild masters, thus insuring you have people in high places all around the city of Caveborn.

Game Mechanics:

  • City Building
  • Dice Rolling
  • Economic
  • Set Collection
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 6 Players
  • 25 – 150 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.28

Reavers of Midgard

| T3d-1978
Reavers of Midgard

Reavers of Midgard

Reavers of Midgard is a single worker placement game with elements of set collection, dice combat and engine building set in the Champions of Midgard universe.

In Champions of Midgard, your quest was to become Jarl. You battled back the trolls, draugr and some of the epic monsters that once threatened the sanctity of your humble port town. Now it’s time to go on the offensive.

In Reavers of Midgard, you’ll be looking to gain glory by raiding nearby villages for their riches, sacking well-fortified castles and battling both man and monster on the open seas. You’ll not only need to take your rowdy crew of vikings and the food needed to keep them happy along for the ride but you’ll also have to recruit a crew of elite warriors – the Reavers.

Reavers can be used in three different ways. They can be made your ship’s leader, earning you a one-time bonus and enabling your warriors to be more versatile in combat. They can also be used to rally more warriors to your cause, filling your ship to the brim with the right fighters for the right situations. Finally, they can also be used to help your crew specialize, earning you a bonus every time your crew sails into battle.

Whoever can earn the most glory after six rounds will be the winner.

Game Mechanics:

  • Dice Rolling
  • Open Drafting
  • Set Collection
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.91

Race for the Galaxy

| T3d-1978
Race for the Galaxy

Race for the Galaxy

In the card game Race for the Galaxy, players build galactic civilizations by playing game cards in front of them that represent worlds or technical and social developments. Some worlds allow players to produce goods, which can be consumed later to gain either card draws or victory points when the appropriate technologies are available to them. These are mainly provided by the developments and worlds that are not able to produce, but the fancier production worlds also give these bonuses.

At the beginning of each round, players each select, secretly and simultaneously, one of the seven roles which correspond to the phases in which the round progresses. By selecting a role, players activate that phase for this round, giving each player the opportunity to perform that phase’s action. For example, if one player chooses the settle role, each player has the opportunity to settle one of the planets from their hand. The player who has chosen the role, however, gets a bonus that applies only to them. But bonuses may also be acquired through developments, so you must be aware when another player also takes advantage of your choice of role.

Game Mechanics:

  • Civilization
  • Economic
  • Hand Management
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.99

Near and Far

| T3d-1978
Near and Far

Near and Far

Four wanderers search for the Last Ruin, a city that legends say contains an artifact that will grant the greatest desires of the heart. A lost love, redemption, acceptance, a family rejoined– these are the fires that fuel the wanderers’ journeys, but can they overcome their own greed and inner demons on the way?

In Near and Far, you and up to three friends explore many different maps in a search for the Last Ruin, recruiting adventurers, hunting for treasure, and competing to be the most storied traveler. You must collect food and equipment at town for long journeys to mysterious locales, making sure not to forget enough weapons to fight off bandits, living statues, and rusty robots! Sometimes in your travels you’ll run into something unique and one of your friends will read what happens to you from a book of stories, giving you a choice of how to react, creating a new and memorable tale each time you play.

Near and Far is a sequel to Above and Below and includes a book of encounters. This time players read over ten game sessions to reach the end of the story. Each chapter is played on a completely new map with unique art and adventures.

Answer the call of the ruins and begin your journey.

Game Mechanics:

  • Campaign
  • Dice Rolling
  • Narrative Choice
  • Network Building
  • Open Drafting
  • Set Collection
  • Storytelling
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 90 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.87

Mosaic

| T3d-1978
Mosaic

Mosaic

Mosaic is an action selection game. On your turn, you will perform one of seven actions and acquire components.

Acquiring Components is important in creating the unique mosaic of your civilization. They are used as prerequisites for many new technologies, as well as for scoring. Also, by pursuing specialization in one or more Civilization Components, you may be able to claim a ‘Golden Age’ of that type.

As the game goes on and your Civilization grows, scoring cards are eventually revealed from the four decks. Each time a scoring card is revealed, your Civilization will score for each region that you dominate with your cities and military units. After the third scoring card is revealed, there is one final turn and the game ends. You will then score for your cities and towns, your wonders, projects, and golden ages, and for all of your cards that score for your unique Civilization Components.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Civilization
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 6 Players
  • 90 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.79

Monumental

| T3d-1978
Monumental

Monumental

In Monumental, each player will control a civilization that will evolve through his city: a grid of 3×3 cards (coming out from the player’s starting civilization deck) that can each be activated to gather various resources such as Science, Military, Production, Culture, and Gold that will allow them to trigger many actions. But there’s a trick: one cannot activate all their cards at once, which means that tough choices will have to be made each turn in order to select the cards that are the most needed.

The resources gathered from the activated city cards will allow the players to acquire cards from a common pool, allowing them to get improved buildings, technologies, wonders, etc. and therefore to leverage their civilization deck to new heights through more and more efficient card combos. As the common pool of cards progresses (either as players have acquired cards or because they didn’t – which leads to one card from the pool to be discarded per turn), the game progresses through eras. Medieval cards are better than classical cards, and industrial cards are even better, but of course those cards are more and more expensive to acquire.

A modular board, at the center of the table, holds each civilization’s army. The board is made of Provinces to be conquered. Unoccupied Province’s inhabitants are barbarians who will provide resources to the player who defeats them. Holding a conquered province also brings victory points.

The player with the most impressive civilization at the end of the game will be remembered for all time (and they also win the game!).

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Movement
  • Civilization
  • Deck Building
  • Hand Management
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 90 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.77

Merchants of the Dark Road

| T3d-1978
Merchants of the Dark Road

Merchants of the Dark Road

After half a year of daylight, we must now prepare for the dark season. The roads will be treacherous but they will still need to be braved by a select few in order to keep our cities thriving. In Merchants of the Dark Road, you are one of these brave few merchants that travel the dangerous paths between cities. While the job is perilous, fame and fortune await.

Discover the capital city where most of your actions will take place using a rondel action system. Collect and produce items to add to your caravan, or sell these items to local heroes and hire them to travel with you. Manipulate the market price of items, visit the back alley sellers, or delve a nearby dungeon for magical items to gain the potential for even more coin and notoriety.

Gather lanterns to ease your passage along the dark roads as you guide your caravan to distant villages. Deliver goods and heroes to the best destinations and gain fame for your bravery! Balance the money you earn with the height of your fame because your final score after a number of game rounds will reflect the lowest of these two values.

After all, what good is a purse full of the coin if the people don’t sing songs about you, and what good is a song with an empty mug of ale?

Game Mechanics:

  • Dice Rolling
  • Pick-Up and Deliver
  • Rondel
  • Set Collection
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.12