Tag: Variable Set-up

Cities

| T3d-1978

You’ve been tasked by the city council to put together a plan to transform a whole neighborhood in the city. You have the opportunity to build new housing, office buildings, parks, and leisure areas near the waterfront. It is in your hands to make the city a better place.

Cities is a city-building game in which you draft the best projects and arrange them in your own playing area. With action and resource draft mechanisms, it will give you the opportunity to visit the cities of Sydney, Venice, New York, Barcelona, Rio de Janeiro, Lisbon, Mexico City, and Buenos Aires. Can you design the most magnificent neighborhood?

The game is played over eight rounds (or four rounds in a two-player game). Each round, players use their workers to collect 1 scoring card, 1 city tile, 1-2 feature tiles, and 2-4 building pieces. City tiles are made up of park spaces, water spaces, and building spaces. Building pieces are placed on building spaces of the same color to form buildings, which can be 1-4 stories high. Whenever a player fulfills an achievement, they place one of their discs on the achievement board. At the end of the game, players add up the points they have gained from all of their scoring cards and achievements.

Game Mechanics:

  • Contracts
  • Pattern Building
  • Set Collection
  • Tile Placement
  • Variable Set-up
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.92

CATAN: New Energies

| T3d-1978

It’s the 21st Century, and Catan is at a crossroads. Long gone is the agrarian society of the island’s Viking ancestors. Today’s Catanians need energy to keep society moving and growing, but pollution is wreaking havoc on the island.

You must decide: Invest in clean energy resources, or opt for cheaper fossil fuels, potentially causing disastrous effects for the island?

CATAN: New Energies is a new standalone game rooted in classic CATAN mechanisms of harvesting, trading, and building. New gameplay elements including power plants, energy tokens, and environmental events that add new strategies and stories to a familiar foundation.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Majority / Influence
  • Dice Rolling
  • Hexagon Grid
  • Modular Board
  • Trading
  • Variable Set-up

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 4 Players
  • ~90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.40

Castles of Tuscany, The

| T3d-1978

The beautiful Tuscany region, in the 15th century, is the home of the Italian Renaissance. As influential princes, the players make creative decisions to build their region into a flourishing domain.

By supporting towns, villages, and monasteries, or by extracting marble and delivering goods, players see their lands grow, earning them victory points. Each round, players use cards to place useful tiles to expand their regions and gain new opportunities.

The winner is the person who has the most victory points after three rounds of play.

Game Mechanics:

  • Modular Board
  • Set Collection
  • Tile Placement
  • Variable Set-up

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 45 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.23

Cartographers Heroes

| T3d-1978

The expedition to the Western Lands is the kind of honor that comes once in a lifetime for a royal cartographer. But these are dangerous times. War ravages the land, and you are sure to encounter Dragul forces determined to thwart Queen Gimnax’s plans for western expansion.

Fortunately, brave heroes have risen to the defense of Nalos. Chart their deeds alongside the queen’s edicts and secure your place in history.

Cartographers Heroes is the sequel to the critically acclaimed map-drawing game Cartographers. It includes all-new map sheets, scoring cards, explore cards, and ambush cards with unique abilities.

Cartographers Heroes can be played on its own or mixed with components from the original game for a greater variety of gameplay possibilities.

Game Mechanics:

  • Paper-and-Pencil
  • Pattern Building
  • Solo / Solitaire Game
  • Take That
  • Variable Set-up

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 100 Players
  • 30 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.00

Cartographers

| T3d-1978

Queen Gimnax has ordered the reclamation of the northern lands. As a cartographer in her service, you are sent to map this territory, claiming it for the Kingdom of Nalos. Through official edicts, the queen announces which lands she prizes most, and you will increase your reputation by meeting her demands. But you are not alone in this wilderness. The Dragul contest your claims with their outposts, so you must draw your lines carefully to reduce their influence. Reclaim the greatest share of the queen’s desired lands and you will be declared the greatest cartographer in the kingdom.

In Cartographers: A Roll Player Tale, players compete to earn the most reputation stars by the time four seasons have passed. Each season, players draw on their map sheets and earn reputation by carrying out the queen’s edicts before the season is over. The player with the most reputation stars at the end of winter wins!

Game Mechanics:

  • Paper-and-Pencil
  • Pattern Building
  • Solo / Solitaire Game
  • Take That
  • Variable Set-up

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 100 Players
  • 30 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.87

Captain’s Log

| T3d-1978

Captain’s Log is a sandbox board game where you will be in charge of a ship from the colonial period and you will compete against other players to become the most famous captain of all.

The game starts with the selection of our ship. You will have a choice between a swift and agile but fragile ship; a well-balanced ship, if you want to play it safe; and a heavy and slow but strong ship. We can transform our ship into a frightening man-o-war and loot boarded ships or into the fastest sailboat ever imagined. We will be able to trade in the market to get doubloons, grow our crew, improve our weapons and load capacity, enrol on a mission and get a reward, explore the ocean to search for treasures, fight against or with others, and above all acquire wealth.

Throughout the game, we will make contact with other ships commanded by our friends (although we know in a board game is better not to rely on friendships). While exploring the map, we will start catching sight of other ships belonging to the different nations in the game. These are Spain, Holland, France, England, and pirates and corsairs. During the game, you will be able to decide if you want to side with any of these nations which will give you a variety of perks. However, nothing in this life comes for free and your acts might take you to make enemies of some other nations which will make their ships come after yours and try to sink you into the ocean.

Game Mechanics:

  • Bias
  • Cooperative Game
  • Modular Board
  • Pick-up and Deliver
  • Race
  • Solo / Solitaire Game
  • Variable Set-up

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 240 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 4.24

Anachrony 🟠

| T3d-1978

It is the late 26th century. Earth is recovering from a catastrophic explosion that exterminated the majority of the population centuries ago and made most of the surface uninhabitable due to unearthly weather conditions. The surviving humans organized along four radically different ideologies, called Paths, to rebuild the world as they see fit: Harmony, Dominance, Progress, and Salvation. Followers of the four Paths live in a fragile peace, but in almost complete isolation next to each other. Their only meeting point is the last major city on Earth, now just known as the Capital.

By powering up the mysterious Time Rifts that opened in the wake of the cataclysm, each Path is able to reach back to specific moments in their past. Doing so can greatly speed up their progress, but too much meddling may endanger the time-space continuum. But progress is more important than ever before: if the mysterious message arriving through the Time Rift is to be believed, an even more terrible cataclysm is looming on the horizon: an asteroid bearing the mysterious substance called Neutronium is heading towards Earth. Even stranger, the scientists show that the energy signature of the asteroid matches the explosion centuries ago…

Anachrony features a unique two-tiered worker placement system. To travel to the Capital or venture out to the devastated areas for resources, players need not only various specialists (Engineers, Scientists, Administrators, and Geniuses) but also Exosuits to protect and enhance them — and both are in short supply.

The game is played in 4-7 turns, depending on the time when the looming cataclysm occurs — unless, of course, it is averted! The elapsed turns are measured on a dynamic timeline. By powering up the Time Rifts, players can reach back to earlier turns to supply their past “self” with resources. Each Path has a vastly different objective that rewards it with a massive amount of victory points when achieved. The Paths’ settlements will survive the impact, but the Capital will not. Whichever Path manages to collect most points will be the new seat for the Capital, thus the most important force left on the planet…

Game Mechanics:

  • Economic
  • Open Drafting
  • Set Collection
  • Solo / Solitaire Game
  • Variable Player Powers
  • Variable Set-up
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 4.01

Burning Banners: Rage of the Witch Queen

| T3d-1978

In the five centuries since the Wound was closed, the kingdoms of Kalar have struggled to rebuild their shattered societies. A resurgent Empire spread across the great sea, bringing civilization to the untamed eastern continent of Kheros. But Lilith, one of the immortal sorcerers responsible for the Worldwound, arrived first, preparing the way for the return of her dark mistress. For nearly six hundred years she has plotted and schemed. In 588 (2023 Gregorian), the wait is over.

Burning Banners: Rage of the Witch Queen is a fantasy wargame for two to six players. Fast playing and intuitive, a whopping 29 scenarios range from short campaigns with 2 Kingdoms and one map, to the entire 12-year war, in which 6 kingdoms battle over four maps. The rules include a quick-playing Basic Game as well as an Advanced Game which introduces Magic, Heroes, and Monsters guarding powerful treasures.

March 1” Armies and Heroes through huge, lovingly detailed hexes. Explore a vast, detailed fantasy world encompassing four mounted game maps with six unique kingdoms and dozens of troop types. Designed and illustrated by acclaimed fantasy artist, Christopher Moeller!

Game Mechanics:

  • Deck Building
  • Campaign
  • Team-Based Game
  • Variable Player Powers
  • Variable Set-up
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • ~60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.22

Black Forest

| T3d-1978

In Black Forest, you start out with a small domain in need of new buildings and livestock. You’ll travel from village to village, to enlist the aid of the best specialists. Exploiting the abilities of these specialists lets you collect resources, lay out new landscape tiles (e.g. ponds and fields), and build a variety of buildings, which come in four types. Choose the right buildings, place landscapes, fire up your glass production, and expand your domain.

Uwe Rosenberg’s resource wheels, made famous in Glass Road (2013), return in Black Forest. Two resource wheels on your tableau help you keep track of your resources and production. Black Forest continues the story – as the name suggests — in the Black Forest. Among others, the main difference between the two games is the use of worker placement in Black Forest instead of simultaneous action selection.

A wide selection of buildings and their different effects offer many different paths to victory.

Game Mechanics:

  • Set Collection
  • Solo / Solitaire Game
  • Tile Placement
  • Variable Set-up
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.23

AQUA: Biodiversity in the Ocean

| T3d-1978

In AQUA, your starting point is a hot spot that gradually becomes surrounded by expanding coral formations. These corals serve as habitats for small marine animals. By fostering biodiverse habitats, you can then create ideal conditions for attracting the largest marine animals.

AQUA plays over 17 rounds. On your turn, you must take a new coral tile from the market and add it to your reef, then you may also attract animals to your ecosystem if you create the correct patterns of coral.

At the end of the game, the player who grew the best coral formations and attracted the most large and small sea animals will score the most points and win.

AQUA invites you to dive into the beauty and wonder of the ocean, delivering an incredible variety of gameplay experiences for the whole family.

Game Mechanics:

  • Open Drafting
  • Pattern Building
  • Tile Placement
  • Variable Set-up

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.08