Tag: Variable Set-up

Coimbra

In the 15th and 16th century, Portugal is thriving under its leading role during the Age of Discovery. Nestled in the heart of Portugal, the city of Coimbra serves as a cultural center of the country. As the head of one of Coimbra’s oldest houses, you seek to earn prestige by deepening relationships with nearby monasteries or funding expeditions of the era. To reach this goal, you must vie for the favors of the city’s most influential citizens, even if you must offer a bit of coin or some protective detail.

Coimbra introduces an innovative new dice mechanism in which the dice players draft each round are used in multiple different ways and have an impact on many aspects of their decision making. While there are many paths to victory, players should always seek to optimize their opportunities with every roll of the dice. Combined with ever-changing synergies of the citizens, expeditions, and monasteries, no two games of Coimbra will ever be the same!

Game Mechanics:

  • Auction / Bidding
  • Open Drafting
  • Set Collection
  • Tech Trees / Tech Tracks
  • Variable Set-up
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.25

Caylus 1303

A classic game is back! As one of the first worker placement games, Caylus stands among the true board game classics of the 2000s. The original designers’ team, together with the Space Cowboys, have now created a revamped version!

The mechanisms of Caylus 1303 have been streamlined and modernized for an intense and shorter game. Don’t be fooled, though, as the game has kept both its depth and ease of play while a lot of new features have been added:

  • Variability of the starting position for a virtual infinity of possibilities. No more pre-set strategies!
  • Characters with special abilities, with a wavering loyalty, offer their services to the players.
  • And of course, brand new graphics!

The King calls you again, so it’s time to go back to Caylus!

Game Mechanics:

  • Open Drafting
  • Take That
  • Tile Placement
  • Variable Player Powers
  • Variable Set-up
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.88

Anno 1800 🟡

In Anno 1800, a board game based on the popular PC game from Ubisoft, you continuously build up your own industry to develop your home island.

Ship fleets allow for lively trade and the development of new islands in the Old and New World. You have to fulfill the wishes of your own population. While the inhabitants are initially satisfied with bread and clothing, they soon demand valuable luxury goods. You must plan production chains sensibly and keep an eye on the specialization of your population. The goal: A wise distribution of farmers, workers, craftsmen, engineers, and investors — but the competition never sleeps and can snatch the new achievements from under your nose at any time! Who can create the most prosperous island?

Game Mechanics:

  • End Game Bonuses
  • Hand Management
  • Race
  • Tech Trees / Tech Tracks
  • Variable Set-up
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.12

Cubitos

Be fast or be last!

In Cubitos, players take on the role of participants in the annual Cube Cup, a race of strategy and luck to determine the Cubitos Champion. Each player has a runner on the racetrack and a support team, which is represented by all the dice you roll. Each turn, you roll dice and use their results to move along the racetrack, buy new dice, and use abilities — but you must be careful not to push your luck rolling too much or you could bust!

Game Mechanics:

  • Deck, Bag, and Pool Building
  • Dice Rolling
  • Market
  • Push Your Luck
  • Race
  • Re-rolling and Locking
  • Variable Set-up

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.17

CoraQuest

CoraQuest is an exciting and accessible co-operative dungeon crawling game for one to four people, aged six and up.

In CoraQuest the players work together to guide four adventurers exploring a dungeon, avoiding traps, finding treasure, fighting monsters, and sometimes rescuing a gnome called Kevin.

CoraQuest is a game that kids and grown-ups can play together and get equal amounts of fun from. It’s also a game that sparks creativity – providing encouragement and guidance on how to create heroes, monsters and adventures to make CoraQuest your own.

All the artwork in CoraQuest is based on kids’ drawings, much of it sent in to us from all over the world by the wonderful CoraQuest community. The art has been brought together by our “chief-colourer-in”, Gary King, to make a unique and charming-looking game.

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative Game
  • Modular Board
  • Scenario / Mission / Campaign Game
  • Solo / Solitaire Game
  • Variable Player Powers
  • Variable Set-up

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 45 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.00

Clank! Catacombs

The catacombs of the skeletal dragon Umbrok Vessna are mysterious and dangerous. Portals transport you all around the dungeon depths. Wayshrines offer vast riches to intrepid explorers. Prisoners are counting on you to free them. Ghosts, once disturbed, may haunt you to death. Despite all that, it’s time to leave the board behind with Clank! Catacombs, a standalone deck-building adventure.

Each trip into the catacombs is unique since you lay tiles to create the dungeon. You can play using only the all-new dungeon deck, or you can include cards from previous Clank! expansions.

Find your fortune (and escape the dragon!) in Clank! Catacombs.

Game Mechanics:

  • Deck, Bag, and Pool Building
  • Map Addition
  • Map Deformation
  • Modular Board
  • Open Drafting
  • Player Elimination
  • Push Your Luck
  • Tile Placement
  • Variable Set-up

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 45 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.50

Clank!: A Deck-Building Adventure

Burgle your way to adventure in the deck-building board game Clank! Sneak into an angry dragon’s mountain lair to steal precious artifacts. Delve deeper to find more valuable loot. Acquire cards for your deck and watch your thievish abilities grow.

Be quick and be quiet. One false step and CLANK! Each careless sound draws the attention of the dragon, and each artifact stolen increases its rage. You can enjoy your plunder only if you make it out of the depths alive!

Clank! is a deck-building game. Each player has their own deck, and building yours up is part of playing the game. You start each of your turns with five cards in your hand, and you’ll play them all in any order you choose. Most cards will generate resources, of which there are three different kinds:

  • Skill, which is used to acquire new cards for your deck.
  • Swords, which are used to fight the monsters that infest the dungeon.
  • Boots, which are used to move around the board.

Every time you acquire a new card, you put it face up in your discard pile. Whenever you need to draw a card and find your deck empty, you shuffle your discard pile and turn it face down to form a new deck. With each shuffle, your newest cards become part of a bigger and better deck! Each player starts with the same cards in their deck, but they’ll acquire different cards during their turns. Because cards can do many different things, each player’s deck (and strategy) will become more and more different as the game unfolds.

During the game, you have two goals:

  • Retrieve an Artifact token and escape the dragon by returning to the place you started, outside of the dungeon.
  • Accumulate enough points with your Artifact and other loot to beat out your opponents and earn the title of Greatest Thief in the Realm!

Game Mechanics:

  • Deck, Bag, and Pool Building
  • Open Drafting
  • Player Elimination
  • Push Your Luck
  • Variable Set-up

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.23

Citadels

In Citadels, players take on new roles each round to represent characters they hire in order to help them acquire gold and erect buildings. The game ends at the close of a round in which a player erects their seventh building. Players then tally their points, and the player with the highest score wins.

Players start the game with a number of building cards in their hand; buildings come in five colors, with the purple buildings typically having a special ability and the other colored buildings providing a benefit when you play particular characters. At the start of each round, the player who was king the previous round discards one of the eight character cards at random, chooses one, then passes the cards to the next player, etc. until each player has secretly chosen a character. Each character has a special ability, and the usefulness of any character depends upon your situation, and that of your opponents. The characters then carry out their actions in numerical order: the assassin eliminating another character for the round, the thief stealing all gold from another character, the wizard swapping building cards with another player, the warlord optionally destroys a building in play, and so on.

On a turn, a player earns two or more gold (or draws two building cards then discards one), then optionally constructs one building (or up to three if playing the architect this round). Buildings cost gold equal to the number of symbols on them, and each building is worth a certain number of points. In addition to points from buildings, at the end of the game a player scores bonus points for having eight buildings or buildings of all five colors.

The 2016 edition of Citadels includes twenty-seven characters — eight from the original Citadels, ten from the Dark City expansion, and nine new ones — along with thirty unique building districts, and the rulebook includes six preset lists of characters and districts beyond the starter list, each crafted to encourage a different style and intensity of gameplay.

Game Mechanics:

  • Bluffing
  • City Building
  • Deduction
  • Set Collection
  • Take That
  • Variable Player Powers
  • Variable Set-up

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 8 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.07

Century: Golem Edition – An Endless World

Century: Golem Edition – An Endless World brings crystal traders face to face with primordial golems predating human existence. These golems are incredibly powerful and ever eager to assist. As the world continues to unfold itself to players, you will discover how endless the fun will be!

Game Mechanics:

  • Set Collection
  • Variable Set-up
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.17

Catan: Starfarers

Twenty years ago, the settlers started into the depths of the galaxy to discover unknown planets, the undiscovered universe lying before them. Maybe they’ll find planets with good ore or carbon deposits — or perhaps only barren ice planets. They might encounter alien folks and start lucrative trading, with pirates and wormholes being a constant challenge for them.

Catan: Starfarers is a new version of Starfarers of Catan, originally released in 1999, that contains completely revised graphics and game materials, revised rules, and (most importantly) a variable game board that brings even more variety to the exploration of space.

Game Mechanics:

  • Hexagon Grid
  • Modular Board
  • Trading
  • Variable Set-up

Game Specifications:

  • 3 – 4 Players
  • ~120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.58