Ancient

Early Italy, 600 BCE – Five city states are vying each other for superiority in the region: Roma with their Roman inhabitants, Velletri with the Volscian inhabitants, Reate with their Sabin inhabitants, Veii with their Etruscian inhabitants, and Alba Longa with their Latin inhabitans. Each player controls a city state and tries to be the first to have 16+ population and 10 monuments. This city state is destined to be a glorious power of the Ancient World!

A game of Alba Longa offers a fine combination of dice selection, city management, and worker assignment (inside your own city), and is spiced up with the ingredient of city combat (soldiers and heroes)! Inside the box are three big variants – Assisi, A Job Well Done, and Spoils of War – which can be added and combined at your will and which add even more longevity to this game!

In prototype form, under the name The Great Pyramid, this design was one of four winners of the 2009 Concours International de Créateurs de Jeux de Société, a design competition run by Centre National du Jeu in France. Here's what the jury said about the game: The Great Pyramid is rich with an astonishing number of possible strategies but manages to convey the clarity of the whole mechanism. The choices offered to the players are numerous and present a contentious interaction too rare in this kind of game.

In Sidibaba, players take on the role of Sidibaba and his friends who are searching for hidden treasure in a cave. One of the players (the moderator and also the Leader of the thieves) has a map of the maze and helps guide the other players by providing visions (using tiles) of what lies in front of Sidibaba and his friends, such as a corridor with branching tunnels. After discussion amongst themselves, the other players must decide which way to take, and which of their special powers to use to move along the track; if they cannot agree, then they must vote.

Unfortunately for the Sidibaba and his friends, the Leader of the thieves (the game moderator) knows that Sidibaba and his friends are in his cave and are after his treasure. Sidibaba and his friends win if they manage to get the treasure and get out of the cave before their oil lamps go out. The leader of the thieves wins if Sidibaba and his friends don't get out of the caves in time, or when he manages to catch Sidibaba and his friends when they don't have a spare oil lamp left. As a result, each camp has its own objectives and its own mode of operation.

Sidibaba is a real-time game in which players have a limited amount of time to negotiate or else they'll watch their torches go out one by one, eventually leaving them lost in the dark.

Sidibaba was originally designed as Theseus, with the players trying to outwit the Minotaur in its maze.

From Queen Games website:

The whole of Egypt is in uproar – Akhnaton, who has just acceded to the throne, wants to ban the old deity Amon from the temples of the land. Aton is to be worshiped as the new God.

But the priests of the land are not willing to give up their temples without resistance so the 4 largest temples are fiercely disputed.

The players are adversaries and fight out this battle of the Gods between them. Both have the same starting position, but who will be able to make better use of his abilities and help his God to victory?

Online Play

pbemgames.com

In 506, Sun Tzu marched up the Hwai River where he was assaulted by Ch'u armies under the command of King Shao. Sun Tzu and his Wu soldiers were outnumbered and King Shao's armies held the high ground. Sun Tzu feigned retreat and tricked King Shao into spreading out his forces, ready to pursue. With the Ch'u scattered, Sun Tzu crushed their forces in piecemeal fashion at the battle of Bai Ju, routing the Ch'u back to their capital of Ying. King Shao fled Ying seeking refuge and asylum across the borders while Sun Tzu remained the master of strategy and tactics.

In Sun Tzu, a.k.a. Dynasties, players take on the role of Sun Tzu or King Shao, leading these two opposing armies in an attempt to unify China through the deployment of their armies and forces rather than by brute force. Each turn players play cards to specific provinces, then reveal them individually by province. Armies are added or removed from the province depending on who played the higher valued card or who played a special card. Some cards can only be used once, so playing the card at the correct time is critical to a winning strategy. The game has a feel of "tug-of-war" as the scoring marker starts in the middle of the scoring scale and the players attempt to move the marker to their side of the track. The game ends after nine rounds or if either player is able to move the scoring marker to the last space on his side of the scoring track.

Cyclades: Titans, the second expansion for Cyclades, includes a new game board with large islands on which ground attacks can be carried out as well as the Titans of Greek legend, who can conduct attacks without the help of Ares.