Hand Management

Ticket to Ride Map Collection: Volume 5 – United Kingdom & Pennsylvania contains a double-sided game board with new rules for use with Ticket to Ride or Ticket to Ride: Europe with players now creating train lines in the British Isles and in Pennsylvania.

The Pennsylvania half of this map collection adds a share mechanism to the basic TtR game. Each time that a player completes a route, they claim a share of one of the companies depicted next to that route. At the end of the game, whoever holds more shares of a company than all other players receives points as a reward.

The United Kingdom half of this map collection introduces the concept of technology to TtR. At the start of the game, players can build only one- and two-train routes and only in England. By spending wild cards, players gain the ability to build routes three trains long or longer, in addition to being able to build ferries across water and build train routes in Scotland, Wales and Ireland. Players can also buy bonus cards that allow them to score extra points for taking certain actions during play. Despite the name, the map covers both the UK and the Republic of Ireland, that is, the islands of Great Britain and Ireland.

Take notice: If you find some of the Advanced Technologies feeling unbalanced, please take in consideration that Designer Alan R. Moon has himself mentioned that "The Advanced Technology Cards were not fully playtested".

Arboretum is a strategy card game for 2-4 players, aged 10 and up, that combines set collection, tile-laying and hand management while playing in about 25 minutes. Players try to have the most points at the end of the game by creating beautiful garden paths for their visitors.

The deck has 80 cards in ten different colors, with each color featuring a different species of tree; each color has cards numbered 1 through 8, and the number of colors used depends on the number of players. Players start with a hand of seven cards. On each turn, a player draws two cards (from the deck or one or more of the discard piles), lays a card on the table as part of her arboretum, then discards a card to her personal discard pile.

When the deck is exhausted, players compare the cards that remain in their hands to determine who can score each color. For each color, the player with the highest value of cards in hand of that color scores for a path of trees in her arboretum that begins and ends with that color; a path is a orthogonally adjacent chain of cards with increasing values. For each card in a path that scores, the player earns one point; if the path consists solely of trees of the color being scored, the player scores two points per card. If a player doesn't have the most value for a color, she score zero points for a path that begins and ends with that color. Whoever has the most points wins.

In Sky Tango, you trace the cycles of the moon and the sun by creating series of cards that illustrate the passing of time. Eclipses can appear and ruin your paths, but don't let them discourage you for the sun and moon will always reappear. Will your solar and lunar cycles lead you to victory?

In game terms, the deck of cards consists of numbered sun and moon cards (some of which feature animals) as well as eclipse cards. Players place the cards in stacks in ascending order, either in front of themselves or in front of others. When a stack is five cards high, it can be removed and scored for points. Stacks can be interrupted by eclipse cards, which in turn can be covered by the appropriate sun or moon cards. Playing a card with an animal allows a player to play again, which is sometimes advantageous, but sometimes not. The player who removes the most cards from play wins!

(Note: This listing covers only the expansion-only versions of Saboteur 2; for the Saboteur 2 listing that includes both the base game and the expansion, go to Saboteur (compilation editions).)

In Saboteur, each player takes on the role of a gold-digging dwarf or a saboteur who wants to hinder exploration of the gold mines — but each player knows only his own role, so the digging may or may not go as planned!

Each turn, a player either lays down a tunnel card to dig from the start card toward one of the goal cards (or potentially away, if a saboteur) or plays an action card to help or hinder someone. If the diggers manage to find the gold hidden under one of the goal cards, then the diggers share the loot found there; if the gold can't be reached before the deck runs out, the saboteurs profit instead. After three rounds, the player with the most gold wins.

The Saboteur 2 expansion adds new role cards (the boss, profiteers, geologists) to the base game, new action cards (steal gold, change your role), and new tunnel cards featuring doors, ladders and bridges. What's more, the gold seekers can now be divided into teams — blue vs. green — and only those on the team that finds the gold score anything — assuming that anyone finds the gold at all, of course...

Part of the Knizia tile-laying trilogy, Samurai is set in medieval Japan. Players compete to gain the favor of three factions: samurai, peasants, and priests, which are represented by helmet, rice paddy, and Buddha tokens scattered about the board, which features the islands of Japan. The competition is waged through the use of hexagonal tiles, each of which help curry favor of one of the three factions — or all three at once! Players can make lightning-quick strikes with horseback ronin and ships or approach their conquests more methodically. As each token (helmets, rice paddies, and Buddhas) is surrounded, it is awarded to the player who has gained the most favor with the corresponding group.

Gameplay continues until all the symbols of one type have been removed from the board or four tokens have been removed from play due to a tie for influence.

At the end of the game, players compare captured symbols of each type, competing for majorities in each of the three types. Ties are not uncommon and are broken based on the number of other, "non-majority" symbols each player has collected.