Modular Board

You are a flagship commander of one of the great galactic superpowers, navigating the fringe of the known galaxy in an effort to claim and colonize the many bountiful star systems in the region. Expansion can be achieved through rapid peaceful occupation, but you must also use the military resources at your disposal to seize enemy outposts and to protect your own. Although this is new territory for you and your competitors, a variety of alien species are native to the newly-charted sectors... earning their loyalty will go a long way towards deciding who will be the master of the Galaxy's Edge!

Your overall objective in the game is to score the most points at the game's end. Points are mainly earned for building colonies in the many star systems of varying value. Bonus points can be won by earning the loyalty of various alien species while satisfying their specific requirements.

Throughout the game you will need to support your colonization efforts with military strategy, which in turn will allow you to conquer valuable opposing colonies and thus score more points. Obtaining—and keeping—alien loyalties will be an important factor in determining a winner, and the diverse Event cards can be used to further your goals in a number of ways.

The dream of creating a new civilization in ancient Mesopotamia is within reach. Are you ready to lead your population ?

In the age of its maximum splendor, this vast and fertile geographical area was a scene of destiny for some populations, who resolved to settle in the richest and most strategically advantageous territories. Over the course of centuries these populations succeeded in developing all aspects of their civilization wisely. This was the main factor enabling them to found marvelous cities like Ur and to construct gigantic buildings like Ziggurats.
Just like Mesopotamia’s ancient Kings, each player will have to achieve the highest prestige by precisely dosing the development of Agriculture, Trade, Politics, Culture and finally War, so that thanks to these efforts the long desired construction of five Ziggurats is completed.

But, beware…
If the King becomes guilty of Greed in building them, or pursues improperly the conquest of Lands, this could ultimately lead him to defeat. The intrinsic speed of the game, the simplicity of rules, the very alluring artwork, together with the subtlety of the innumerable strategies which can be pursued, render Ur a gaming experience which you will play and play and keep playing again for a very, very long time!

Online Play

http://www.mabiweb.com/ (turn-based)

Legacy: Gears of Time is a strategic card game, mechanically rooted in its time travel theme. Players each play cards from their own hand, draw from a central draw pile, move and play technologies on a single timeline, while placing their influence cubes on existing technologies.

Legacy is played on a timeline that grows at the end of each of 4 rounds. Players take turns during a round consisting of 3 actions each. During each turn, you may travel back in time, play a technology card from your hand, influence an existing technology, or draw two cards (keeping only one).

As you travel back in time, Technologies are played from your hand by paying their discard cost. Any technologies you play generate influence for you automatically.

Having more influence than your opponents is the key to claiming rewards for a technology! At the end of each round, rewards are given for each technology and its dependencies. One Influence cube from each technology will come off at the end of each round, forming your influence pool to be used in future rounds to influence existing technologies. Keep in mind, a technology is only considered successful if all of its dependencies exist previously on the timeline.

Since there are several copies of each technology, you may be able to preempt and eliminate an existing copy by playing yours earlier in the timeline! Be sure there is room for your new technology, though; each time-frame has a capacity equal to it's distance from the present.

There are also a few rare but powerful Fate cards, each allowing you to break the rules in interesting ways. Fate cards have no discard cost and don't require an action to be played.

By strategically influencing existing technologies, adapting to your opponents actions, and carefully choosing when to go further back in time, you will find yourself victorious over your rivals! History remains intact until the Ancient Machine demands you return to the past to rebuild history, and your Legacy, once more.

Summary:

4 Rounds
4 Turns per Round
3 Actions per Turn (any mix of the following):
Travel back in Time
Play a Technology card
Influence an existing Technology
Draw two cards (keep one)

Magdar is a light game of risk management with a board that is slowly destroyed over the course of play. Players control dwarves mining mithril and gems on a randomly assembled tile-based board. After each player's turn, he or she rolls a die and chooses a tile with that number on it at one end of the board for Magdar to destroy. Any dwarves on the destroyed tile are sent back to the cavern entrance and lose anything they were mining at the time. The game ends when one row of tiles has been completely destroyed. Scoring is based upon having a good mix of mithril and gems. Other elements such as claim jumping are added in the advanced version of the game.

Dinosaurs reside on the modular hexagons of the super-continent Pangaea. Each hex can only support a certain number of animals. Not only that, the continent is splitting up with parts of the land disappearing and new lands emerging elsewhere. Players try to disperse as widely as is wise while still dominating each continent where they exist. The game ends as the meteorite strikes, ending the age of the great dinosaurs.

Players begin by placing herds of their dinosaurs on the single continent of Pangea, made from tiles of various terrain types. They then take turns, which comprise of drifting tiles, conducting optional actions, and finally resolving any of their own tribes that have been left in water or on overpopulated tiles. The first phase, the drift, involves a player moving a landscape tile of the same type as depicted on the card they play. The tile must be moved further away from the South Pole (the centre of Pangea) than it already is, must remain a part of the same continent and must be attached to a continent with that player's herds. Players have 4 action points to spend on other optional actions, including another drift, migrating herds, rescuing swimming herds and reproducing to create more herds.

Points are scored during the game whenever a new separate continent is formed as a result of a landscape tile drift, as well as at the end of the game for each continent. During the game, the player with the most herds on the new continent scores 2 points, while the player with the second-most scores 1. End-game scoring is much more significant, as the player with the most herds gains 1 point per landscape tile on the continent, and the player with the second most scores half that amount.

The final round begins when the meteor strike card is drawn, and the game then ends. After final scoring is completed, the player with the most points wins.

Premiere: Essen 2002