Simultaneous Action Selection

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

Game description from the publisher:

Roll for the Galaxy is a dice game of building space empires for 2-5 players. Your dice represent your populace, whom you direct to develop new technologies, settle worlds, and ship goods. The player who best manages his workers and builds the most prosperous empire wins!

This dice version of Race for the Galaxy takes players on a new journey through the Galaxy, but with the feel of the original game.

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.

The two players select their lineups from imaginary players or actual players by converting their stats to the game's parameters. (This is easily done from mlb.com on the net.)

The Defensive team is the manager and catcher, selecting pitch types (Fast Ball, Off Speed, Pitch out, etc. )to get batters out.

Offensive managers and batters must then select a type of offense/ball in play strategy (Steal, Bunt, Hit and Run, Long Ball, etc.)The defensive team commits first with a "Pitch" card. The offensive team then orally calls its strategy. The results of the two choices are found by cross indexing them on a result matrix table. This is classic matrix game theory where one player is trying to minimize his opponent's results while maximizing his own.

Players can decide on the size of ballpark before the game.
There are rules for series play in order to give proper rest to pitchers. The game even has injury possibilities.

Great baseball action.

Football Strategy boils the sport down to play calling skill. The game's structure is simple: The defensive player selects one of 10 formation cards (ranging from an 8-man line "goal line stand" to a pass prevent defense with five safeties); the offensive player calls a play (a choice of 20, plus punting). Cross-indexing the choices on a matrix shows what happened. Except for "long gains", the outcome of each play against each defense is always the same. Dice are rolled only to determine the distance of long gains and the results of kickoffs and field goal attempts.

Each play consumes a prescribed number of seconds, from 15 to 45. The players mark off the time and play four quarters, following the standard football rules.

For variety, three types of offense ("pro style", "aerial game" and "ball control") are available, each with a different, though not radically different, results matrix.

Simple though it is, the game is engrossing (see the "More Information" screen), and play generally follows realistic patterns, though the handling of punts and on-side kicks (both more effective than in real life) is questionable. Also, because the design changed little after its debut in 1959, the plays and defenses don't reflect the state of the art in contemporary professional football. This is the era of Otto Graham, not Eli Manning.

For those who are so inclined, Football Strategy lends itself to mathematical analysis. Many years ago, an entrant into the tournament at Origins went to the trouble of using game theory to generate charts showing the optimal mix of plays in different situations. He reached the finals but, in a victory for human intuition over number crunching, lost the championship game by a touchdown and a field goal.