Simultaneous Action Selection

GiftTRAP won a special Spiel des Jahres prize in 2009, and was voted "Best Party Game of the Year" by Games Magazine in 2008, proving that while buying real gifts can be traumatic, giving virtual gifts to find out how people really feel is heaps of fun. Be prepared for some surprises! It's a conversation starter that will get you and your friends talking about things that matter. Unlike other party games you don't need skills in drawing, acting or trivia, so it works well when you have a crowd of mixed ages/skills. GiftTRAP is played over a series of rounds. Each round has the following steps: DEAL - deal random gifts from one of the 5 packs of gifts. Packs have similar monetary value. SHOP - think about how to match these gifts to the players. GIVE - give one of these gifts to each player (using gift tokens). GET - choose which gifts you want yourself (using get tokens: Ok, Good, Great & No Way). REVEAL - show people what you wanted and see what you were given by each player. SCORE - the giver and the receiver score for each gift (the giver gets GIVING points, the receiver gets GETTING points). The first to reach the end of both the Giving and Getting tracks is the winner.

Description of the game play from co-designer Michail Antonow:

The board shows the Caribbean in the 18th century. Six pirate ships lie in wait on sea, ready to pillage the rich ports or to rob the booty from other ships.

The sea is divided into spaces. Each player is in possession of three safe havens, marked in his color on the board. If only two or three players are playing, the safe havens in the vacant color(s) are treated as normal sea spaces.

The aim of each player is to lure the pirates to deliver treasure crates to one of their own safe havens, and not to the safe havens of the opponents.

The pirate ships do not belong to any player. That is why the players must bribe the pirates each time they want a pirate ship to act on their behalf. And what is the greatest temptation for a Caribbean pirate? Rum of course, barrels full of rum!

In every round the players try anew their best to bribe the pirates. The player who has offered the most rum to a ship gets to move that ship as many spaces as the number of barrels shown on the bribing chip. An active ship can (a) rob a crate from a port or from another ship, (b) reach a crate over to another ship, (c) swap crates with another ship, and/or (d) deliver a crate into a safe haven.

The aim is to have the most doubloons at the end of the game.

Players take on the roles of Grandes in medieval Spain. The king's power is flagging, and these powerful lords are vying for control of the various regions. To that end, you draft caballeros (knights in the form of colored cubes) into your court and subsequently move them onto the board to help seize control of regions. After every third round, the regions are scored, and after the ninth round, the player with the most points is the winner.

In each of the nine rounds, you select one of your 13 power cards to determine turn order as well as the number of caballeros you get to move from the provinces (general supply) into your court (personal supply).

A turn then consists of selecting one of five action cards which allow variations to the rules and additional scoring opportunities in addition to determining how many caballeros to move from your court to one or more of the regions on the board (or into the castillo - a secretive tower). Normally, you may only place your caballeros into regions adjacent to the one containing the king pawn. The one hard and fast rule in El Grande is that nothing may move into or out of the king's region. One of the five action cards that is always available each round allows you to move the king to a new region. The other four action cards varying from round to round.

The goal is to have a caballero majority in as many regions (and the castillo) as possible during a scoring round. Following the scoring of the castillo, you place any cubes you had stashed there into the region you had secretly indicated on your region dial. Each region is then scored individually according to a table printed in that region. Two-point bonuses are awarded for having sole majority in the region containing your Grande (large cube) and in the region containing the king.

Contains these expansions:

El Grande: Grandissimo
El Grande: Grossinquisitor und Kolonien
El Grande: König & Intrigant
El Grande: König & Intrigant – Unverkäufliche Sonderkarten
El Grande: König & Intrigant – Player's Edition (partialy, 3 of 11 cards)

Allows to play expansions:

Grandissimo
Intrigue & the King
Grand Inquisitor & the Colonies
The King & the Colonies (mixed Intrigue & the King and Grand Inquisitor & the Colonies)

8 track cards (from a total of 48 cards) are used to build a track.
Each player gets 5 tempo cards.
All players play tempo cards simultaneously and try to get in front of the field.
6 cars are NON-player cars - these are called "Alte Hasen" (old pros) and are controlled by a rule mechanism - the same rules are used when playing this race alone - there are always seven cars in the race (one old pro for example when 6 players are playing)
The chips are earned for good maneuvering and may be used in bluffing when attacking other cars.

Players represent various office holders in the ruling Junta. Depending upon his office and the various cards he holds, each player has a certain number of votes. These are important as they must first elect El Presidente and then vote on the budget that he proposes. Here's where it can get sticky. El Presidente draws cards face down from the money deck (which varies in denomination from $1 to $3) and must propose a budget for the year, distributing the money as he sees fit amongst the various offices. Of course, loyalty to him is usually rewarded, while those pesky "thorns in his side" are usually cut off completely. The beauty of all this, though, is that El Presidente can — and most always does — keep some of the loot for himself. And since no one but he knows the value of what he drew, no one knows how much he's keeping. Suspicion is always keen.

Players may attempt to assassinate the other players by guessing where they will be from among five locations. Players who successfully assassinate another player take that player's money, as the only safe money is the money that has been deposited in a Swiss bank account, and the only way to get to the bank is to survive the assassination round.

If the players are unhappy, and there is an excuse, they can call for a coup, where the opposition players seek to take control of a majority of the power centers. Rebel players control the forces of the role which they were assigned (e.g. army, navy, air force), and players loyal to El Presidente do the same, seeking to control the strongholds until the rebellion is quelled.

The goal is to amass the greatest wealth secreted away in your Swiss bank account.