Worker Placement

Age of Galaxy is a strategic 4X game that places you in control of an interstellar alliance consisting of three factions with unique powers. You can explore systems, colonize planets, research technologies, build galactic cruisers, and much more. You have many potential paths to victory based on how your factions work together and the main ideology of your alliance. The five ideologies:

Supporters of Science commit themselves to lifelong research on new technologies, convinced that knowledge is the only way forward.
Upholders of Militarism are merciless aggressors who conquer by might, regarding wars as a means to an end.
Keen adopters of Diplomacy prioritize relations between factions, acting tactfully while competing to become the head of the Congress.
Factions that value Industrialism undertake ambitious construction schemes to turn planets into highly-developed cities and industrial complexes.
As for factions that advocate Culturalism, they take pride in cultivating spiritual and cultural growth, always curious about the insights the mysterious "relics" might offer.

Faction cards can be played in multiple ways, with players either integrating them into their empire or sacrificing them for one-time benefits through agreements. More than thirty factions are included in the game.

This second edition of Age of Galaxy introduces an enhanced solo mode, new graphic design, and improved components to enrich the gameplay experience.

You are the leader of a tribe whose people explore the fabled twelve rivers flowing from a mystical lake high in the mountains. Your goal? To find the magical coloured pearls that roll down the rivers in the current. Perhaps a helpful fairy may help you on your quest! Where the rivers converge there is a village where many people and animals live in harmony. There you can make life-long friends and deliver the pearls you have collected, to be used to heal, grow, and ensure another prosperous year for all.

In each of 5 rounds of play, take turns paying camp cards (resources) to place your 3 tribe tokens into various slots along the rivers, to get the magic pearls you need. Pay more camp card resources to place higher up the rivers to pick pearls earlier. However, with clever placement and use of camp card powers, you can still get valuable pearls efficiently downstream. Use your Tribe tokens to block then collect magic pearls that flow down the 12 rivers. Collect pearls needed by villagers to ensure prosperity for the village at the bottom of the 12 Rivers.

Once all tribe tokens are placed, release the magic pearls to roll down the rivers. Then collect a pearl at each tribe token you placed, and store it on your Alpaca for now. Remaining pearls roll downstream to be blocked and picked at other tribe tokens, or end in the lake.

Along the way you will pick up helpful fairy tokens, and try to match Alpaca goals that reward you with points for collecting sets of particular pearl colours first.

To score the pearls you collect, transfer them to villagers you recruit from the village, and strive to score their bonus goals too. After 5 rounds the player with the most points wins.

—description from the publisher

Welcome to the fantastical world of Iridescia. This abandoned world, lush with rare gems has been vacant for centuries due to a cataclysmic event forcing it’s inhabitants to take to the skies. The land is now safe to return to and it’s former residents are coming home. Take on the role of one of 4 clans to explore the lands, mine gems, restore ancient relics, and find the lost Iridia Stone to ascend to the throne and re-unite the people of Iridescia!

Gems of Iridescia is a worker-placement board game in which players will push their luck as they compete to mine gems, restore ancient relics and ascend to the throne of a rich gem-filled world. Secret objectives and a variety of ways to score create different paths to victory make every expedition a unique experience.

Explore Iridescia by flipping over land tiles, revealing the gems hidden beneath them and then roll dice to mine them. Each gem color is tied to a dice value that can be manipulated to help your cause. Roll high enough, and you can claim more gems, adding them to your cargo hold providing you with a valuable resource for restoring relics and scoring royalty points!

Sell some of your hard earned Gems and visit Rumi the Travelling Merchant to purchase tools that will grant your adventurers exciting new abilities to aid in their search for Iridescia’s treasures!

Your trove of Gems can be used to restore Iridescia's ancient relics. Restoring Relics will gain you tons of Royalty Points and solidify your claim to the throne!

The generations before you have relied on harvesting the oceans. But as the 19th century ends, change and opportunity reach your fishing village in northern Norway. In Saltfjord, you must decide if you will expand your settlement with new buildings, send your boat to collect fish, engage in trade, or pioneer new technologies to make everyday life easier. How will you shape the destiny of your village?

Saltfjord is set in a Norwegian fishing village, and is loosely based on the dice drafting mechanisms from "Santa Maria", but the game has otherwise been completely redesigned and expanded with new elements.

Over three rounds, players draft dice to activate buildings in their settlement. This provides resources as well as activating actions such as sending out your fishing boat, advancing along the various technology tracks, completing trade orders, or erecting new buildings. Each player's player board shows a grid. When you draft a die, you activate all buildings in the row or column corresponding to that die. By erecting buildings in your settlement, each die can activate more buildings.

The technology tracks unlock special abilities, such as upgrading your fishing boat. And fishing is an important part of daily life in Saltfjord.

To add to the replayability, the game has lots of variable elements in the set-up, such as what special abilities and end scoring tiles are available.

—description from the publisher

A permanent base is being built in the Shackleton crater at the Moon's South Pole. You're leading one of the space agencies that are working together to expand their presence on the base, while at the same time the three major corporations sponsoring the mission are each pursuing their own agenda. In Shackleton Base: A Journey to the Moon, you will build structures on the base, while also funding projects from the corporations that provide special abilities and scoring opportunities.

At the start of the game, pick three corporations randomly from the seven available. Each corporation introduces new projects, actions, and scoring opportunities, along with their specific mechanisms. The game is played over three rounds, each divided into three phases:

• Shuttle phase: Each player drafts a shuttle tile from an open display to determine which type of astronauts and resources they can use that round, as well as the turn order for the next phase.

• Action phase: Players take turns deploying their astronauts on the moon to collect resources, build structures, or fund projects. Depending on which corporations were selected, different types of resources will be available, resources that can be used in various ways for the projects or to build structures. Each project provides ongoing abilities and scoring opportunities. Each corporation provides different ways to score points, which could be during the action phase, the maintenance phase, or at game's end.

• Maintenance phase: Deployed astronauts are assigned to work on the structures (providing a bonus to the player owning them), then players collect income and pay maintenance costs. If corporations in play have end-round effects, those effects take place.

The end of the game brings a final scoring, then the player with the most points wins.