Ancient

During the Roman Empire, gladiator combat was the most popular form of entertainment. Fighters from all parts of the Empire were included in the shows, including female gladiators, wealthy Roman citizens and in some cases, even aristocrats. Now the time has come for you to gain the immortal glory of the Arena. Fight for your honor, for fame, and for your life!

Gladiatori is a card-driven game in which each player assumes the role of a gladiator in the Ancient Roman Empire. Action selection drives figure movement on the board. Combat cards give energy to the character actions and are used as hit points. Characters are customizable, and each player has to choose his deck composition, character skills, and participate in the auctions for Arena items. At the end, the winner will be determined by victory points – or simply by being the only one left alive!

This is not the usual fast, face-to-face combat game in which you attack opponents with a roll of dice. It contains many strategic and tactical aspects, and no luck factors (other than in the solo game). Customization of characters makes the combat always different: Your gladiator may be strong against some opponents and weak against others. Let's start finding your way to win!

Gladiatori Deluxe is a limited edition version of the game that includes eight metal miniatures — four gladiators and four animals (dog, wolf, bear, lion) — and a revised 2.0 English-language rulebook with the other languages being available online.

Thebes is a game of competitive archeology. Players are archaeologists who must travel around Europe, northern Africa, and the Middle East to acquire knowledge about five ancient civilizations -- the Greeks, the Cretans, the Egyptians, the Palestinians, and the Mesopotamians -- and then must use this knowledge to excavate historical sites in the areas of these civilizations. Through the course of the game, expositions are revealed, and an archaeologist who has treasures from the requisite civilizations may claim the prize (this is a change from the first edition's handling of exhibitions). The archaeologist who learns the most about the civilizations, claims the greatest-valued artifacts, and collects the most exhibitions will win out over his or her colleagues.

The key element to the game is that it is played out over a period of two (or three) years, and each action a player performs takes a certain amount of time -- traveling is a week between cities, gathering knowledge takes time for the level of the knowledge, and actually digging at a cultural site takes time to yield a certain number of artifact tiles. The game uses a novel mechanism to keep track of this. There is a track of 52 spaces around the outside of the board. Each time a player moves and takes an action, he or she moves their player token forward in time. Players take turns based on being the one who is furthest back in "time". So, a player can go to an excavation site and spend 10 weeks digging for artifacts, but that will also mean that the other players will likely be taking several actions in the interim while that player waits for the "time" to catch up.

In addition, the artifact tiles for each civilization are drawn from a bag that also contains dirt. When a player excavates a site, that player pulls tiles from the bag, but some may only be worthless dirt instead of valuable treasure. That dirt is then returned to the bag, making the first draw more likely to provide useful tiles.

This is the new entry for the Queen printing of Jenseits von Theben. As the new game changes several mechanisms of the original, and is available in a much wider release, the two games should be regarded as separate entities.

Re-implements:

Jenseits von Theben

In this latest collaboration between Bruno Cathala and Ludovic Maublanc, players must buy the favor of the gods in their race to be the first player to build two cities in the Ancient Greek island group known as the Cyclades.

Victory requires respect for all the gods - players cannot afford to sacrifice to only one god, but must pay homage to each of five gods in turn. Each turn, the players bid for the favors of the gods, as only one player can have the favor of each god per turn - and each player is also limited to the favor of a single god per turn.

Ares allows the movement of player armies and the building of Fortresses.
Poseidon allows players to move their navies and build Ports.
Zeus allows his followers to hire priests and build temples.
Athena provides her worshipers with philosophers and universities.
Apollo increases the income of his worshipers.

Early Italy, 600 BCE – Five city states are vying each other for superiority in the region: Roma with their Roman inhabitants, Velletri with the Volscian inhabitants, Reate with their Sabin inhabitants, Veii with their Etruscian inhabitants, and Alba Longa with their Latin inhabitans. Each player controls a city state and tries to be the first to have 16+ population and 10 monuments. This city state is destined to be a glorious power of the Ancient World!

A game of Alba Longa offers a fine combination of dice selection, city management, and worker assignment (inside your own city), and is spiced up with the ingredient of city combat (soldiers and heroes)! Inside the box are three big variants – Assisi, A Job Well Done, and Spoils of War – which can be added and combined at your will and which add even more longevity to this game!

In prototype form, under the name The Great Pyramid, this design was one of four winners of the 2009 Concours International de Créateurs de Jeux de Société, a design competition run by Centre National du Jeu in France. Here's what the jury said about the game: The Great Pyramid is rich with an astonishing number of possible strategies but manages to convey the clarity of the whole mechanism. The choices offered to the players are numerous and present a contentious interaction too rare in this kind of game.

In Sidibaba, players take on the role of Sidibaba and his friends who are searching for hidden treasure in a cave. One of the players (the moderator and also the Leader of the thieves) has a map of the maze and helps guide the other players by providing visions (using tiles) of what lies in front of Sidibaba and his friends, such as a corridor with branching tunnels. After discussion amongst themselves, the other players must decide which way to take, and which of their special powers to use to move along the track; if they cannot agree, then they must vote.

Unfortunately for the Sidibaba and his friends, the Leader of the thieves (the game moderator) knows that Sidibaba and his friends are in his cave and are after his treasure. Sidibaba and his friends win if they manage to get the treasure and get out of the cave before their oil lamps go out. The leader of the thieves wins if Sidibaba and his friends don't get out of the caves in time, or when he manages to catch Sidibaba and his friends when they don't have a spare oil lamp left. As a result, each camp has its own objectives and its own mode of operation.

Sidibaba is a real-time game in which players have a limited amount of time to negotiate or else they'll watch their torches go out one by one, eventually leaving them lost in the dark.

Sidibaba was originally designed as Theseus, with the players trying to outwit the Minotaur in its maze.