Ancient

In Pyramidion, each player plays an Egyptian foreman in charge of a resource supply for the gigantic construction site of the Cheops pyramid. On your turn, you activate sites and play cards in order to gain the biggest influence on these sites. Each foreman will use his contacts among merchants, negotiators and torturers (!) to supply boats located in major cities of Egypt. These boats will set sail in the direction of Giza only when full capacity is reached with the resources they require. The foreman who most effectively furnishes the construction site – the one who first obtains ten victory points – will be rewarded by the Pharaoh himself.

Pyramidion is both a strategic and tactical game, with some luck involved and a lot of player interaction. Are you going to thwart others – or focus on your own success?

Pagoda is a two-player only game in which players compete to build multiple layers of up to six pagodas. Each player has five face-up and two face-down colored cards, and they use these cards to build colored pillars and levels of the pagoda. Once a pillar has been placed on the ground floor, all other pillars placed must be of the same color. When someone places the fourth pillar on a level, he places a floor tile of the pillars' color on top, with this tile have colored dots to indicate which color of pillar can be placed on top.

Players score points each time they place a pillar, with a pillar on ground level being worth one point, a pillar on the second floor two points, and so on. When a player places a floor tile, he gains one point as well as two actions associated with that color on his individual action board. The fourth floor tile is placed upside-down to show only one colored dot. Two pillars can be placed on this dot, each worth five points, and once placed the pagoda is finished. After three pagodas are finished, players finish the round, then the player with the most points wins.

"Long-horned, fertile bulls and fat, milky cows are grazing on the grasslands of the neighbouring clan. War spoils pillaged from our grandfathers still hang on the walls of the enemy house. We will not suffer it any longer! It is time all the clansmen assembled to raid across the border. Let all, from the chieftain to the youngest lad seize as many of the herd as they can!"

Tàin is a game of bluff and tactics, in which you become a leader of a Celtic clan in ancient Ireland. Your task is to make your clan prosper by raiding your opponents‘ grasslands for their cattle. They do not waste their time either and send their own warriors to your pastures to steal your herds. Only by cleverly ordering your clansmen, guessing your opponents‘ moves and tricking them without letting them guess your real plans you can secure a place for yourself in the great chronicles of clan rivalry.

Game description from the publisher:

In Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar - Tribes & Prophecies, each player now becomes the leader of a particular tribe, each of which has a special ability that only that player can use. The game includes 13 tribes to provide plenty of variety, (You know that 13 is a spooky and magical number, right?)

With this expansion, the game of Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar is also influenced by three prophecies that are revealed ahead of time and fulfilled when the time is right. These prophecies give players other opportunities to score points, but they can also lose points if they don't prepare themselves for the prophecy effects. As with the tribes, the expansion includes 13 prophecies. (Woohoo, 13 again!)

This expansion also has new buildings and components that allow up to five players to compete.

In Augustus, you vie with your fellow players to complete "objective" cards for special powers and ultimately for victory points. Each card has 2-6 symbols which you must populate with legionnaire meeples in order to complete the card. These symbols are drawn one at a time from a bag, with all players gaining the benefit equally, but interestingly, the bag contains more of some symbols than others.

So the pivotal skill you'll deploy is in making your choice of which three objectives you'll start the game with (you're dealt six) — balancing potential difficulty of completion against value of the reward — and then which of five available objectives you'll add to your plate each time you complete one of your three. The game ends when someone completes seven objectives.