Area Control / Area Influence

Game description from the publisher:

Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans – The list of threats is endless and no place in the universe is ever truly safe from danger, but there is one man who has made it his mission to defend the defenseless, help the helpless, and save everyone he can: a mysterious stranger, a force of nature who has seen his own planet die, a madman with a box.

In Doctor Who: The Card Game, players act as the Doctor and his companions to defend specific locations while sending the Doctor's enemies to conquer locations your opponents are trying to protect. Each player starts the game with one location, and cards in the deck consist of attackers, defenders, locations and support cards. To start a turn, you draw two cards, pick up any cards banked from a previous turn, and take the three cards passed to you earlier by the player on your left. You play or bank cards until you have only three in hand, then pass those to the player on your right and end your turn.

Attackers target specific locations and earn points for the player wielding them if they're in play at the end of the game. Defenders try to remove attackers so that the location owner scores points for protecting the location. Support cards provide different abilities, such as enlarging your bank or providing time points (which can be used to draw additional cards). Whoever has the most points at the end of the game wins!

In the heart of the sleeping city, there lies incredible wealth. The city gates are well guarded, but no one is watching what’s under their feet. The dead of night provides just enough cover for you to tunnel your way to untold riches and plunder the city from within. But you must act quickly, because a rival thief has the same plan.

In Prowler’s Passage, you and your rival burrow into the city through a network of underground passages to grab valuable items while attempting to gain control of key districts. Steal the best items, create the longest passages, and control districts to become the premier prowler!

On your turn, you must (1) place a passage, then (2) collect the tile where you placed your passage, and (3) move control markers for the districts adjacent to that passage. The tile you collect will either be an item tile, which are scored in sets during each scoring phase, or a shovel tile, which allows you to move control markers further. You might also steal statues and/or complete achievements on your turn.

Scoring occurs twice during the game. In each scoring phase, players gain wealth in these 5 categories:

PASSAGES: Gain 2 wealth for each section in your longest continuous passage.
STATUES: Gain 1 wealth for each statue you have stolen.
ITEMS: For each set of items of the same type that you have, you gain wealth. The bigger the set, the more wealth.
DISTRICTS: For each district you control (i.e., for which the control marker is on your side of the control track), you gain that district reward.
ACHIEVEMENTS: Gain wealth for the achievements you have claimed. (Final scoring phase only.)

War Chest is an all-new bag-building war game! At the start of the game, raise your banner call (drafting) several various units into your army, which you then use to capture key points on the board. To succeed in War Chest, you must successfully manage not only your armies on the battlefield, but those that are waiting to be deployed.

Each round you draw three unit coins from your bag, then take turns using them to perform actions. Each coin shows a military unit on one side and can be used for one of several actions. The game ends when one player — or one team in the case of a four-player game — has placed all of their control markers. That player or team wins!

—description from the publisher

During the second half of the nineteenth century in what was then Ceylon, today known to all as the nation of Sri Lanka, a deadly fungus killed off all the coffee plantations on the island thus causing a serious economic crisis. The Scot James Taylor, and later many other entrepreneurs, set about substituting coffee plantations for tea plantations and hence creating what many connoisseurs today consider to be the best tea in the world.

In Ceylon, players take on the role of the pioneers who developed the Ceylon tea industry. As such, they build plantations in different districts and at different altitudes. They produce tea and try to sell it to the most important export companies. To favor this task, they must win the favor of the counselors of each district and develop the necessary technology that allows them to get ahead of their competitors.

At the end of the game, players score points for having plantations in each district, for meeting demands that have been set, for the level of technological development reached, and for the amount of money collected. In the end, the player who has the most points wins.

—description from the publisher

Gaïa is a 2-5 player game in which you create a world, instill life in it, build cities, try to satisfy their needs, and use godly powers to shape the world to your benefit.

In game terms, Gaïa involves tile placement, area control and influence with a twist of power cards. Each player has five wooden figures, and if you're the first to place all five of your figures on the board, you win!

Gaïa includes two levels of rules, with the basic rules allowing for play with those as young as eight thanks to the game's simple mechanisms and non-attacking nature. The advanced rules give you the opportunity to use godly powers — lightning, volcanoes, rain, sun, earthquakes, etc. — to shape the world after it has been created. You can even steal an opponent's cities, making it a more aggressive game with a higher level of strategy.