Area Enclosure

Through the Desert

Each player attempts to score the most points by snaking caravan routes through the desert, trying to reach oases and blocking off sections of the desert. Many people feel that it is reminiscent of Go.

Publisher's Description
From the award-winning game designer Reiner Knizia comes a game of strategy, patience, and cool plastic camels! The desert is still treacherous, mysterious, and without mercy. But for those willing to risk the dangers of the shifting, sun-baked sands, the desert holds riches beyond compare.
In Through the Desert, two to five players each control a tribe of nomads vying for control of the desert. By establishing caravans and taking over oases, the players gain points as their tribes increase in power.
Strategy is essential in deciding how and where to build your tribe's caravans. There are multiple ways to gain points and several ways to win. Should you try to build the longest caravan? Or should you dominate the desert's oases? Don't forget to keep an eye on your opponents' caravans, or you may find your own tribe cut off from valuable water holes.

Through the Desert is part of the so called Knizia tile-laying trilogy.

Rumis

In the game Rumis, the players construct an Inca building with their stones. All players receive three-dimensional pieces made of wood, which they will try to position adjacent to their already placed pieces of their own color. All of their own pieces are of different shapes, which is a challenge to the three-dimensional imagination.

Cubic, wedge-shaped, or pyramidal volumes are different building limitations, which are imposed by the various building scenarios. Playing RUMIS, you will find that no game is similar to any previous one. Once your mind has mastered the puzzling shapes of the RUMIS pieces, you will explore the depth of tactical and strategic possibilities offered.

The rebrand by Educational Insights is labelled 1 to 4 players on the box, adding solitaire puzzles such as building a 3x3 cube with one color and building the various shapes using all the colors, following the rules of the multiplayer games while leaving no gaps in the structure.

Expanded by:

Rumis+

Conquest of the Fallen Lands

In Conquest of the Fallen Lands, you and your fellow players have a task to free a land invaded by vile hordes of monsters, and win back the treasures they plundered.

The game board is composed of hex tiles representing orc scouting parties, encampments, fortifications, dragons, etc. Each tile has a difficulty level.

Players take turns conquering these tiles by playing troop cards on them. Each conquered tile creates new opportunities to tackle tougher tiles around it, both for you and your opponents (so you have to be careful!).

Conquering a tile gets you a reward equal to its difficulty level. This money is used in the game to purchase assets and abilities, and it is also used to determine who has won this game, once it's over.

A number of magic cards introduce a variety of special effects and abilities that can greatly benefit the players.

The game includes two rule sets, Normal and Advanced, that play very differently:

The Normal game is very accessible; it is a lighter game that plays with little downtime and yet has a lot of strategic depth.
The Advanced rules lead to a more complex game that can sometimes be a bit of a brain burner. It also moves at a much slower pace.

Atlantis

More than 2,000 years ago Plato told the myth of the splendid city of Atlantis, which was sunk in the sea.

In this family game the players, by skillful placing of cards and the building of bridges, try to leave the city of Atlantis in order to reach the solid ground with as much treasures as possible.

The city of Atlantis and the solid ground are interconnected by land tiles. The players receive cards with several drawings, land tiles with those drawings, all pawns of a color as well as a bridge. In your turn you can discard a card with any drawing and go with one of your pawns to the next tile with the same card drawing. At the end of your turn, you can take the tile left behind and put it in your hand as victory points. The player puts a water tile into the gap created and draws a card from the deck the pile. So every turn there are more water tiles and it's harder to overcome the gaps, players can go forward using their bridges or paying victory points with your collected tiles. When all players have saved his three pawns safe ground there are a recount. Who reaches safe ground with most victory points wins.

Expanded by:

Atlantis - Variante Schiffe
Atlantis - Ikarus Expansion

Cathedral: Deluxe Edition

In Cathedral, each player has a set of pieces of a different color. The pieces are in the shapes of buildings, covering from one to five square units. The first player takes the single neutral Cathedral piece and places it onto the board. Players then alternate placing one of their buildings onto the board until neither player can place another building. Players capture territory by surrounding areas that are occupied by at most one opponent or neutral building. A captured piece is removed and captured territory becomes off-limits to the opponent. The player with the fewest 'square units' of buildings that can't be placed wins.