Auction / Bidding

In Colosseum each player is a Roman impresario - producing great spectacles in his or her arena in the hopes of attracting the most spectators. Players earn wealth and glory for each event run, using it to create ever more ambitious events. They will need to improve their arena, find the best performers, lure the Emperor and his nobles, and manage assets for long-term success to be granted the title of Grand Impresario, with tales of your extraordinary spectacles acclaimed throughout the empire.

As commanded by the Emperor, the greatest celebration in Roman history has continued unabated for 99 days. All of Rome has borne witness to the grandest spectacles the empire has ever seen— all to commemorate the opening of the Amphitheatrum Flavium, the Colosseum.

Tens of thousands have flocked to the city to experience the sight of a hundred gladiators in battle...rare and exotic animals prowling the arena floor...and to hear and see the greatest musicians and entertainers from throughout the empire. But these events have only been a prelude to today — the closing finale! As a master impresario you have prepared for this moment your entire life. Titus himself has taken his seat in the Emperor’s Loge. At the drop of his hand, the final spectacle will begin. Your moment in the sun has come...

Bruxelles 1893 is a worker placement game with elements of bidding and majority control. Each player is an architect of the late 19th century and is trying to achieve, through various actions, an architectural work in the Art Nouveau style. The most successful building yields the most points. Each player can also create works of art to increase his score.

The action board is modular, with not every player having access to each action each turn. Some actions cost money – acquiring high-quality materials, building a level of your personal house, finding a patron, creating a work of art, selling that art for money and prestige – while other actions are free but can potentially cause you to lose one of your workers; these latter actions include acquiring low-quality materials, activating your patrons, visiting the stock exchange, and taking one of the actions with a cost. Once everyone has passed on taking more actions, the round ends and players have an art exhibition during which they can sell works. After this, players receive prestige points or bonus cards based on the symbols they've placed their workers next to on the action board.

After five rounds, the game ends and players score bonus points based on their architect level, their bonus cards, how well they've completed their work, and their money on hand. The player with the most points wins.

Everyone knows of the pyramids on the Nile - eternal monuments of a powerful and beautiful culture, that can still take our breath away. The pharaohs choose their sites, build their pyramids, and thank Amun Re and the other Gods for their bounty.

Each player wants, as pharaoh, to build the most pyramids. To accomplish this, he must first acquire a province, where he can trade and farm. With his profits, he can buy new provinces and building stones to erect pyramids. For all his actions, the player must make clever use of his power cards, and always offer appropriate sacrifices to Amun Re. Players must always keep their eyes on the goal of the building of the eternal pyramids or risk falling behind in points.

Watson & Holmes is a game of deduction set within the magnificent works of Arthur Conan Doyle. Two to seven aspiring detectives step into the shoes of Doctor Watson, working alongside the detective Sherlock Holmes to try to solve a series of so far unpublished cases directly extracted from Doctor John H. Watson's diaries. Those who accept the challenge relive the adventures of the crime-solving duo, visiting each of the locations where the inquiries were made. Following the trail, each clue brings players closer to solving the case.

The objective of the game is to immerse yourself in the Victorian world depicted in each story. Visit the right places, decipher the clues, and above all find the path that leads you to solve the mystery before anybody else. Victory goes to the player who accurately uses the deductive reasoning so famously and ingeniously implemented by the hero of 221B Baker Street.

The game consists of a series of separate cases, each of which raises a number of questions that each player tries to solve before anyone else. To do this, once the case and the questions have been read aloud, players proceed to visit the locations where the clues are located. Each location cannot be accessed by more than one player at any one time, so if two or more players want to go to the same place, the player who travels there the fastest (i.e., he who uses the largest number of Carriage Tokens) gets the clue, forcing the others to go to a different location. Once every player has a destination, they proceed to read in secret the clue that was discovered at that location. They can discreetly take any notes they deem appropriate. Once this is done, the cards are returned to their place so that others can read them in later turns.

This procedure is repeated during each turn until one player believes he has found the solutions to the case; at that time, he must go to 221B Baker Street to check if his answers are correct. If all the answers are correct, the player wins; if they are wrong, he will have lost and retires from the game, and the game continues.

Each detective will also have the invaluable assistance of a number of Sherlock Holmes' allies, above all, the good Dr Watson and of course of the detective himself.

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Watson & Holmes es un juego de deducción basado en la admirable obra de Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Cada uno de los dos a siete jugadores adoptará el papel del Dr. John Watson y acompañará a Sherlock Holmes en la investigación de una serie de casos inéditos hasta ahora, intentando resolver cada uno de ellos antes de que el gran detective le brinde la solución correcta. Para ello, cada jugador deberá sumergirse en la Inglaterra victoriana e ir recopilando, en distintas localizaciones, las pistas extraídas de los diarios del propio Dr. Watson, con el fin de encajarlas correctamente por medio de la lógica deductiva.

Y, todo esto, sin demorarse por el camino, pues solo aquél que resuelva el misterio antes que sus contrincantes se ganará la confianza del genio de Baker Street.

El juego se compone de una serie de casos independientes, cada uno de los cuáles plantea una serie de interrogantes que cada jugador tratará de resolver antes que los demás.
Para ello, una vez se lean el caso y las preguntas en voz alta, los jugadores procederán a visitar las localizaciones donde las pistas se encuentran. Cada localización no puede ser visitada por más de un jugador, de manera que, en caso de que dos o más quieran dirigirse a la misma, el jugador que más corra (utilizando un mayor número de fichas de Carruaje) obtendrá la pista correspondiente, debiendo los demás dirigirse a otras localizaciones.
Una vez cada jugador obtenga un destino, todos procederán a leer en secreto la pista aparejada a la localización correspondiente, pudiendo tomar discretamente las anotaciones que estimen pertinentes. Hecho esto, se devolverán las cartas de pista a su lugar para que los demás puedan leerla en rondas posteriores.
Este procedimiento se repetirá cada ronda, hasta que un jugador crea haber hallado la solución al caso: en ese momento, habrá de dirigirse al 221B para comprobar si sus respuestas son acertadas.
En caso de ser todas correctas, habrá ganado. En caso de error, habrá perdido y se retirará de la partida.
Cada detective contará, además, con la inestimable ayuda de una serie de aliados de Sherlock Holmes, así como con la del propio detective y, sobre todo, la del buen Dr. Watson.

Princes of the Renaissance is set in Renaissance Italy. Each player takes on the role of one of the minor Condottiere princes, such as the Gonzagas or d'Estes. Then there are the big five major cities: Venice, Milan, Florence, Rome, and Naples. These are not controlled by individual players, but players will gain 'interests' in them as the game progresses. Each city has six tiles, most of which represent a famous character such as Lucrezia Borgia or Lorenzo Medici. Each tile has its own special properties that are linked to the character on the tile. Thus Cesare Borgia will help you to become more treacherous, while a Venetian merchant will increase your income. These tiles are also worth victory points, depending on the status of the city at the end of the game.

A city's status will change as a result of war. When two cities fight, they will each need a Condottiere to fight for them. Players bid, using influence points, to decide who will represent each city. The outcome of the war will depend on a little luck and the size of each player's army. Each player also gets paid for fighting, no matter what the outcome of the war is. Thus players can turn influence into gold, which in turn can be used to buy more City tiles.

No game on the Italian Renaissance would be complete without an element of treachery. Players can be openly treacherous by buying Treachery tiles, which will allow them to do nasty things like steal influence, bribe troops, or knock players out of an auction. However, the game allows players to be devious in other ways, that still remain legal. Making sure that a war goes the way you want it to is an important part of the game, and it is not always the player with the best army who ends up fighting. Want a city to lose, well become Condottiere for them and make sure you have a really bad army, or use Treachery tiles to bribe your own troops not to fight. At some point some player will become the Pope, which means he can form a Holy League (i.e. join one side in a battle). Want to make sure the Pope is on the 'right' side, well why not bribe him? What players negotiate over is up to them. The game does not force negotiation and works perfectly well without it, but it remains an avenue for players to explore.