Card Game

This game adds a very interesting twist to the standard trick-taking genre. There are five suits and players must follow suit, if they can. However, the winner of the trick is the highest card played, regardless of suit. The winner gets all the cards from the trick, minus the card he won it with. That card is given to the player that played the lowest card. After all tricks have been played, the scoring begins. Players score the face-value of the cards in the suits that they only collected one or two of, and one point per card for suits with more than two. The player with the most points after a number of hands wins the game.

In Citadels, players take on new roles each round to represent characters they hire in order to help them acquire gold and erect buildings. The game ends at the close of a round in which a player erects her eighth building. Players then tally their points, and the player with the highest score wins.

Players start with a number of building cards in their hand; buildings come in five colors, with the purple buildings typically having a special ability and the other colored buildings providing a benefit when you play particular characters. At the start of each round, the player who was king the previous round discards one of the eight character cards at random, chooses one, then passes the cards to the next player, etc. until each player has secretly chosen a character. Each character has a special ability, and the usefulness of any character depends upon your situation, and that of your opponents. The characters then carry out their actions in numerical order: the assassin eliminating another character for the round, the thief stealing all gold from another character, the wizard swapping building cards with another player, the warlord optionally destroys a building in play, and so on.

On a turn, a player earns two or more gold (or draws two building cards then discards one), then optionally constructs one building (or up to three if playing the architect this round). Buildings cost gold equal to the number of symbols on them, and each building is worth a certain number of points. In addition to points from buildings, at the end of the game a player scores bonus points for having eight buildings or buildings of all five colors.

The expansion Citadels: The Dark City was initially released as a separate item, but the second edition of the game from Hans im Glück (packaged in a tin box) and the third edition from Fantasy Flight Games included this expansion. With Dark City, Citadels supports a maximum of eight players.

This game of tactics, strategy and confrontation is set in a fantasy world after the Great Depression. Each player runs a company of special agents, and their agents become teams in threes. The aim of the game is transporting the crystals and leftover artifacts (guns and transporting means!) from the mine to your own campsite and from the campsite to your home. The transport will succeed only if the team is strong and fast enough, and if you can use the transporting capacity of your men optimally. However, nobody is left alone with their problems. The competition and the robbers ensure interaction and surprises…

The basic game consists of 5 rounds. Players try gaining crystals and artifacts from the central mining project (bidding for the best bunch of crystals), then in the tactically most important phase they choose their 3-card "teams" to take actions in order of their speed. On your turn you can go to the mine to take crystals to your camp; you can attack others' camps for crystals and you can transport your crystals home or to the bank from your camp. You can also collect or use the artifacts found: they can help in increasing your transporting capacity or battle power, but if you don't use them they can mean lots of points in the end of the game. At the end of the game, whoever has the most points (from crystals and artifacts at home and points from the bank) wins.

Krysis website and rules

From the humble beginnings of civilization through the historical ages of progress, mankind has lived, fought and built together in nations. Great nations protect and provide for their own, while fighting and competing against both other nations and nature itself. Nations must provide food and stability as the population increases. They must build a productive economy. And all the while, they must amaze the world with their great achievements to build up their heritage as the greatest nations in the history of mankind!

Nations is an intense historical board game for 1-5 players that takes 40 minutes per player to play. Players control the fate of nations from their humble start in prehistoric times until the beginning of World War I. The nations constantly compete against each other and must balance immediate needs, long-term growth, threats, and opportunities.

Gameplay introduction

Players choose a Nation and a difficulty to play at, similar to the Civilization computer games series. After the growth phase 2 historical events are revealed, which the players will compete for during the round. Then players take a single small action each, in player order, as many times as they wish until all have passed. Actions are:

Buy a card
Deploy a worker
Hire an architect for a wonder
Special action provided by a card

Players each have individual boards that represent their Nation. There are many ways that players affect, compete and indirectly interact with other players. But there is no map, no units to move around, no direct attacks on other players.

When all have passed there is production, new player order is determined (every position is competed for), the historical events happen and if this is the last round of an age the books are scored. At the start of a new round most old cards are removed and new ones are put on the display.

Victory points are gained and lost during the game, and also awarded at the end of the game. The player with the most victory points is the winner.

See 'More information' below for link to rules etc.

8 track cards (from a total of 48 cards) are used to build a track.
Each player gets 5 tempo cards.
All players play tempo cards simultaneously and try to get in front of the field.
6 cars are NON-player cars - these are called "Alte Hasen" (old pros) and are controlled by a rule mechanism - the same rules are used when playing this race alone - there are always seven cars in the race (one old pro for example when 6 players are playing)
The chips are earned for good maneuvering and may be used in bluffing when attacking other cars.