Colonial Theme

In the 19th century, Alexander von Humboldt was considered the second Columbus. His first great discovery journey to and across America led him from the Amazon jungle all the way to the White House. The knowledge he gained not only opened up a new way of viewing nature and its relationships, but also made Humboldt the most famous man of his time besides Napoleon.

But the measuring of the world goes on: As venturous young scientists, players in Humboldt's Great Voyage follow Humboldt's legendary expedition route all across the American continent. Using the "mancala" principle, they travel in stages from one location to the next, collect the objects they find, and ship them to selected personalities all over the world in order to make the findings they obtained available as quickly as possible to a public hungry for knowledge. Who will succeed in making a name for themself among the renowned scientists of the 19th century and be admitted as an associate member of the Academy of Sciences?

—description from the publisher

Daring sailors explore the oceans and make a gigantic discovery: Newfoundland. The newly found land. A huge island off the coast of North America — and right away a competition among nations breaks out. As so often happens, everyone wants the biggest piece of land. In Race to the New Found Land, you must skillfully use your fleet to consistently present achievements to your royal house. Are you quick to set sail and populate the first known lands? Do you first explore new areas? Or do you trade and build your fleet first? Find out in this exciting race to Newfoundland!

In New Haven, set in colonial New England, players must develop the riches of the land and build a thriving settlement. Players place tiles strategically to a shared game board to cut timber, quarry stone, plant fields of wheat, and fill pastures with fat sheep. Players then use these resources to erect buildings on their own village boards, attempting to complete rows and columns for population points. Whoever can build the biggest and most prosperous town will end up with the biggest population and win the game!

New Haven is a tile-laying game with a drafting component. The center board is the land between the player villages from which resources will be gathered. Players select from their two hidden tiles and play on this board to generate available value in some of the four resources. Once per game, each player can get a shipment which delivers a large value of one specific resource type.

This value is then used by the player to play building tokens on his personal village board. However, he can play only building tokens already owned behind his player screen, with restrictions on how buildings must be arranged. He can elect to play a token face down for more flexibility, but this means a lower score if he successfully completes that row or column of buildings.

Once a player is done building, any value he hasn't used is available for his opponents to use to build! Thus, the goal when placing resource tiles is to generate just enough for what is needed, not the most that can possibly be created. Finally, the player drafts new building tokens for use on future turns; plan your creation and consumption of resources to perfectly match your needs, and you'll be rewarded with additional tokens.

The base game lasts ten turns, and the player who attracts the most colonists to his village by completing roads and avenues of buildings wins the game.

New Haven plays well with 2, 3, or 4 players, lasting about 15 minutes per player, with a bit more time needed for learning games. The game includes a side B game board with some twists, as well as rule variants that can make the gameplay either more forgiving or more strategic.

In Archipelago, players are Renaissance European powers competing in the exploration of a Pacific or Caribbean archipelago. They will explore territories, harvest resources, use those resources in markets both internal (for their use and that of the natives) and foreign (to sell it in Europe), build markets, harbors, cities and temples, and negotiate among themselves (and maybe betray each other) – all this to complete their secret objectives. They will also need to guess the secret objective of the other players to be able to benefit from them.

But players also need to be careful of the natives; if they make them too unhappy or if too many of them are unoccupied, they could revolt and declare independence. Then everyone will lose!

According to the author, what he's tried to create is a "German" economic worker-placement game, but without the two things he dislikes in them: the superficial theme and the lack of interaction. Indeed this game includes a very present theme and a lot of negotiation and potential backstabbing.

The game includes three sets of objectives, enabling players to choose between a short, medium and a long game. Solo play is also possible with an expansion.

From the back of the box:

"Jambo is the friendly greeting Swahili traders offered their customers in Central Africa before colonization. The players are traders in this day, competing to be the first to earn 60 gold by buying and selling tea, hide, fruits, salt, silk, and trinkets. The game is played with cards which allow players to buy and sell goods, can help you or hinder your opponent, and others which add a bit of spice to the game. Return to the dark continent where the players alternate turns with up to 5 actions each until one player reaches the goal and wins the game."

Original description from Games4You.

Players take on the role of merchants offering their wares from market stands. On a player's turn, he has five actions to choose from. Actions can be used to draw cards, play cards and activate buildup cards.

In order to sell wares, the merchants must first lay the wares out, since customers will only buy where all the wares they want are being offered. And since market space is at a premium, players have to think hard about which wares to offer.

By owning important buildup cards and properly using the assets of other village inhabitants, the merchants succeed in attracting especially many customers to their stalls, making bargain buys, and messing with their opponents' plans.

The first player to reach a set cash level through buying and selling of wares is the winner.

The game's attraction lies with the many special cards. Many different combinations are possible during the game, and each game plays out differently as a result.

Integrates with:

Asante