Commodity Speculation

Clans of Caledonia is a mid-to-heavy economic game set in 19th-century Scotland. At this time, Scotland made the transition from an agricultural to an industrialized country that heavily relied on trade and export. In the following years, food production increased significantly to feed the population growth. Linen was increasingly substituted by the cheaper cotton and raising sheep was given high importance. More and more distilleries were founded and whisky became the premium alcoholic beverage in Europe.

Players represent historic clans with unique abilities and compete to produce, trade and export agricultural goods and of course whisky!

The game ends after five rounds. Each round consists of the three phases:

1. Players' turns
2. Production phase
3. Round scoring

1. Players take turns and do one of eight possible actions, from building, to upgrading, trading and exporting. When players run out of money, they pass and collect a passing bonus.

2. In the production phase, each player collects basic resources, refined goods and cash from their production units built on the game map. Each production unit built makes income visible on the player mat. Refined goods require the respective basic resource.

3. Players receive VPs depending on the scoring tile of the current round.

The game comes with eight different clans, a modular board with 16 configurations, eight port bonuses and eight round scoring tiles.

Shipwrights of the North Sea is set in the early years of the Viking Age, circa 900 AD. As Viking shipwrights, players compete to build the greatest fleet on the North Sea. Players must collect oak, wool and iron, as well as getting other craftsmen on board to help. Gold is a precious commodity, and must be spent wisely. As you would expect, the township is filled with an array of characters, bad and worse. Better hope they're on your side!

Aim of the Game

The aim of Shipwrights of the North Sea is to be the player with the most Victory Points at the game’s end. Points are gained by constructing various Ships and Buildings. The game ends after the round where 1 or more players constructs their 4th ship.

Gameplay Overview

The game is played over a series of days (rounds). Each day follows the same pattern:

Morning Phase - Planning (Each player receives 3 cards)
Afternoon Phase - Working (Players take actions and play or discard their 3 cards)
Evening Phase - Resting (Players receive Gold and Workers for the next day)

Printed Components

128 Cards - Featuring 46 unique and stunning illustrations
5 Beautifully Illustrated Player Boards
5 Player Reference Boards
1 Illustrated Rulebook
1 Pioneer Token
5 VP Markers

Wooden Components

5 Gold Ships
25 Oak
25 Wool
25 Iron
50 Workers

Letter Tycoon is the word game for 2-5 capitalists!

In the game, players take turns forming a word using a seven-card hand and a three-card community card pool, scoring money and stock rewards based on their word. Players may use their earned money to buy one letter "patent" in the word they make. In the future, whenever another player uses one of your owned letters on their turn, you earn money from the bank. Letters that are used less frequently have special abilities, increasing their power.

When enough of the alphabet has been claimed, players finish the current turn, then score all money, stock and letter patents owned. Create the most valuable empire and you can become the letter tycoon!

In Arkwright players run up to four factories in England during the late 18th Century. Your goal is to have the most valuable block of own shares. Thus, you must increase your share value and buy shares from the bank.

To run the factories, you need workers. When hiring Workers, demand is automatically created. But of course you want to replace your expensive workers (wage 2-5) by machines (1). To have more output from your factories you may employ new Workers or improve your factory to the next technical level.

You fix the price for your goods during an action round. To enhance your chances of selling goods, you improve your factories to higher levels, increase the quality and make some sales promotion. The higher these factors, the better are your chances of success - the higher the price, the lower.

Each player has an own set of "action tokens" like "build and modernize factories", "employ new workers", "improve quality" etc. On your turn you place one of those tokens on one of the free spaces in your line of the "Administration board" and pay the according administration costs, ranging from 2 to 10 (odd numbers). Some actions depend on how much you paid, i.e. you may buy more machines with one single action, when you pay more (= use a higher space, which is then blocked for the rest of the round). During the game your actions become more and more effective by new tokens, i.e. allow you to buy 3 machines in a single turn instead of 2, increase quality 2 levels instead of only 1...).

After each round of actions one kind of factories is active and you have to pay for all your workers and machines there, then sell the manufactured products. The value of your shares increases for sold products and best quality.

Goods may also be traded to the colonies by ship - provided you have a contract with the monopoly of the East Indian Company.

After four turns each of the factories has produced and the round ends. Players remove the action tokens from the administration board and reveal an event token. After 5 rounds the player with the most valuable block of shares wins. Neither being to be the one with the most shares nor being the one with the highest share value guarantees victory.

Arkwright allows you to act in different ways. Run all four factories with most possible output, set the focus on only two factories and improve them more than the others can; use shipping to colony or focus on the home market. In any way you have to react to the opponents and their strategy. Enter markets with deficit in supply or give up business where the other players start to push you out. Buy shares when they are cheap and increase the value, or first make money and buy shares later.

To get familiar with the market mechanics you may start with a 120 minutes version "Spinning Jenny", but for those who like full strategy in economic themed games, the 240 minute "Waterframe"-Rules come with more options to improve your factory and use ships.

Queen's Necklace is a game of gem-selling, influence, and intrigue at the Court. Two to four players compete in the role of Royal Jeweler to sell rare jewels to the Queen and her court.

Jeweler's loupe in hand, you must decide how best to spend your hard-earned ducats: on the acquisition of beautiful gems (diamonds, emeralds, and rubies); or to buy the favors of the various court followers. After three years of craftsmanship, the jeweler who sells the most precious gems and builds the largest fortune will receive the coveted title of King's Jeweler and a place at the Court!

Set in Paris, on the eve of the French Revolution

From the slums, where purse-snatchers and courtesans work their respective trades, to the inner salons of the Louvre, where confessors, royal astrologers, musketeers, and court favorites mingle and scheme in hushed conversations. The position of King's Jeweler has suddenly become a lot more dangerous!