Country: Mexico

Mexica plots the development of the city of Tenochtitlan on an island in lake Texcoco. Players attempt to partition it into districts, place buildings, and construct canals.

Districts are formed by completely surrounding areas of the island with water and then placing a District marker. The player who founds a district scores points immediately.

Canals and Lake Texcoco act as a quick method of moving throughout the city. Players erect bridges and move from one bridge to the next, which costs 1 action point regardless of the distance. They must also erect buildings. This costs action points, the exact number being dependent upon the building's size.

In the scoring phases of the game, players score points (El Grande style) based upon their dominance in a District. In the 4 player game, players with the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd most buildings score decreasing numbers of points.

Only districts are scored in the first scoring round.

In the second scoring round at the end of the game, all land areas are scored, not just districts.

The player with the most points wins.

Mexica is the third game in the Mask Trilogy.

Game description from the publisher:

In Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar - Tribes & Prophecies, each player now becomes the leader of a particular tribe, each of which has a special ability that only that player can use. The game includes 13 tribes to provide plenty of variety, (You know that 13 is a spooky and magical number, right?)

With this expansion, the game of Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar is also influenced by three prophecies that are revealed ahead of time and fulfilled when the time is right. These prophecies give players other opportunities to score points, but they can also lose points if they don't prepare themselves for the prophecy effects. As with the tribes, the expansion includes 13 prophecies. (Woohoo, 13 again!)

This expansion also has new buildings and components that allow up to five players to compete.

Pacal, king of the Maya city Palenque, is trying to control all of the Yucatan's resources. As kings of other cities, his opponents have their own ideas. By using your influence to control resources in Kingdoms across the Yucatan, you can establish yourself as the greatest king of the Maya. Build Temples. Alter borders. Control resources.

During the game, players represent the kings who oppose Pacal and use the ten different resource cards and spend action points to expand their empires, dominate the 14 Yucatan kingdoms through their control markers, exchange the opponents control markers, reserve control markers and/or build Temples, scoring every time a Score Card is played by any player.

The player who has amassed the greatest amount of control over the Yucatan Peninsula in each of the scoring rounds is the winner.

Tzolkin: The Mayan Calendar presents a new game mechanism: dynamic worker placement. Players representing different Mayan tribes place their workers on giant connected gears, and as the gears rotate they take the workers to different action spots.

During a turn, players can either (a) place one or more workers on the lowest visible spot of the gears or (b) pick up one or more workers. When placing workers, they must pay corn, which is used as a currency in the game. When they pick up a worker, they perform certain actions depending on the position of the worker. Actions located "later" on the gears are more valuable, so it's wise to let the time work for you – but players cannot skip their turn; if they have all their workers on the gears, they have to pick some up. 

The game ends after one full revolution of the central Tzolkin gear. There are many paths to victory. Pleasing the gods by placing crystal skulls in deep caves or building many temples are just two of those many paths...