Economic

Gaia Project is a new game in the line of Terra Mystica. As in the original Terra Mystica, fourteen different factions live on seven different kinds of planets, and each faction is bound to their own home planets, so to develop and grow, they must terraform neighboring planets into their home environments in competition with the other groups. In addition, Gaia planets can be used by all factions for colonization, and Transdimensional planets can be changed into Gaia planets.

All factions can improve their skills in six different areas of development — Terraforming, Navigation, Artificial Intelligence, Gaiaforming, Economy, Research — leading to advanced technology and special bonuses. To do all of that, each group has special skills and abilities.

The playing area is made of ten sectors, allowing a variable set-up and thus an even bigger replay value than its predecessor Terra Mystica. A two-player game is hosted on seven sectors.

—description from the publisher

Die Säulen der Erde / The Pillars of the Earth is based on the bestselling novel by Ken Follett and the 2006 game in the Kosmos line of literature-based games.

At the beginning of the 13th century, construction of the greatest and most beautiful cathedral in England begins. Players are builders who try to contribute the most to this cathedral's construction and, in so doing, score the most victory points. Gameplay roughly consists of using workers to produce raw materials, and then using craftsmen to convert the materials into victory points. Workers may also be used to produce gold, the currency of the game. Players are also given three master builders each turn, each of which can do a variety of tasks, including recruiting more workers, buying or selling goods, or just obtaining victory points. Getting early choices with a master builder costs gold, as does purchasing better craftsmen. Players must strike a balance between earning gold to fund their purchases and earning victory points.

Expanded by:

The Pillars of the Earth Expansion Set (which include the Expansion Cards in some editions)
The Pillars of the Earth: Expansion Cards (which are included in the Expansion Set in some editions)

In Automania, you run a car factory, trying to produce the most popular cars in the market. To achieve this, you buy tiles to upgrade and customize your factory, and hire specialist employees to help you.

Central to the game are the factory boards: Each player has a factory with three assembly lines, and each assembly line produces one type of car. You can put machine tiles along your assembly lines to change the specifications of your cars. However, your three assembly lines intersect, so each machine tile placed might affect more than one type of car — which means you have to think carefully about where you put those machines.

When a car is produced, it must be sold in one of two markets, and the better the specifications of the car is in line with the demand in the chosen market, the more popular the car will be. The most popular cars reap the highest profits, earning money or prestige — which is what you need to win this game.

Designer Eric Lang, known for his "dudes on a map" games, describes The Godfather: Corleone's Empire — a standalone big box board game with high-quality miniatures — as "thugs on a map".

In short, the game is a streamlined, confrontational worker placement game filled with murder and intrigue. You play as competing mafia families who are vying for economic control of the organized crime networks of New York City, deploying your thugs, your don, your wife, and your heir on the board to shake down businesses and engage in area-control turf wars.

Money, rackets, contracts, and special advantages (such as the union boss) are represented by cards in your hand, and your hand size is limited, with you choosing which extra cards to pay tribute to the don at the end of each of the five rounds. At the end of the game, though, cash is all that matters, and whoever has the most money wins.

The game also features drive-by shootings in which enemy tokens are removed from the board and placed face-down in the river.

From the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 to the beginning of WWI in 1914, there was an amazing development of bigger, faster, and more modern steamships. Whereas in 1870 there are still many clippers around and the good old paddle steamer "Scotia" sails the North Atlantic, sea trade is dominated by the end of this era by huge vessels like "Mauretania"(Cunard), "Olympic"(White Star), or "Imperator"(Hapag).

In Transatlantic, 2 to 4 players lead their own shipping companies, which transport freight, mail, and passengers around the globe. They purchase new steamships from the market, each of them historical with their individual technical data (tons, knots etc.). Competition is tough, especially in the North Atlantic where winning the "Blue Riband" is not only a matter of prestige, but may also be a profitable investment. In order to let a shipping company flourish, purchasing the best steamships is not enough, if one fails to acquire enough coal bunkers and trade posts as well.

The game is driven by cards; on each turn, play one card and execute the related action. As new cards enter the game, build your individual deck of cards with new or improved possibilities. The task is to manage your merchant fleet most efficiently. It's a maritime strategy game with low luck, lots of interactive choices, and tough decisions.