Economic

Once upon a time ...
1289. To strengthen the borders of the Kingdom of France, King Philip the Fair decided to have a new castle built. For the time being, Caylus is but a humble village, but soon, workers and craftsmen will be flocking by the cartload, attracted by the great prospects. Around the building site, a city is slowly rising up.

The players embody master builders. By building the King's castle and developing the city around it, they earn prestige points and gain the King's favor. When the castle is finished, the player who has earned the most prestige wins the game. The expansion Caylus Expansion: The Jeweller was included in the 2nd Edition.

Each turn, players pay to place their workers in various buildings in the village. These buildings allow players to gather resources or money, or to build or upgrade buildings with those resources. Players can also use their resources to help build the castle itself, earning points and favors from the king, which provide larger bonuses. Building a building provides some immediate points, and potentially income throughout the game, since players receive bonuses when others use their buildings. The buildings chosen by the players have a heavy impact on the course of the game, since they determine the actions that will be available to all the players.

As new buildings are built, they stretch along a road stretching away from the castle, and not all buildings can be used every turn. Players have some control over which buildings are active by paying to influence the movement of the Provost marker. The final position of the marker is the newest building that can be used that turn. The Provost marker also helps determine the movement of the Bailiff marker, which determines the end of the game. Generally, if players are building many buildings and the Provost is generous in allowing them to be used, the game ends more quickly.

From the publisher, Face2Face Games:

I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream! Nothing says summertime like a trip to the local ice cream stand. In Ice Cream, you have the chance to demonstrate your business skills by running an ice cream stand. You have just four days to bring in as many customers as you can - will you be the prince of pistachio, the countess of chocolate... or just a drip? Start Scooping!

Players receive a random ice cream card at the start of the game and every round. The ice cream card shows a carton of ice cream in one of six flavors. It can supply an unlimited amount of that flavor during a round. During the round, players take turns drawing an ice cream scoop card, placing it on an existing ice cream cone or starting a new cone. Once all the cones are made, players take turns serving cones, collecting the scoop cards from a cone that they can supply. They must be able to supply the flavors for all the scoop cards in the cone, except possibly the flavor for a single scoop card, which they would discard. If a player cannot serve a cone, they must draw another ice cream supply card instead.

At the end of a round, a player receives a point for each scoop card collected, as well as for excess ice cream supply cards. All scoops and all ice cream cards used to supply scoops are shuffled back into the deck and a new round begins. Whoever has the most points after four rounds wins.

This game includes rules in English, French, German, Swedish, Spanish, Japanese and Korean.

In City of Iron, 2-4 players compete to build up a small nation in a world of machines, magic, and money. Become the leader of one of four rival races: the industrious humans, the toad engineers, the scholarly Cresarians, or the clever hogmen.

Corner the market on goods like machine parts or bottled demons. Research steam-age technology and recruit mercenaries to control the continent. Build sea-going schooners or cloud-cutting airships to reach faraway lands and flying islands. Your cities have limited capacity, so you’ll have to decide what to keep and what to demolish when building advanced structures.

The future of a nation is in your hands. Build unbreakable foundations for an empire or disappear into the dusty pages of history.

The Cinque Terre are five coastal villages in the Liguria region of Italy known for their beauty, culture, food, and proximity to one another. Produce carts are commonly found in each village marketplace.

In Cinque Terre, a game of strategy, players compete to sell the most valuable produce in the five villages. Players act as farmers and operate a cart in which they will harvest produce and deliver them to the five villages to sell. Additionally, players will compete for Produce Order cards, which reward Lira points for selling desirable produce in specific villages. Players track sold produce in each village using their Fulfillment Cards. The winner is the player who gains the most Lire by selling valuable produce, gaining popularity in the villages, and fulfilling Produce Orders.

Game Set Up and Play

During setup in Cinque Terre, colored dice are randomly pulled from a cloth bag and rolled to establish the prices each village will pay for select produce. Each player also begins play with a private order only she can fulfill. Five public orders are turned up that all players can work on, though only the first player to fulfill each public order will score points for it. The Most Popular Vendor cards (1 for each village) are placed face up along one side of the board. The first player to fill an entire row with produce cubes for a particular village earns the Most Popular Vendor card for that village, which provides bonus points. Four Produce cards are turned face up and each player receives 4 to begin with along with a Fulfillment board and Produce Truck in their color.

On your turn, you can perform 3 actions in any order or combination you choose:

Take a Produce Card - either a faceup card or one from the deck.
Move your Produce Cart up four spaces clockwise around the board.
Harvest produce from the location your cart is currently at. Each produce cube you wish to harvest requires a matching card. Two identical cards can be used in place of any one other card. Your cart can hold up to 4 produce cubes at a time.
Deliver produce to a village. Unload the produce cubes you wish to deliver and place them in the appropriate spaces for that village on your fulfillment card.

At the end of your turn, if you complete a public order or achieve Most Popular Vendor, take the appropriate card, scoring the points indicated. You can only complete one public order per turn. When you complete a public order, you must draw a new card from the Order Deck. If you would like to keep that card as a private order, add it to your hand and draw another and place it face up to replace the public order just completed. If you do not wish to keep the card you drew as a private order, place it face up instead. Any private orders not fultilled by game end count as negative points against you.

Players take turns taking their 3 actions until one player has completed 5 public orders (Most Popular Vendor Cards also count as public orders for determining game end), then everyone gets one more turn, including the player who caused the game to end.

The Earth is probably doomed, and rumors and speculation run rampant. Newspaper headlines from across the globe stir the populace to desperation:

"MELTING POLAR ICE CAPS" "RISING SEA LEVELS" "POLLUTION!" "OVERPOPULATION!" "NUCLEAR WINTER?" "RAVENOUS BLACK STAR GOATS?" "WILL METEORS STRIKE YOUR CHILDREN?" "DISASTER LOOMS!"

The race to escape Earth has begun! With the world's nations in decline, powerful corporations now stand as humanity's last hope. Take the reins of one such corporation, as CEO, and venture out into space. With your mission in hand; build ships, collect resources, research technologies, survive the dangers of space exploration, and, while ticket sales hold steady, preserve the human race. Remember to stay a step ahead of competing corporations, which can use slick marketing campaigns and 10 cent tchotchkes to buy the loyalty of the people you just saved from certain doom!

Players are rewarded points for sticking to the mission and building colonies, and saving colonists. As you are a CEO you are also rewarded points for filling the Corporate treasury, and building the company's value proposition by retaining rights to the best technologies. Game play is fast, and exciting. Events, and the vast variety of hazards that space has to offer will keep you on your toes, and your underlings busy on the paperwork for decades to come!

The game is played in 5 phases: Research, Fleet, Management, Revenue, and finally First Player Turn Auction. All players will complete each phase, in turn order, before proceeding to the next phase. This helps to keep the game moving, and keeps players engaged. In Research phase players can pay to research, or choose to license another players tech. In the Fleet phase players get one action with each ship they own. The Management phase is when players build new ships, special tech items, and sell technology to the public domain. The Revenue phase is when players collect their hard earned resources, including a small stipend from their home office on Earth. And finally, the turn auction phase is a bidding war for who goes first. Not that important at the start of the game, but monumental for the end.