Renaissance

On Sunday September 2, 1666, Thomas Farriner, the baker to the King, forgot to put out the hearth fire in his shop. This simple act of negligence created a towering and lethal inferno which would eventually destroy 13,000 houses and leave nearly 90 percent of the city's population destitute and homeless...

You are no simple bystander to this tragedy; the future of London lies in your hands.

In The Great Fire of London 1666, the players are men of wealth and standing who own property around London. The Lord Mayor has failed to act and it is down to these mighty men to lead trained bands of militia to fight the fire and save the city. To do so they must decide which districts to sacrifice to the fire and which to protect. Remember, these same men own much of London, thus such choices will shape their own future and greatly affect their wealth and standing.

Use the trained bands to suppress the fire and explosives to destroy blocks of housing to create fire breaks and prevent its spread. Do you choose to protect your own homes, turning a blind eye and allowing the fire to consume your rival's property? Or will you stand as the hero of London, and choose to save as much of the city as possible?

Victory can belong to the player with the most property left after the ashes settle, but stopping the fire and saving London's most famous landmarks may win a more altruistic land owner the hearts and minds of the people.

Save the city, or watch it burn.

Bruges in the 15th century – culture and commerce flourish and make the Belgian Hanseatic city into one of the wealthiest cities in Europe.

In Bruges (a.k.a. Brugge or Brügge depending on the country in which you live), players assume the role of merchants who must maintain their relationships with those in power in the city while competing against one another for influence, power and status. Dramatic events cast their shadows over the city, with players needing to worry about threats to their prosperity from more than just their opponents...

The game includes 165 character cards, with each card having one of five colors. On a turn, a player chooses one of his cards and performs an action, with six different actions being available: Take workers, take money, mitigate a threat, build a canal, build a house or hire the character depicted on the card. In principle, every card can be used for every action – but the color of the card determines in which areas the actions can be used or the strength of the chosen action, e.g., blue cards provide blue workers and red cards help mitigate red threats. All of the action is geared toward the gathering of prestige, with the most prestigious merchant winning in the end.

Second expansion for Thurn and Taxis - actually, 2 expansions in one.

"All roads lead to Rome"

1st expansion, "Audience": The players (clerics) try to arrive at the right time to be received in audience by the pope.

2nd expansion, "Offices of Honor": The postal staff still helps you - but now you can draw additional city cards, get victory points or even set a new house.

Expands:

Thurn and Taxis

Contents:

1 game board with various roads to Rome
5 carriages in the colors of the countries (beige – Baiern; orange – Böhmen/Salzburg; etc.)
26 office tiles
20 audience tiles with 5 different clerymen in the four player colors
4 summary tiles
12 victory point chips

From http://riograndegames.com/games.html?id=189

The postal carriages continue to roll. Now that players have learned to master the postal routes in the south, they naturally turn their eyes toward the north, looking for more routes to establish to add to their ever-growing postal networks. The new routes run between Holland and Sachsen - between Preußen and the free cities. The players build new postal stations in order to provide fast service for important letters to the many new customers in the north.
Hard-working postal carriers add horses to their carriages to enable them to travel farther and more safely, which will help the separated Preußen provinces to achieve power and glory.

With this expansion, we offer new ways for players to enjoy Thurn and Taxis. The new board opens up new areas for postal routes. To support the new board, we include new bonus tiles and new city cards (with horses on their backs to support the new rules). We hope players will enjoy these changes and the strategic opportunities they offer.

Expands:

Thurn and Taxis

Contents:

1 game board
4 carriage cards
69 city cards (3 each of 23 cities) the backs of the city cards have 1, 2, or 3 horses. The number is also shown on both sides of the cards as horseshoes.
39 Bonus tiles (5 x 8 distance, 4 x 7 distance, 3 x 6 distance, 2 x 5 distance, 4 x all provinces, 4 x free cities, 4 x Preussen, 3 x Mecklenburg/Hannover, 3 x Holland/Belgien, 3 x Thüringen/Sachsen, 3x Hessen/Baiern, 1 x game end)
1 rider figure
1 game rules

In Thurn & Taxis, players build post office routes across Bavaria and the regions around, collecting bonus points in various ways. The board shows a map of all the cities, with roads leading from each one to some of its neighbors. There are various colored regions around the board, most with two or three cities, and a large region with all the Bavarian cities in the center.

Players build postal routes from city to city to city so that each city is adjacent to the next city on the route and there is a road connecting these two cities. Each route must consist of at least three cities. Players may only build one route at a time. Routes are represented by melded city cards arranged in the order of the route.

Players start with a supply of 20 post offices in their color, a carriage house card and a player aid card. The board is populated with bonus tiles, carriage cards and city cards. On a turn a player will draw a card from a display of six, face up, city cards (or the top of the face down deck) and meld one card, either starting a new route or adding to the current one. If after adding to the route, the length of the route is at least three cities, the player may declare it finished and score it. The player may, depending on the length of the route and which cities are in the route, place post offices in the cities, collect bonus tiles, and acquire a higher value carriage. Optionally, the player may receive support from one postal official in the form of: drawing a second card, melding a second card, refreshing the six city card display, or acquiring a higher value carriage than the route length when finishing a route. Once a route is scored the city cards of that route are discarded, and the player begins a new route on his next turn.

When a player exhausts his supply of post offices or acquires a value 7 carriage the end of the game is triggered. Play continues until the player who is last in turn order finishes his turn, and the game ends. Players score points for their highest valued carriage and bonus tiles, and lose points for unplaced post offices. The player with the most points wins.

The fact that you *must* add at least one city to your route each turn or lose the whole route gives the game an enjoyable planning element.