Set collection

In Continental Express, players add train cars to their station in the hope of fulfilling objectives and maximizing the value of their secret contract. To start the game, each player chooses one of two contract cards dealt to them; these contracts require players to collect icons of a particular color or groups of like-colored icons or icons and company tokens of differing colors.

Players then take turns drafting cards from three face-up rows; the card on the end of each row costs nothing, the card in the middle costs $1, and the card closest to each of the three decks costs $2. Players start with no money, however, and the only way to get some is to draft it – but naturally that means you'll be forgoing other cards. If a player has train cars matching one of the three face-up objective cards, he can choose to discard those train cars and claim the objective – and since the objectives have the icons that satisfy contracts, you'll probably want to do that.

In addition to train cars and money, players can draft characters, taking the special action of a character when he drafts one. Actions include things like taking a train car of your choice from the card array, stealing all money from one player, and taking a company token of the color of your choice. The card decks also include two events, and those cards flush either the objective cards on display or the smaller cards that players draft.

When a player claims his fourth objective, each other player takes one more turn, then the game ends. Players tally the points scored for their contract (if any), their claimed objective cards, and any money still in hand. Whoever has the highest score wins!

In The Builders: Middle Ages, the cards represent buildings or workers. Players score points (and gain money) by completing the construction of buildings, while placing a worker on a construction site costs money. Each building has four characteristics (carpentry, masonry, architecture, tilery) rated between 0 and 5, and the workers have the same characteristics valued in the same range. To complete a construction, the player must add enough workers to cover the four characteristics of the building.

Each player starts the game with 10 ecu and an apprentice. Five workers and five buildings are placed face-up on the table, with the others set aside in separate decks. On a turn, you can take three free actions, then pay 5 ecu for each additional action. The possible actions are:

Open a site - Take one of the five buildings, place it front of you, then draw a replacement from the deck.
Recruit a worker - Take one of the five workers, place it front of you, then draw a replacement from the deck.
Assign a worker to a building - Pay the cost of the worker (as he won't work for free!), then place him on a building; when the building's needs are met, you earn the points and coins indicated, then flip the building over. The workers return to your pool of available labor.
Get money - Forgo one, two or three actions to earn 1, 3 or 6 ecu.

Some completed buildings join your labor pool as they can be used to complete other buildings. As soon as a player reaches 17 points, players finish the round so that everyone has the same number of turns, then you tally points, with each completed card having a point value and each 10 ecu being worth 1 point. Whoever has the most points wins.

As Grade Two monastery initiates in Karesansui – the cutthroat game of Zen gardening – it will be your great honor to tend the Masters' rock gardens. Each morning the Grade Ones arrive with rocks they've gathered, then haul away the rocks that you don't need anymore – but there aren't enough Grade One initiates to go around, so there will be competition for the best selection of rocks. The Grade Ones will give their new rocks to whoever gives them the fewest old rocks to haul away.

Keep in mind while creating your garden, however, that certain combinations of rocks must be avoided! Every afternoon, the Feng Shui Masters come by to check your work. You'll receive demerits for any forbidden combinations – but you'll also receive demerits for your laziness if you don't add new stones each day, so you must find a balance.

The Masters' final evaluation will come with no advance warning. The Initiate who has the fewest demerits will advance to Grade Three, while the one with the most demerits will be kicked down to Grade One, joining the others in the daily search for new rocks...

Madame Ching is a hand-management game in which 2-4 players try to put together voyages that take their ships far across the waters, possibly all the way to Hong Kong.

Each player starts the game with four cards in hand, each card having a number from 1 to 50-something; the cards have a colored bar across the top, often with a symbol in them. In the first round, each player lays down a card, drafts one of the available cards, then moves one of her ships to the right on the ocean. Players then repeat this process, possibly starting a new journey — a.k.a., new row of played cards — or adding to the journey already begun by playing a higher-valued card that what was last played. In the latter case, if the color of the card matches the color of the card previously played, the ship moves directly to the right; otherwise the ship moves both down and right.

When a player can't add to a journey any more and must start a new one, she scores that voyage, possibly claiming one of the ship tiles on display based on the length of the voyage. (Each space on the game board's ocean has values on it, and the more times you move both down and right, the higher your score overall — doing this is more difficult than you'd hope for, however, since you must consistently have cards that are both of higher value and different color.) Each ship bears some combination of gems, and those are worth points at the end of the game.

If you have certain symbols on a voyage, you can claim bonus action cards that let you steal gems or cards from opponents, take cards from the discard pile, insert cards in a voyage, and so on. Get the right symbols, and you can claim the Madame Ching vessel, ending the game. Players then tally their points for destinations, gems, and so forth, and whoever has the highest score wins.

Age of War is a quick-playing game of conquest. Fourteen cards are laid out at the start of the game, each showing one castle and the symbols required to conquer this castle, with the symbols separated into battle lines. Each castle belongs to a clan, with some clans having only a single castle and some having up to four castles.

A player starts his turn by rolling seven dice, the six sides of which show archery, cavalry, daimyo, and 1-3 infantry. He then selects a card and uses the symbols rolled to conquer exactly one of the battle lines on this card (by placing the appropriate dice on that line). If he can do this, he then rolls the remaining dice, ideally conquering another line; if he can't conquer a line, he removes one die from play, then rolls again. His turn ends when either he conquers every line on the card (in which case he claims it) or he no longer has dice available to roll.

Each card is worth a number of victory points. You can conquer cards owned by other players, but you need to conquer an additional daimyo line in the process. If a player owns all the castles of one clan, however, those castles are secure and cannot be stolen. What's more, these castles are now worth more points because you've united the clan under one ruler (you) and strengthened your hold over Japan.

When the last card is claimed, players tally their points, and whoever has the highest score wins.