Transportation

A Medieval game of trade and commerce, Die Händler is set in Europe, where trade wagons carry wares between six cities on the board. Essentially, players buy goods, load them onto wagons and send them for maximum profit in other cities.

The whole game looks very inviting. The medieval cities depicted on the board, together with the player crests, cardboard coins, money pouches, sticker decorated wagons and wooden commodity pieces, immediately creates the right atmosphere for the players.

There are six cities - Paris, Cologne, Brugge, Gent, Vienna and Genoa - which are interconnected by roads. Three wagons carry goods from one city to another. No-one owns the wagons or controls any of them single-handedly, and in principle a player can put commodities on any transport. There are six different commodities - salt, iron, wine, silk, cloth and food - all of limited supply.

The goal of the game is to make money by delivering goods to the towns, and use the money to buy increases in status. The game ends after a certain number of deliveries have been made and the winner is the player with the highest level of status.

Epic Railroad Building in North America

Discover a modern North American classic. Celebrate one of our most vital and enduring passions: railroads. Use your initial investment to build track. Then pick up commodities where they are grown, mined, or manufactured and deliver them to a lucrative place of demand. Complete a delivery and make the money you need to buy larger, faster trains, and expand your railroad empire. Win the game by building the most effective railroad empire!

The original and flagship of Mayfair's crayon-rails line allows players, using washable crayons, to draw their train routes over a map of North America. Players start with an initial sum of money which they use to build short lengths of track during their first couple of turns. For the rest of the game, players operate their trains over the track network drawn on the board to pick up and deliver loads to various cities, and then have the opportunity to add to their track network or improve their train. The game uses demand cards which list three demands, each of a commodity to be delivered to a specified city for a given payoff. Each player has three demand cards to provide opportunities for income.

Each turn consists of an operations phase and a building phase. During the operations phase, trains are moved to cities where commodities are picked up at no cost and moved to one of the cities on that player's demand cards. When the commodity is delivered, the player receives the payoff and trades that demand card for a new one. Event cards are mixed in the deck with the demand cards. When an event card is drawn the instructions are followed. During the building phase a player may pay to build more track or upgrade his train.

A player wins by being the first to connect his track network to six of the seven major cities on the board and acquire $250,000,000 in cash on hand.

Game description from the publisher:

In front of you lies the untouched soil of Germany. No track is cutting through its plains, no station is telling of the great industrial progress – but you are about to change that.

In Express 01, you can invest in the construction and upgrading of railway lines and build stations for different companies. When you upgrade such a station, you may reassign it to another company. Your main focus is the acquisition of shares, and as soon as shares are issued, trains can run on behalf of the companies. This way money will be distributed to the shareholders and you get new capital. So keep an eye on the other players to earn money or obstruct their opportunities.

The game ends after the round in which a certain number of Base Cards is upgraded or a certain number of decks are used up. The player who managed to gain the most capital wins.

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