Worker Placement

Marco Polo II: In the Service of the Khan

The journeys of Marco Polo continue in Marco Polo II: In the Service of the Khan, an epic follow-up to The Voyages of Marco Polo. After traveling to Beijing, your travels now take you back to the West in the service of the Khan, sending you to the farthest reaches of his empire in search of wealth and fame.

Marco Polo II is a standalone game based on The Voyages of Marco Polo, and you don't need the original game to play this one. This new journey will present unique challenges, with new and different actions, new scoring rules, and a new good: rare and valuable Chinese jade.

Retread old paths with renewed purpose, or find new ones as you explore farther west, continuing to build the immortal legacy of Marco Polo!

—description from the publisher

Godspeed

The Space Race was a lie.

Look, it's not that the moon landing was faked. It happened. Neil hates the conspiracy theories. The lie is that we ever wanted to go to the moon. We needed a spectacle to show the people. To justify the massive budgets. The agencies.

Neil stepped on a rock 239,000 miles from Earth. Big deal. I stepped on an exoplanet circling Ursae Majoris 18 months earlier. It's a one-way trip -- so there ain't any going home.

No ticker tape parade for me, but that's ok. I'm here for my country. See, the Russians beat us here by a few months. Japanese showed up a few weeks after us. We'll colonize this planet for America. Because there isn't a choice...

Godspeed is a mid-weight worker placement game of extra-terrestrial colonization for 2-5 players with a 60-90 minute playtime. -- From the back of the box

In Godspeed, players play as scientists from one of 5 nations: the USA, Japan, Soviet Union, the European Nations, or India. The game is played in 10 rounds, each with four phases.

High Council Phase -- This is a negotiation phase where Nations will convene to decide how they will respond to an event occurring back on Earth or on the Exoplanet. The top card is drawn from the High Council deck. Nations then decide to respond to the event by assigning the specified Team Member to the event, keeping them from use during the rest of the round. If all Nations respond then everyone gets the bonus. If not, there's a penalty for those that ignored it.
Supply Depot Phase -- This is an auction phase where Nations bid on Supply Depot cards or the first player marker. Players choose cards in the order of their bids. The player with the highest bid may take a second delivery.
Action Phase -- This is a worker placement phase. Nations place Team Members in Action Spaces to take various actions and earn prestige.
Resolution Phase -- In this phase, the Nations produce new resources and return their Team Members home.

Points -- Prestige is gained on 4 tracks (Defense, Exploration, Commerce, and Infrastructure) and your position on these tracks gains you points at the end of the game. You may also gain points by achieving Civilization Milestones (only 1 Nation may claim each Milestone), completing Lunar Season scoring cards (any number of Nations may complete these), building ancient XenoRelics, completing special objective cards, and for left over resources.

The Nation with the most victory points wins.

Formosa Tea

The sub-tropical climate and environment of Taiwan makes the island highly suitable for cultivating top quality tea. But it wasn't not until the 19th century after English businessman John Dodd discovered some amazing Oolong tea there that the Taiwanese tea business truly begin to bloom and "Formosa Tea" became world-reknowned.

In Formosa Tea, players are tea farm owners competing to harvest the best tea leaves, improve their tea processing techniques, and produce tea of the highest quality for not only the domestic market but also for the international market. With the unique worker placement and worker advancement mechanisms, along with the tea dehydration and scenting processing, players must use their workers wisely to make the best tea in the market.

A game of Formosa Tea is played in four rounds. In each round, players take turns to perform one of the five possible actions:

Send a worker to harvest tea leaves
Send a worker to a tea factory to process tea leaves
Retrieve a worker from the tea factory after tea processing is completed
Send a worker to sell tea in the domestic market
Send a worker to sell tea to international merchants.

After the end of the fourth round, the player who has the most prestige points wins!

Tournay

Game description from the publisher:

Built by the Romans during the first century in Belgian Gaul, Tournay experienced most of its growth along the Scheldt river. Unfortunately, the river also contributed to its troubles, because in 881, the Normans traversed its watery path, and thereby easily captured the city. That act of aggression stunted Tournay's prosperity. This game invites you to participate in the reconstruction of the city, in order to establish a glorious era that will last for more than seven centuries. Help your district flourish by cleverly coordinating the work of the city's three domains: military, religious, and civil. Certainly the prestige of your buildings will brighten the entire city!

Tournay is a card game from the same designing team as the 2010 release Troyes with artwork once again by Alexandre Roche. In this game, players manage a district of the city and its three classes of citizens. The cards are classified by level (I to III) and color to form nine distinct decks. Players initially have two citizens in each class that they will use each turn to carry out one of five available actions, such as drawing cards, or using the powers of their buildings.

In each player's district, the building cards save them money, make more efficient use of the decks of cards, or recruit new citizens. The character cards optimize the use of buildings if properly positioned. It's up to you to create the most effective card combinations. Finally, constructed prestige buildings will give you valuable prestige points, depending on how your district has developed. But beware: Your opponents will also benefit from every prestige building you build!

Note that an expansion is included in the base game's box, so advanced players can add still more replay value to this dynamic game!

Game Summary
There are 3 sets of cards (yellow, red, white) in 3 groups (I, II, III); also, a set of black event cards. There are always 3 face-up event cards, most of which are bad. Players start with 2 meeples in 3 colors (yellow, red, white), placed on their Plaza card.

On your turn:

First, you may play a card from hand to your display (3x3 grid) by paying the appropriate cost (some combination of coins, meeples, cards, etc). You may play a card on top of another of the same color; if played on top of a different color, discard the older card.
Then take one action:
Draw a card; move 1-3 meeples off the Plaza to draw a level I-III card; you may pay others 2 coins to use their worker(s). If you draw the event card of that deck, place a coin on each event card, then trigger all event cards once per coin.
Activate a building card by moving a meeple from your Plaza to the building card (max 1 Meeple/building); cards do a variety of things like give you coins, recruit an additional meeple, use someone else's card, etc.
Combat an event by paying the cost (usually 1 Meeple, 1 coin, +1/coin on the card; or, 2 meeples) shown; take the card as a reward. Later, when events trigger, you may play this from hand to prevent an event from affecting you.
Reactivate all workers: return all meeples to your Plaza, and remove all markers from building cards.

The game ends at the start of the Start Player's turn if 2+ players have all 9 cards in their display; OR if only 1 player has, but at least n-1 Town Crier cards have been revealed. Everyone then gets to play one final card (paying normal costs). Earn VPs for all cards in display, and for all Event cards you've combated. Most VP wins!

A Column of Fire

A Column of Fire is an adaptation of the third novel in Ken Follett's "Kingsbridge" series following The Pillars of the Earth and World Without End. (The novel is titled A Column of Fire in English, and Das Fundament der Ewigkeit ("The Foundation of Eternity") in German.)

In the game, set in Europe during the time of Elizabeth I, Catholics and Protestants compete for power and influence in England, France, Spain, and the Netherlands. In this politically unstable environment, resourceful operatives and courageous secret agents plot to secure power for their rulers. The balance of power shifts back and forth amidst foiled assassinations, successful rebellions, and futile invasions — and not infrequently, those who sympathize with the weak are expelled from the country.

The real enemies, then as now, are not the rival religions. The true battle pits those who believe in tolerance and compromise against the tyrants who would impose their ideas on everyone else — no matter what the cost. Who will best exploit the changing power conditions in Europe to win the game?