Worker Placement

In Assyria, players represent tribes living in Mesopotamia, trying to develop on the desert and a limted fertile area located between two rivers that divide the board. In their quest for power (points), players build Ziggurats (permanent outposts), wells, make sacrifices to gods and try to get along with nobles of Assur - the capital of Assyria. The game is a light-weight eurogame, built around the short-term rapid point gains vs long-term investments dilemma. General flow of play is as follows:

Phase 1: Players get resources for expansion and decide on play order

In this phase, players pick cards with resources that enable expansion on the board. In general he/she who gets most food, plays last. First player expands with least food.

Phase 2: Players expand on the board to earn points or money.

Players begin to form strings and/or clusters of huts and pay for placing them with their food cards. Depending on where huts are placed, they either score points or earn camels (money).

Phase 3: Players spend money/camels on various investments.

A player either goes for one-time bonuses from the nobles of Assur, or makes long-term investments by offerings to gods and building Ziggurats.

The game lasts for three eras, made up of 2-3 of such cycles. After each era comes the flood: the board is partially cleaned up, but players also capitalize on their investments from phase 3. Each round, players also score points for huts (those built on fertile land between the two rivers bring more points) and ziggurat tiles.

In comparison to other games from Ystari's series - Assyria is lighter than Caylus, Olympos, Ys or Sylla (in terms of complexity, available choices - represented by numerous tiles, cards, icons, cards etc. that need to be remembered and can be combined during play), but heavier than Yspahan, Mykerinos or Metropolis.

Players compete to build the best resort for attracting fantasy heroes and tourists looking for fun and relaxation. The more you attract, the more likely monsters will attack!

Overview

Hire and train your workers, build and upgrade your attractions, and convince your battle weary heroes to fight just one more time so without letting too many tourists get eaten! Gain Victory points by upgrading attractions and giving Heroes the rest they need. The highest scoring player when all monsters are defeated is the winner.

Setup

Each player begins with a humble resort consisting of a Beach, a Tiki Hut and a small number of Tourists, placed at each attraction. Each player starts with their own worker Deck consisting of 7 Apprentices, 3 Street Performers, and 3 Lazy Peons.

Gameplay

Each round consists of 4 phases:

Phase I - Get to Work

Each Player draws a hand of 5 Workers from their Worker Deck.
Players simultaneously send worker cards from their hand to do work at each of their Attractions. Any missing units of work (are required by the Attraction) cause Tourists to leave before gathering resources.
Players gain the primary resource of Gold by having more tourists at each attraction, and Flair by having less tourists.

Phase II - Action: Attract, Hire & Upgrade

In order, players take one action per turn or pass. Players will be interacting with common draft areas, as well as using abilities from their own workers and attractions. Possible actions include:

Attract Tourists from the Dock (Spending Flair) - Tourists are placed at attractions, potentially increasing the Gold gained on the subsequent turn.
Attract a Hero from the Dock (Spending Flair) - Heroes start with low health, which is gained at the end of each round. Fully Rested Heroes are scored for Victory Points.
Upgrade an Attraction (Spending Gold) - Providing higher tourist capacity, better Gold payout, better abilities and more Victory Points. Upgraded attractions typically require more workers to keep them fully staffed.
Train or Hire new Workers (Spending Gold) - Upgrade your workers to provide more work, or better abilities. Training locks a worker draft pile, preventing other players from upgrading to that particular worker during the round. Training workers is a 1-for-1 exchange, keeping players' Worker Deck lean by design.
Pass - The first Player to Pass becomes the Start Player for the next round

Any time during a player's turn, he may use abilities from fully-staffed attractions, or discard worker cards to use their unique abilities.

Phase III - A Ship Arrives

The dock is refilled with new Heroes and Tourists from a center pile. While refilling, it's possible to trigger a Monster Attack!

If an Attack! card is revealed, the top Monster from the Monster Pile will choose which player it's attacking; typically by Most Tourists or Most Heroes at their resort, ties broken clockwise from the start player.
If a Hero defends against a Monster Attack, he loses 1 health. Any undefended damage causes tourists to be eaten by the Monster.
Heroes may dodge into, or out of, a Monster Attack up to one time per round.
If an attraction has no Hero or Tourists, a Monster will Damage it, potentially destroying the attraction.
A player may chose (if they have one) to throw a Lazy Peon at the monster, ending the attack and permenantly removing the Worker Card from the game.
The Dock Continues to refill, potentially triggering more Monster Attacks, until it is full.

Phase IV - Clean Up

Used and unused Workers are placed in players' discard piles.
Any fully-rested Heroes are scored - Placed to the side, each worth Victory Points at the end of the game. This Hero also removes the top Monster from the remaining Monster Deck.
Remaining Heroes gain 1 Health each.
Any Locked Worker Draft Piles and Attraction Abilities are made available for the next round.
Any unused Flair is sent back to the supply. Gold carries over to the next round.

Gameplay continues with Phase I

Game End

If at the end of the round there are no Monsters remaining, the game is over and players total Victory Points from Attractions, Scored Heroes, and 1 point for each remaining Hero at their resort. The player with the highest Victory Point total has built the most Epic Resort and is victorious!

Extra! Extra! is all about completing the front and back pages of a newspaper, with a mixture of stories of different sizes. The larger the story, the better. Players score bonus points for stories in their speciality, extra material, interviews, and headlines.

In the game, players collect news in six newsworthy subjects: home, world, business, politics, sport, and leisure. To do this, they place their reporters on the news they want to publish, but they can be outbid by other newspaper owners with bigger wallets. Copy and photo cuttings can be obtained from "the morgue"; more reporters can be hired; and news sold to raise capital.

Whoever completes his front and back pages first receives a bonus — but will that player have enough Circulation Points to win?

Updated and streamlined for a new generation of players, Agricola, the award-winning and highly acclaimed game by Uwe Rosenberg, features a revised rulebook and gameplay, along with wood pieces and components for up to four players.

The 17th Century Was Not an Easy Time to be a Farmer. A game for 1-4 players ages 12 and up; play time is 30 minutes per player. Amazing replay value. The Agricola base game is a revised edition of Uwe Rosenberg’s celebrated classic. The game is designed for 1-4 players, features improved all-wood components and a card selection from the base game as well as its expansions, revised and updated for this edition. Players begin the game with two family members and can grow their families over the course of the game. This allows them more actions but remember you have to grow more food to feed your family as it grows! Feeding your family is a special kind of challenge and players will plant grain and vegetables while supplementing their food supply with sheep, wild boar and cattle. Guide your family to wealth, health and prosperity and you will win the game.

During the medieval goings-on around Orléans, you must assemble a following of farmers, merchants, knights, monks, etc. to gain supremacy through trade, construction and science in medieval France.

In the city of Orléans and the area of the Loire, you can take trade trips to other cities to acquire coveted goods and build trading posts. You need followers and their abilities to expand your dominance by putting them to work as traders, builders, and scientists. Knights expand your scope of action and secure your mercantile expeditions. Craftsmen build trading stations and tools to facilitate work. Scholars make progress in science, and last but not least it cannot hurt to get active in monasteries since with monks on your side you are much less likely to fall prey to fate.

In Orléans, you will always want to take more actions than possible, and there are many paths to victory. The challenge is to combine all elements as best as possible with regard to your strategy.