Worker Placement

In the worker placement game Fields of Arle, set in the German region of East Frisia, players develop an estate and expand their territory by cutting peat and building dikes.

The game lasts nine half-years with alternating summer and winter seasons, and each season allows or denies specific player actions. Different and detailed manufacturing processes allow a player to create goods needed to expand her estate. In addition, trades with adjoining municipalities can help a player gain the needed resources or goods for building and expanding.

Dungeon Lords: Festival Season is a big expansion that includes lots of Dungeon Lording goodness.

The game is still played over two years, but now each year has five rounds instead of four: winter, spring, summer, autumn and festival season. More time to build your dungeon, but also more time for adventurers to gather a larger party. There are new monsters, rooms, and traps to prepare your dungeon for the battle, but also new nasty spells for the adventurers and sneaky bards who encourage them to perform so-called "heroic" deeds – not to mention two paladins for each year, now ready to punish up to two evil players.

Would you like to push other players toward evil instead of moving yourself toward good when visiting the city? What about making an investment instead of traditional gold digging? Or what about repairing conquered tunnels or rooms instead of digging new ones? Only eight actions are still available to you, but each season one of those actions is replaced by an alternate set of spaces that offer new and intriquing options.

And did we mention that it has recently become fashionable for Dungeon Lords to have their own personal pets?

Dungeon Lords: Festival Season includes the mini expansion Dungeon Lords: The New Paladins.

In Dungeon Lords, you are an evil dungeonlord who is trying to build the best dungeon out there. You hire monsters, build rooms, buy traps and defeat the do-gooders who wish to bring you down.

From the publisher's webpage:

Have you ever ventured with party of heroes to conquer dungeons, gain pride, experiences and of course rich treasure? And has it ever occurred to you how hard it actually is to build and manage such underground complex filled with corridors and creatures? No? Well now you can try. Put yourself in role of the master of underground, summon your servants, dig complex of tunnels and rooms, set traps, hire creatures and try to stop filthy heroes from conquering and plundering your precious creation. We can guarantee you will look on dark corners, lairs and their inhabitant from completely different perspective!

Each turn, players use a hand of cards to choose where to place their worker. Actions vary from mining gold, hiring monsters, buying traps etc. Each action has three spots available - with each spot having different effects (e.g. mining gold lets you mine more gold in each spot).
When using the cards, two cards will become locked and will not be able to be used next turn.

There are 4 turns to place actions for each game "year" and two game years in a whole game.
Each turn is identified as a "season". Each season, players will get to see the heroes and events to come in the following season. Thus allowing them to prepare.

At the end of each season (after the first), heroes will be allocated to each player according to their level of evil. Heroes range from mighty heroes to sneaky thieves. Each hero has their own power for which the player needs to prepare for.
Finally, at the end of each year, the heroes will travel down into the dungeon to fight.

Scoring in the game is based upon what you have built, the monsters you have hired and the heroes you have captured.

Life in the village is hard – but life here also allows the inhabitants to grow and prosper as they please. One villager might want to become a friar. Another might feel ambitious and strive for a career in public office. A third one might want to seek his luck in distant lands.

Each player will take the reins of a family and have them find fame and glory in many different ways. There is one thing you must not forget, however: Time will not stop for anyone and with time people will vanish. Those who will find themselves immortalized in the village chronicles will bring honor to their family and be one step closer to victory.

Village is a game full of tactical challenges. A smart and unique new action mechanism is responsible for keeping turns short and yet still tactically rich and full of difficult decisions. Also unique is the way this game deals with the delicate subject of death; as a natural and perpetual part of life in the village, thoughts of death will keep you focused on smart time-management.

Paraphrased from Opinionated Gamer's review:

Each player’s turn consists of taking a cube and then taking the action of the area they just took the cube from. The board has multiple different zones with specific attributes, a market, a travel zone, a crafting zone, a church, and a council house. Many of these offer multiple options, so even if you take a cube from the crafting area, you can get an ox, a horse, a cart, a plow, a scroll, or convert wheat to gold. Each zone is seeded with cubes of four colors plus black cubes which serve as curses, there are lots of turns per round. Some areas offer short-term scoring, others offer long-term scoring, and still others offer only end-game scoring. The round ends when there are no cubes at any location. The game ends when either the village chronicle or the anonymous graveyard is full.

Do you have what it takes to be a deep space colonist? An alien frontier awaits the brave and daring! This new planet will be harsh, but if you have the skills to manage your resources, build a fleet, research alien life, and settle colonies, the world can be yours.

Alien Frontiers is a game of resource management and planetary development for two to four players. During the game you will utilize orbital facilities and alien technology to build colony domes in strategic locations to control the newly discovered world.

The game board shows the planet, its moon, the stations in orbit around the planet, and the solar system’s star. The dice you are given at the start of the game represent the space ships in your fleet. You will assign these ships to the orbital facilities in order to earn resources, expand your fleet, and colonize the planet.

As the game progresses, you will place your colony tokens on the planet to represent the amount of control you have over each territory. Those territories exert influence over specific orbital facilities and, if you control a territory, you are able to utilize that sway to your advantage.

The planet was once the home of an alien race and they left behind a wondrous artifact in orbit. Using your fleet to explore the artifact, you will discover amazing alien technologies that you can use to advance your cause.

Winning the game will require careful consideration as you assign your fleet, integrate the alien technology and territory influences into your expansion plans, and block your opponents from building colonies of their own. Do you have what it takes to conquer an alien frontier?

Roll and place your dice to gain advantages over your opponent and block them out of useful areas of the board. Use Alien Tech cards to manipulate your dice rolls and territory bonuses to break the rules. Steal resources, overtake territories, and do whatever it takes to get your colonies on the map first! Don't dream it'll be easy, though, because the other players will be trying to do the same thing.