Area-Impulse

Race to Berlin is a game portraying the last months of World War II in Europe as Western Allied armies cross the borders of the Reich after forging the Rhine and the mighty Red Army prepares for its final offensive toward Berlin.

Players take on the roles of Soviet and Allied commanders, competing to capture strategic regions of Germany and ultimately claim the capital of the Third Reich. The game was first released in 2015, and this Portal Games' edition features significantly improved components, a revised rulebook, and some rule adjustments based on experience with the first edition.

Publisher's summary

Rumble Nation — first released as 天下鳴動 (Tenka Meidou) — is an area control dice game and the 2018 Tokyo Game Market Awards Grand Prize winner.

You are Warlords during the Sengoku Era, the Civil War. Aim for supremacy in Japan by contending for its 11 Castles.
Three dice determine where the soldiers are deployed. Tactic cards are your trump to control the course of the war. Wisdom and luck are your keys for dominance.
Sparks spray from one battle to another, setting the nation on fire. Keep an eye on the reinforcement chains or use them to your benefit and turn defeat into victory.
- Contend for the 11 Castles in the nation.
- Roll the dice to send out soldiers.
- Aim for continuous victory with the reinforcements.

Mid-East Peace is one of those great games where luck really doesn't play a part, once initial country selection is made. The game is set during the pressure cooker situation of the early 90's and the tension of the game certainly reflects this. Players out-maneuver and out-bluff one another so as to gain the riches of the region, while making sure they spend enough of the "oil/money" to ensure the safety of their state. The tension is kept up by secret deployment of forces and the continual angst of balancing resource spending with the saving necessary to come off the winner. It is, usually, the richest player, the one who has probably spent least on 'defense' throughout the game that will come off the victor. But, the twist is that the game can end in war or peace, and there are different victory conditions depending on which of the two outcomes it ends in. A very hard balance to maintain.

In Helios, players are high priests in a distant world of the sun god AHAU, and the power of the sun drives everything in the game as players try to build temples, expand cities, and make their civilization flourish.

Development can succeed, though, only if you've secured a supply of the limited raw materials available, and the more that you've built of your temple, the more expensive the remaining parts will be. Glass manastones are the game's currency, and with them you can acquire people, increase the number of points you'll score, and more.

The first expansion for Twilight Imperium (Third Edition) features four new races that are unseen in previous editions, more balanced Strategy cards, more belligerent Objective cards, several new surprises for neutral planets, two more sets of plastic units, rules (with more than a dozen new optional variants), and enough additional systems for a fourth ring around Mecatol Rex. Now its 3-8 players. If you played TI3 and had some ideas for potential improvements, they are probably incorporated in Shattered Empire.