Civilization

This entry covers the 2002 release of Sid Meier´s Civilization: The Boardgame by Eagle Games. This game is unrelated to the similarly named 2010 FFG game Sid Meier's Civilization: The Board Game.

A boardgame version of the award-winning PC strategy game. Create a civilization to stand the test of time! The game begins in 4000 BC where the players found a pair of villages of a fledgling people.

Each player’s civilization :

Explores the world around them, discovering resources and the native people that defend them.
Expands by sending settlers out to create new cities.
Researches new technologies to gain advantages over the other players.
Builds unique “Wonders of the World”.
Increases the size of their cities (4 sizes from village to metropolis) to increase production.
Builds military units to defend what’s theirs, and to conquer what’s not.

Features:

2 sets of rules (standard, and advanced) allow anyone to play the game.
784 plastic pieces featuring 22 different, professionally sculpted playing pieces that represent cities, settlers, armies, navies, artillery, and air units from 4 different eras.
Over 100 full color Technology and Wonder cards.
A giant 46” x 36” gameboard featuring the artwork of Paul Niemeyer.

This game has been reimplemented in 2007 as Civilization CHR ("open source" project)

Space Empires is a game in the finest tradition of 4X space games - eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate. Each player builds up a space empire and uses it to conquer the other players. Exploration on the mounted map is simple for players (and dangerous for their ships), revealing different space terrain that affects movement and combat.
Space Empires was developed to keep a rich theme without overcomplicated rules. The game includes carriers and fighters, mines, cloaking, a very large technology tree, fifteen ship classes, merchant shipping, colonization, mining, terraforming, bases, shipyards, black holes, warp points, and non-player aliens. Yet the rules are short and intuitive: The basic rules are 8 pages long and increase to 11 pages in length when the advanced rules are included.

This is an expansion for The Settlers of Catan. Players can build shipping lanes, which are very similar to roads. Additionally, the game comes with many different water-hex-heavy variant setups. The American version (Mayfair) should only be used with the American base game, instead of the German one (Kosmos), because of matching components and for the same reason, the Kosmos German version should only be used with the German base game. Additionally, several different editions exist; 4th edition is the most recent. Editions should only be used with same edition, otherwise the purchase of adapter kit is required.

Part of the Catan Series.

This game requires The Settlers of Catan. Ideally, using the same publisher and edition of the game.

In The Settlers of Catan, players try to be the dominant force on the island of Catan by building settlements, cities, and roads. On each turn dice are rolled to determine what resources the island produces. Players collect these resources (cards) - wood, grain, brick, sheep, or stone - to build up their civilizations to get to 10 victory points and win the game.

Setup includes randomly placing large hexagonal tiles (each showing a resource or the desert) in a honeycomb shape and surrounding them with water tiles, some of which contain ports of exchange. Number disks, which will correspond to die rolls (two 6-sided dice are used), are placed on each resource tile. Each player is given two settlements (think, houses) and roads (sticks) which are, in turn, placed on intersections and borders of the resource tiles. Players collect a hand of resource cards based on which hex tiles their last-placed house is adjacent to. A robber pawn is placed on the desert tile.

A turn consists of possibly playing a development card, rolling the dice, everyone (perhaps) collecting resource cards based on the roll and position of houses (or upgraded cities - think, hotels) unless a 7 is rolled, turning in resource cards (if possible and desired) for improvements, trading cards at a port, and trading resource cards with other players. If a 7 is rolled, the active player moves the robber to a new hex tile and steals resource cards from other players who have built structures adjacent to that tile.

Points are accumulated by building settlements and cities, having the longest road and the largest army (from some of the development cards), and gathering certain development cards that simply award victory points. When a player has gathered 10 points (some of which may be held in secret), he announces his total and claims the win.

The Settlers of Catan has won multiple awards and is one of the most popular games in recent history due to its amazing ability to appeal to experienced gamers as well as those new to the hobby.

Die Siedler von Catan was originally published by Kosmos and has gone through multiple editions. It was licensed by Mayfair and has undergone at least 4 editions as The Settlers of Catan. It has also been re-published in a travel edition by Kosmos and in yet another edition for Japan/Asia, Settlers of Catan: Rockman Edition.

The Settlers of Catan is the original game in the Catan Series.

In City of Iron, 2-4 players compete to build up a small nation in a world of machines, magic, and money. Become the leader of one of four rival races: the industrious humans, the toad engineers, the scholarly Cresarians, or the clever hogmen.

Corner the market on goods like machine parts or bottled demons. Research steam-age technology and recruit mercenaries to control the continent. Build sea-going schooners or cloud-cutting airships to reach faraway lands and flying islands. Your cities have limited capacity, so you’ll have to decide what to keep and what to demolish when building advanced structures.

The future of a nation is in your hands. Build unbreakable foundations for an empire or disappear into the dusty pages of history.