Medieval

Free England from the tyranny of King John! You head the revolt and launch your troops against the castles. The famed knight Ivanhoë will join your forces to liberate the land from tyranny. In this family game, each player aims to conquer the largest number of castles, installing his arms in each. But watch out for the other players --they could make your blazon end up in the oubliettes!

There are three levels of rules: children, family, adults.

Summary
From the game box: "While King Richard the Lionhearted is away leading the Third Crusade greedy nobles are trying to usurp his throne back in England. His authority diminishes as one castle after another falls. But you, hero, are faithful to King Richard. As a noble knight you retake these castles in order to preserve his legacy. Of course, you are not alone in this quest. Other Chevaliers vie for these same honors. To whom will Richard owe the greatest debt when he returns?"

Game consists of:

66 "soldier" cards (16 knights, 16 foot soldiers, 16 crossbowmen, 16 archers, Ivanhoe and Locksley)
5 castle boards and one Dungeon board
6 chips with the names of the castles
6 Lord boards
30 banners bearing the coats of arms of all the Lords (6 sets of 5 banners)
6 "crown" chips (5 Dukes and 1 King)

In Barony, players are ambitious barons trying to extend their dominion over the land! Who will succeed and become the new king?

At the beginning of the game, players create the board at random with nine tiles per player; each tile is comprised of three hexagons, with each hexagon being one of five landscape types: forest, plains, field, mountain, lake. Players then each place three cities on the game board, with a knight in each city. They then take turns in clockwise order, with each player taking exactly one action from the six possible actions:

Recruitment: Add two knights to a city, or three knights if the city is adjacent to a lake.
Movement: Move one or two of your knights one space each. A knight can't enter a lake (blub), a mountain with an opposing pawn, or any space with an opponent's city or stronghold or two knights of the same opposing color. If you move a second knight into a space with an opposing pawn or village, remove those tokens and take one resource from the village owner.
Construction: Remove one or more of your knights from the game board and replace each with a village or stronghold, gaining one resource token matching the landscape under the structure.
New City: Replace one of your villages with a city and earn 10 victory points (VPs).
Expedition: Remove two knights from your reserve, placing one back in the box out of play and the other on any empty space on the edge of the game board.
Noble Title: Discard at least 15 resource points, then upgrade your title: baron to viscount, then count, marquis and finally duke.

Once any player has gained the title of duke, finish the round, then tally the VPs, with players scoring for resources still in their possession, their rank in the game, and the number of cities they built. Whoever has the most VPs wins.

Carcassonne: the Castle takes place in the city of Carcassone itself. The theme is development of the city within the "castle walls", which might be more appropriately called the city walls, but Carcassonne: The City was apparently already in development.

It is not an expansion, but a stand-alone tile-placement game with the Carcassonne mechanics adapted specially for two players. The goal is to lead the race around the castle wall, which is also the scoring track for the game. There are bonus items on the wall for the first player to reach that point.

Play is very similar to Carcassonne but all the tiles must be played within the walls, which often constrains the choices. The followers used for scoring are heralds (on paths), knights (on towers), squires (on houses) and merchants (on courtyards which are more valuable if they have a market). And, the player with the largest "keep" (largest house completed during the game) scores points for the largest contiguous undeveloped area (unplayed tile spaces) at the end of the game. The bonus tiles collected from the walls add twists to the scoring, such as doubling one of a particular scoring structure or scoring one uncompleted structure.

From the publisher:

The knights set off from their castles to conquer the surrounding land. For the wealth of the big towns and the villages belonging to them is just too tempting.

Of course, once in possession, no knight wants to lose his newly acquired properties, so this means: caution. For the other players´knights are awake to any opportunity and the newly gained land may be lost again just as quickly to a new lord.

Bring your landscape tiles and above all your knights skilfully into play, secure your properties on all sides and watch out for enemy knights at all time.

Game Summary
Each player has an identical set of tiles, arranged with B's on top and E's on bottom. Of the 4 A tiles, choose a castle and another tile for your hand; the others (from all players) form a random starting play area.

On your turn, you place 1, 2 or 3 tiles, immediately drawing a replacement after each placement. These are played one at a time, and must be orthogonally adjacent to what's already on the board. They may not extend beyond the play area (7x7, 9x9, or 10x10 for 2er, 3er, or 4er). If a placed tile has a castle, you bring 0-5 knights (discs) into play onto that castle. Then, you may move those knights in a straight line, placing a number of knights on each tile entered (including the castle) based on terrain: plains=1, forest=2, mountains=3 (lakes impassable). Max total of 4 knights/tile at end of movement; if you can't enter a hex (e.g., forest with 3 knights present), you may not move beyond it. May not skip any tiles. If other player knights are present, place yours in a stack on top.

The game ends when everyone has played all their tiles. Earn VP based on tiles controlled (knight on top of stack controls tile): castle=1VP, village=2VP, town=3VP. Most VP wins! Tie-breaker = most unused knights.

"Squires, welcome to Medieval Academy, the place where you'll be trained to become a knight. You'll have to master the arts of Jousts and Tournaments, complete dangerous Quests, and polish your Education. You'll also have to serve the king, and show that you have a sense of Charity and Gallantry. Only one of you will be knighted by King Arthur, so it's time to show what you’re capable of." —Father Advevan Nicolus Emilius, chairman of the Medieval Academy.

In Medieval Academy, a "family+" game, each player takes the role of a squire who wants to outdo the others in the different training categories to score Chivalry Points. To achieve this goal, during the six turns of the game, the players must wisely draft the cards that are the most useful to them and play them at the right time to move their discs up the training tracks.

At the end of turn VI, the squire who has the most Chivalry Points wins the game and is knighted by King Arthur!