City Building

La Città

Set in the Italian countryside, this game features various city-states vying for population. Each player is given two cities to start with, and is charged with expanding the different aspects of the cities to attract larger populations.

Players build farms to feed their people, quarries to finance their expansions, marketplaces to allow growth in their cities, and bathhouses to keep their people clean and healthy. Additionally, structures can be built that give the city influence in one of three categories. Superiority in one of these categories will cause population to shift from other nearby cities when the Voice of the People is decided at the end of each turn.

At the end of six turns, the player with the most victory points, which are determined from well-rounded cities, well-fed populations, and overall size of population, will be the winner.

Note: The correct pronunciation is like "Cheetah", but with the accent on the last syllable: "La Chee-TAH".

Saint Petersburg (2nd Edition)

In Saint Petersburg, you'll be buying different types of cards: workers, buildings, aristocrats, trading cards, and the new market cards. In every phase, a new type of card will be available for purchase. You'll start with workers, who are good at bringing in rubles. The new market (yellow) cards bring in new resources. Having the majorities in these resources from round to round will earn you additional victory points. This battle for the lead enhances the game experience and expands the tactical and strategic possibilities of the players. In the next phase, buildings can be acquired, mostly granting victory points. Aristocrats provide a mix of victory points and rubles, and also lead to a large end-game point bonus that can't be ignored.

Trading cards allow already purchased cards to be improved. These phases will repeat until one of the card decks runs out. At this point, the final victory points are counted, and the winner is declared.

For this new edition of Saint Petersburg, we've kept the well-known and loved basic game, but also added an additional game phase. This will allow us to fully integrate the fifth player into the game. The new market phase will introduce a new mechanic providing additional victory points and rubles. The purple action cards from the banquet expansion will also have matching cards for the market phase. And, of course, for lovers of the old version, it will still be possible to play the game by the original rules.

Catan: Portable Edition

Settlers of Catan Travel Edition is, as the name says, a Travel Edition of The Settlers of Catan.
The rules of the game are the same, but there are some changes between the two editions:

No Expansions: In the Travel Edition it is not possible to add any expansions to the regular game, so it is a 3 or 4 players game only.
Pre-determined Desert location: The hex containing the Desert is always in the middle of the board.
Pre-determined numbers: The numbers for production are in fixed locations on the board. That is a natural follow up to the previous item.
Pre-determined port location: Although the type of port at a given location may vary, the port sites themselves are in fixed locations. So the numbers for production, where a port exists, are always the same, and there is never a port near the Desert.
Snap in bits: The roads, villages and cities are all snapped into the board during game play, so it is difficult to mess with the board. The Robber, however, sits freely on the board, and, as you need somewhere to throw the dice, you may prefer a table upon which to play the Travel Edition (although the box top or box insert could be used as a dice tray).

Belongs to the Catan Series.

Cyclades

In this latest collaboration between Bruno Cathala and Ludovic Maublanc, players must buy the favor of the gods in their race to be the first player to build two cities in the Ancient Greek island group known as the Cyclades.

Victory requires respect for all the gods - players cannot afford to sacrifice to only one god, but must pay homage to each of five gods in turn. Each turn, the players bid for the favors of the gods, as only one player can have the favor of each god per turn - and each player is also limited to the favor of a single god per turn.

Ares allows the movement of player armies and the building of Fortresses.
Poseidon allows players to move their navies and build Ports.
Zeus allows his followers to hire priests and build temples.
Athena provides her worshipers with philosophers and universities.
Apollo increases the income of his worshipers.

Blueprints

In Blueprints, players are architects who must use different colored dice to build three different structures from blueprints, with the dice providing different advantages to you. In the game, each round progresses like this:

Discover your blueprint.
Each turn, choose a die and place it in your building.
Reveal your building, tally your points, then discover who wins the awards and prizes.

After three rounds, players tally their awards and prizes to see who wins. Who will be the best architect?