City Building

The king of Utopia has invited princes of the greatest civilizations of antiquity to come and live within the walls of his city, welcoming in doing so, the architectural wealth of their far-away cities. As the King’s Minister, your Sovereign has given you the mission to welcome and accompany these princes and princesses who will present themselves at the gates of the city. Every development added to the city made by your guests increases your prestige.

Online play

Jeux sur un Plateau (turn-based)

Components:
40 Monument Figures: 8 for each of the 5 civilizations (Mayan, Persian, Egyptian, Greek and Chinese)
4 Wonder Figures
5 Minister Figures: 1 of each color (used for Score Track)
200 Prince Tokens: 40 of each color
40 Bases
10 Privilege tokens: 8 of each color. 2 per color
40 Guest tokens: 2 per civilization for each of the four islands on the board
50 Action Cards: 10 for each civilization
5 Rule Summary Cards: 1 per player
1 Bag

Basic Game play:

Turn order (after the first player) is derived from who has the highest score on the perimtere score track yet has not had a turn. Each game turn is broken down into three phases:
Phase 1: Welcoming the Princes
Phase 2: Development of the City
Phase 3: Calculation of Prestige Points

Phase 1: Welcoming the Princes

In the first phase, Guest tokens are placed on the board near ship icons but corresponding to the symbol on each token. These guest tokens are then replaced with Prince tokens that is their own color, or of the same civilization as the chosen Guest or in any District of the island indicated by the Guest or any combination of these. This is repeated three times until all Guest tokens have been removed from the board. While this is happening, players may Build a Wonder or Take Control of a District.

At any point during their turn, if a player has one prince of each of the 5 civilizations on one island (regardless of which Districts they are in), he may immediately construct a Wonder and receives 6 Prestige Points. There may only be one Wonder per island and a player does not have to construct Wonders.

At any point during their turn, if a player possesses 3 princes of the same civilization in the same District, and that District is not already controlled by another player, he may decide to take control of the District by placing a Monument on that District. There can only be one Monument per District, and this space, once acquired, cannot be retaken. For taking control of a District the player gains Prestige Points during Phase 3: Calculation of Prestige Points. Also, if the District belongs to an island where a Wonder has been constructed, the owner of the Wonder immediately scores the number of Prestige Points indicated on the District.

Phase 2: Development of the City

Each player receives 5 Action cards and discards based on their score in the score track. The person in the lead discards two cards, the last player doesn't discard any and all other players discard one. Four types of actions are possible and occur multiple times in a player's turn:

1) Move one or two princes:

If a player decides to move two princes with a single action card, these two princes must be within the same District and make the same movement.

LAND MOVEMENT: By discarding an action card, a player may move one or two princes of that civilization to an adjacent District (Districts are separated by alleys or bridges).

SEA MOVEMENT: By discarding an action card, a player may move one or two princes of that civilization from one maritime District (showing a ship) to another maritime District. These two Districts must be in the same maritime sector or in two adjacent maritime sectors. (The division of the maritime sectors is indicated by the dotted lines originating from the 3 lighthouses of the city).

2) Add a prince:

By discarding an Action Card, a player may place a prince in a District occupied by a Monument of that civilization.

3) Remove a Prince:

If the player possesses a prince in a District occupied by a Monument of that civilization, regardless of the player who controls the District, that player may, with an Action Card of that civilization, remove the Prince from the board. For this action the player immediately gains 2 Prestige Points. Th e player’s Minister figure is moved up two places on the Score Track.

or 4) Influence the King (altering the Prestige Scale):

If the player possesses a prince in a District occupied by a Monument of that civilization, regardless of the player who controls the District, that player may, with an Action Card of that civilization, remove the Prince from the board. For this action the player immediately gains 2 Prestige Points. The player’s Minister figure is moved up two places on the Score Track.

The value of each civilization, indicated on the Prestige Scale, determines the point value of the districts controlled by each player at the end of the turn. By discarding an Action Card, a player may increase the value of a civilization by 1. The Value figure of the civilization changes places with the figure directly above it. With two Action cards, a player may reduce the value of a civilization to 1. All the other figures are moved up accordingly. At the end of their turn a player can only have a maximum of 5 Action Cards.

Phase 3: Calculation of Prestige Points

Once all the players have carried out their actions, the points for the round are calculated. Each player, in turn order, gains points for each District that they control. The value of each civilization is indicated on the Prestige Scale. The players’ Minister figures are moved up the Score Track.

If one or more players have reached at least 50 Prestige Points at the end of this phase, the game ends. The player with the most points wins.

City Hall sees players competing to become Mayor of New York City. They do this by attempting to be the most successful at both bringing people into the city as well as campaigning for the citizens' approval. Whoever best balances these two goals will win the election.

There are seven offices within City Hall. These offices deal with a different aspect of building the city or campaigning, such as the Tax Assessor, Surveyor, or Zoning Board. In a round, each player will get to activate one of these offices. However, just because you activate an office doesn't mean you will get to use it. The other players will have an opportunity to use their influence to steal control of the office away from you. Keeping it will require countering with your own influence. However, you can instead let another player control that office this round and add their influence to your own, giving you a leg up on controlling things later on.

In using these offices, players will buy land and build properties to create attractive neighborhoods that will bring the most people into the city – or they might place a factory next to an opponent's housing complex to drive people out. They will also tax their constituents to raise funds (with the option of sacrificing popularity to tax at higher rates), buy and sell influence to the Lobbyist, and campaign to increase their approval level.

At the end of the game, the citizens of the city will vote based on which player brought them in and that player's approval level. Special interest groups will also collect votes for players based on certain goals, such as Wall Street backing the player with the most money. Whichever player has the most votes on election day will become Mayor of New York and appoint his or her opponents to the Sanitation Department.

Relive the dawn of modern New York City, the historic years that made it what it is today. Build bigger and higher skyscrapers on some of Lower Manhattan's most iconic streets. Raise one of four legendary skyscrapers — the Park Row, the Singer, the Metropolitan Life, or the majestic Woolworth — and make one of them the crown jewel of your real estate empire!

In New York 1901, the players are building skyscrapers on a map of New York's Financial District. Players take location cards from a cards' display and then use 2-3 of those location cards to place tetris-shaped building tiles on the board. They first build bronze level buildings. Later in the game those buildings can be replaced by silver level and then gold level buildings.

Spyrium is set in an alternate world, an England set in a steampunk-based universe. Players build factories, needing workers to manage the production of a commodity previously unknown to us called "Spyrium". Producing Spyrium in one factory, then processing it in the next results in victory points (VPs) for that particular player. Alternatively, Spyrium can be purchased, but the material is rare and expensive, and players are constantly scraping for money.

Only those who from the beginning of the game manage to increase their regular income or their base of permanently employed workers (who can be used again and again to raise money) will be flexible enough to get their hands on the important end-of-game buildings to generate many VPs.

The circular nature of the game is flexible as each player can decide for himself when to move out of the placement phase and into the activation phase. With the two tracks in the game, those involved with delivery during the worker phase can then be used to raise money, to purchase an adjacent card, or to work on their own in an idle factory. All of these things are important, but in the end only the player who has dealt best with the lack of money, workers and Spyrium will win.

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.