Dice

Helvetia: a country in evolution, divided between the surrounding Empires who claimed taxes and allegiance. Primitiva was the first to wake up and decide to fight to obtain independence. The other regions followed their example: Luserna, Zugriga, Berena, Friburga, etc. However, between year 1 of unification and the day of the nation, several centuries went by with alternating periods of war and diplomatic peace, troubled and bloody times which you will discover in Unita!

Unita features 64 dice but not an iota of luck! You can be the men of Primitiva, the Nuns of Friburga, the Engineers of GermanLand or the Frogs of the Hexagone, but no matter your role, forge ahead on the warpath, lead your army in the mad rush to get to the Magic Gate, and put an end to all these afflictions. Move forward on the path of the war with your army compound of six-sided dice. Every time you contact an opposing army, a fight takes place, with the least hardy losing a point of strength. When your army reaches the magic gate, the army disappears, and the total of its points of strength (its dice) becomes your points of victory.

In Ancient Terrible Things, a pulp horror adventure game for 2-4 players, you play the role of an intrepid adventurer, exploring a dark jungle river. Each turn you must travel to a Fateful Location, face an Ominous Encounter, and attempt to unlock its Ancient Secrets. If you succeed (using a combination of dice, tokens and cards), you add the Secrets to your score; if you fail, you unleash a Terrible Thing, which counts against your score at the end of the game. The object of the game is to be the player with the most Ancient Secrets when the game ends at the Unspeakable Event.

Game play involves rolling dice to achieve combinations: runs, pairs, three or more of a kind, and single die showing a particular number or higher. Dice combos are used to overcome Encounter cards that are worth points at the end of the game and to acquire resource tokens: Focus, Courage, Treasure and Feat.

Focus tokens are used to re-roll individual Focus dice.
Courage tokens are spent to overcome an Encounter, before rolling your dice.
Treasure tokens are spent on Swag cards from the Trading Post,which give you a permanent game effect.
Feat tokens are spent to play Feat cards from your hand, which allow for one-shot effects.

Madeira is an island officially discovered early in the 15th century by Portuguese seafarers. Madeira, the Portuguese word for wood, refers to the dense forest that covered its wild, fertile landscape. This, and its strategic position far into the Atlantic Ocean made the island one of the most significant Portuguese discoveries. Madeira served as a “laboratory” for what would become the Portuguese Empire.

Wheat plantations were the first means for survival on the island. After that, when D. Henrique decided to increase the economy of the Empire, sugar became the core business of Madeira. Once sugar started coming from other places in the world, such as Africa and Brazil, profits from sugar were no longer enough, and production of the very famous Madeira wine became the most important economic product of the island.

Players try to adapt themselves to these constraints, working to find better fields for farming the right goods and for obtaining precious wood, essential for erecting new structures in the cities and for building ships. In turn, the ships are crucial for trading in foreign markets, as well as for taking part in new expeditions to discover other countries.
Madeira has been established just as it was in the original administrative division of the island under 3 captaincies (Funchal, Machico, and Porto Santo), where the ultimate goal is to develop the Island, gaining the most prestige under and for the Portuguese Crown.

The Crown of Portugal has a series of requests regarding expeditions, urbanization, opening trade routes, increasing wealth, and controlling the guilds on the islands. Three times during the game, the players gain prestige for fulfilling certain requests by the Crown. At two other times, the Crown requests that the islands change the focus of their agriculture due to the changes in the world.

Players must carefully choose the correct timing to show their achievements. Too early and you don’t gain as much prestige, too late and you risk someone else stealing the best opportunities. Will you have what it takes to excel in all of these endeavors?
Beware, wheat may become scarce, money is never enough, the population is hungry, and the shadow of piracy looms large….

The two players select their lineups from imaginary players or actual players by converting their stats to the game's parameters. (This is easily done from mlb.com on the net.)

The Defensive team is the manager and catcher, selecting pitch types (Fast Ball, Off Speed, Pitch out, etc. )to get batters out.

Offensive managers and batters must then select a type of offense/ball in play strategy (Steal, Bunt, Hit and Run, Long Ball, etc.)The defensive team commits first with a "Pitch" card. The offensive team then orally calls its strategy. The results of the two choices are found by cross indexing them on a result matrix table. This is classic matrix game theory where one player is trying to minimize his opponent's results while maximizing his own.

Players can decide on the size of ballpark before the game.
There are rules for series play in order to give proper rest to pitchers. The game even has injury possibilities.

Great baseball action.

In Kingsburg, players are Lords sent from the King to administer frontier territories.

The game takes place over five years, a total of 20 turns. In every year, there are 3 production seasons for collecting resources, building structures, and training troops. Every fourth turn is the winter, in which all the players must fight an invading army. Each player must face the invaders, so this is not a cooperative game.

The resources to build structures and train troops are collected by influencing the advisers in the King's Council. Players place their influence dice on members of the Council. The player with the lowest influence dice sum will be the first one to choose where to spend his/her influence; this acts as a way of balancing poor dice rolling. Even with a very unlucky roll, a clever player can still come out from the Council with a good number of resources and/or soldiers.

Each adviser on the King's Council will award different resources or allocate soldiers, victory points, and other advantages to the player who was able to influence him/her for the current turn.

At the end of five years, the player who best developed his assigned territory and most pleased the King through the Council is the winner.

Many alternate strategies are possible to win: will you go for the military way, disregarding economic and prestige buildings, or will you aim to complete the big Cathedral to please the King? Will you use the Merchant's Guild to gain more influence in the Council, or will you go for balanced development?

Expanded by:

Kingsburg: To Forge a Realm