Economic

You have been assigned to lead an ancient monastery and its brewery. Now it's your time to brew the best beer under God's blue sky!

The fine art of brewing beer demands your best timing. In order to get the best results of your production, you have to provide your cloister's garden with fertile resources and the right number of monks helping with the harvest — but keep your brewmaster in mind as he is ready and eager to refine each and every one of your barrels!

In Heaven & Ale, you have to overcome the harsh competition of your fellow players. There is a fine balance between upgrading your cloister's garden and harvesting the resources you need to fill your barrels. Only those who manage to keep a cool head are able to win the race for the best beer!

—description from the publisher

Players compete to build the most famous hotel/casino. Room tiles representing slot machines, lounges, restaurants, and other casino-related places appear on a central board and the players hold auctions to win the rights to have those rooms in their building, garnering them income, population, or fame. Bidding wars escalate, values fluctuate, and designers renovate until finally the hotel/casinos are put to the test to determine whose garners the most fame.

A new era is looming on the horizon. The future of Noria is right in front of you, and you must guide your flourishing trading empire into prosperity. Discover flying islands, buy ships, and build factories. Invest in prestigious projects, and secure their success by passing on secret knowledge to politicians. For even above the clouds, there is still room for improvement...

Noria is the debut title from Sophia Wagner, winner of the Spiel des Jahres fellowship in 2015. The talented, young author created an entirely new steampunk universe specifically for this game, and artists Michael Menzel and Klemens Franz have managed to bring her vision to life. At the center of the game is an innovative mechanism called "wheel building". Each player has an action wheel consisting of three rings, with slots for a number of different action discs. Over the course of the game, players try to obtain new discs and manipulate the rings of the wheel to optimize their action selection. Additionally, to ensure their investments bear fruit, they also need to bribe politicians with knowledge.

Clans of Caledonia is a mid-to-heavy economic game set in 19th-century Scotland. At this time, Scotland made the transition from an agricultural to an industrialized country that heavily relied on trade and export. In the following years, food production increased significantly to feed the population growth. Linen was increasingly substituted by the cheaper cotton and raising sheep was given high importance. More and more distilleries were founded and whisky became the premium alcoholic beverage in Europe.

Players represent historic clans with unique abilities and compete to produce, trade and export agricultural goods and of course whisky!

The game ends after five rounds. Each round consists of the three phases:

1. Players' turns
2. Production phase
3. Round scoring

1. Players take turns and do one of eight possible actions, from building, to upgrading, trading and exporting. When players run out of money, they pass and collect a passing bonus.

2. In the production phase, each player collects basic resources, refined goods and cash from their production units built on the game map. Each production unit built makes income visible on the player mat. Refined goods require the respective basic resource.

3. Players receive VPs depending on the scoring tile of the current round.

The game comes with eight different clans, a modular board with 16 configurations, eight port bonuses and eight round scoring tiles.

Through tactics and karma to wealth and fame...

In 16th century India, the powerful empire of the Great Moguls rises between the Indus and the Ganges rivers. Taking on the role of rajas and ranis – the country's influential nobles – players in Rajas of the Ganges race against each other in support of the empire by developing their estates into wealthy and magnificent provinces. Players must use their dice wisely and carefully plot where to place their workers, while never underestimating the benefits of good karma. Success will bring them great riches and fame in their quest to become legendary rulers.