Economic

Neuland is a game about logistics and planning. In the beginning of the game, the land lies undeveloped, a series of blank hexes representing mountains, forests, and grasslands. Players win by building and using prestige properties that allow them to place their family's coat-of-arms onto the board -- first to place all their coats of arms wins.

To use these buildings, though, requires the player have the correct raw materials. Swords and cloth, for example, or coins and paper. Each one of these materials needs even more basic materials, such as iron ore, coal, and so on backward toward the most basic elements such as food, wood, and stone.

To cull these materials from the land, one builds buildings -- a Stonecutter's Hut, Smelter, Coin Manufactury, and so on. Once on the board, buildings can be used by any player, not just the one who built them.

A player doesn't collect these resources for safekeeping as in The Settlers of Catan or Keythedral. Instead, resources claimed via buildings must be used up either in the player's current turn or his next one. If he doesn't, the resources spoil and are removed from the board.

Essentially, the challenge of the game is one of planning logistical supply chains which will allow one to process these resources most efficiently to build the prestige properties the fastest. Since it's a perfect information game, one can also see what one's opponents are scheming, and place workers to interrupt their supply chains, possibly causing their resources to spoil and making the player start from zero again.

Neuland's most interesting innovation is perhaps its Time Track Mechanism, in which players who take less actions in a turn will have turns more frequently, and can forward-plan in order to take a long turn of nearly twenty actions instead of the ordinary maximum of ten.

Neuland was originally published by Eggert-Spiele in 2004, and republished by Z-man in 2006 with some significant rules changes. A majority of BGG users seem to strongly prefer the original Eggert-Spiele rules. Also heavily recommended is the rules re-write file available for download here on BGG, for the one that comes with the 2nd edition is nearly incomprehensible.

Description from BoardgameNews.com:

Der Markt von Alturien is a family game for 2-6 players from 10 years old, in which luck and tactics stand in a well-balanced ratio.

In the medieval marketplace of Alturien, up to six competing trade families find themselves in an inexorable fight for influence and power.

In the ware market, seven different well-heeled customers have power over the prosperity and poverty of the traders. Which of the seven will visit your trade house is up to you and your trader opponents. With the revenues you earn, you can open new trade houses or enlarge an existing trade house by building a second, third or fourth floor—all with the goal of earning yet more revenue. Pay attention, though, for one customer might visit in the safety of twilight to steal and send you into poverty. All the talk is of the dark shape, the king of the thieves, the avenger of the suppressed: Gustavo the weasel! The trader who first creates for himself great wealth and acquires three status symbols will control the market and win.

This is an improved version of the old Wolfgang Kramer game City and is the first game in the Alturien series

Here is a description of the game from Mayfair Games:

It's the 19th Century, and you have come to the lush tropical jungles of Amazonas in search of rare plants and animals. You must explore the twisting paths and waterways, leading your expedition from one village to another. Each village offers an opportunity to establish a new outpost. But beware – the Amazonas is not for the timid! Fearsome crocodiles lurk in the tepid waters of the rivers, and hungry jaguars stalk the twilight paths. Do not shy from such dangers too long, for the cost to build a new outpost increases the longer it takes you to reach each new village. Your funds are very limited, so speed is essential. Your sponsor has also sent you a secret directive. You must fulfill the demands of this special mission, or you will lose much of your newly earned fame! Can you face the dangers of an unknown jungle and earn fame and recognition? Or will another explorer surpass you on the way to glory? Find out when you enter the land of Amazonas!

The theme of this game is economic and cultural development in the Netherlands in the 17th century.

The game is played on a large game board of the Netherlands, divided into provinces. In addition, there are boxes for the East and the West Indies, and track round the edge of the board with the majority of spaces listing two of the ten provinces (in various combinations) that earn players varying amounts of income based on their influences in those provinces, or income spaces that earn players a flat income.

The aim of the players is to be the first player to earn 33 victory points, which are acquired through earning money to extend influence in the provinces, patronize artists, invest in businesses, establish colonies in the Indies, or obtain civic advancements. These are represented by purchasing cards from one of six decks, with each deck having a special focus. Investment cards provide cash payouts, with bigger payouts for collecting sets of different values (single cards are worth less than three-card sets). Artists provide a potentially large source of victory points, but require multiple turns of patronage (i.e., cash) before they pay out. Colonization cards provide ships, captains, and cannons to outfit expeditions to establish colonies which earn victory points and access to the higher-paying spice investment card deck. Civics cards can provide governorships in the provinces (victory points and income), civic improvements (victory points), a special action that allows the holder to alter the normal rules for advancing a token on the board track. There are cards that work with some of the other decks as well, in the civics deck (e.g., investments, expedition components, etc).

In the bustling market of Cairo, traders build their stalls and try to entice customers with attractive goods, with each customer bringing money that the trader can then use to expand that stall or establish new stalls.

To set up Kairo, players first take turns placing three colored stalls (out of six) on the game board. They also take three stall cards (which highlight one or more sections on the game board) and one coin of each of the six colors. Five colored customers start at particular locations on the game board, with the sixth customer placed to the side. On a turn, a player either:

Draws two cards (face-up or face-down stall cards or market barker cards).
Moves a customer to a stall of that customer's color.
Plays a stall card; then builds a new stall, expands an existing stall, or moves a blocked-off stall.

The active player can choose to move any customer, and that customer will move to the closest stall (measured on orthogonal paths) of the same color. Additionally, this player can choose to play one or more market barker cards to "call" the customer past one or more stalls, presumably to bring the customer to that player's own stall. If the active player owns the visited stall, he receives one coin of the stall's color for each tile in that stall; if not, the active player receives a one coin commission while the owner receives the normal payout. This customer is then swapped with the customer off the board.

When building a new stall, a player cannot place it in the same region as another stall of the same color. Regulations! Restaurants must be placed in an area designated for them, while all other stalls must go in the market area. When expanding an existing stall, the player must pay one coin of the same color for each tile in the enlarged stall. By expanding, you can earn more coins when customers visit, create longer paths to opponents' stalls, reserve area in which to expand further, and (most importantly) earn victory points. You score VPs each time you expand, and if your stall is the largest (or tied for the largest) of that color, you'll take one or two medals that provide a VP bonus.

Once the expansions run low in one or two colors, players can only build or expand. Once everyone has finished building, the game ends, with players earning VPs for the medals and money they have in hand. The player with the most points wins.