Medieval

Once upon a time ...
1289. To strengthen the borders of the Kingdom of France, King Philip the Fair decided to have a new castle built. For the time being, Caylus is but a humble village, but soon, workers and craftsmen will be flocking by the cartload, attracted by the great prospects. Around the building site, a city is slowly rising up.

The players embody master builders. By building the King's castle and developing the city around it, they earn prestige points and gain the King's favor. When the castle is finished, the player who has earned the most prestige wins the game. The expansion Caylus Expansion: The Jeweller was included in the 2nd Edition.

Each turn, players pay to place their workers in various buildings in the village. These buildings allow players to gather resources or money, or to build or upgrade buildings with those resources. Players can also use their resources to help build the castle itself, earning points and favors from the king, which provide larger bonuses. Building a building provides some immediate points, and potentially income throughout the game, since players receive bonuses when others use their buildings. The buildings chosen by the players have a heavy impact on the course of the game, since they determine the actions that will be available to all the players.

As new buildings are built, they stretch along a road stretching away from the castle, and not all buildings can be used every turn. Players have some control over which buildings are active by paying to influence the movement of the Provost marker. The final position of the marker is the newest building that can be used that turn. The Provost marker also helps determine the movement of the Bailiff marker, which determines the end of the game. Generally, if players are building many buildings and the Provost is generous in allowing them to be used, the game ends more quickly.

Adds several new aspects to Settlers of Catan but the two major ones are creating knights to protect the land from invading barbarians and building city improvements that confer benefits upon that city's owner. Adds tactical complexity to the game and game length.

Belongs to the Catan Series.

The game changes the base game in three main ways:

First, there are 3 new commodities in the game, distinct from resources - paper, cloth, and coins, which can be acquired from Forest, Meadow, and Mountain spaces, respectively. Cities that would normally produce two of one of those resources instead produce 1 resource and 1 of the corresponding commodity. (To make commodities easier to obtain, each player starts the game with 1 city and 1 settlement on the board.) These commodities allow players to build city improvements that confer various advantages and eventually points.

Second, the deck of development cards is replaced by three different decks, each corresponding to one of the commodities. Building city improvements gives players a chance to draw these cards with every roll of the dice. Building more improvements will increase these chances, but cards cannot be bought directly in any way. These cards are similar to the development cards in the base game, but with a wider range of effects. (Some cards are balanced better as well - the new Resource Monopoly card, for example, can take no more than 2 of the named resource from any one player.)

Finally, players can also build knights on the island along their network of roads. These knights can be used to claim certain intersections and move the Robber (taking the place of Soldier cards), but are also used to defend the island from periodic barbarian attacks. If the island is successfully defended, the player(s) with the most knights are rewarded. If not, the player(s) with the fewest knights each have a city downgraded to a settlement.

In the mid-sixteenth century England Queen Elizabeth I rules without an heir. This leaves room for some maneuvering. Powers throughout, including you, believe that a family with great presence, wealth, and nobility might find itself in the right place at the right time.

In Noblemen, you are members of the British aristocracy. You will try to achieve influence and prestige for your family. You will grow your family's estate, earn the queen's favor, bear witness to scandalous behavior, gain influence with the church, bribe royalty, and leverage your political weight during masquerade balls; all in an effort to ensure your family's rightful place in history. After three decades, the player with the most victory points will be declared the winner.

This is a game of several races all going on at the same time. Players race the clock; you will never know exactly how many turns are remaining before the scoring round. Players will race each other – to build cheaper buildings, to be the first to build a folly, to have more prestige and therefore gain a higher noble title, and more. On your turn you can play one scandal card (if you choose) in addition to taking one action from the following possibilities:

Grow Estate – Play lands from behind your screen
Build Structure – Buy and play a building on a meadow
Bribe Royalty – Buy bribe tickets you can redeem later
Collect Taxes – Get money
Acquire Lands – Get more land from the bag of random lands
Donate to the Church – Redeem lands for victory points
Leisure Time – Get one victory point

On most of your turns, you will build your estate by playing land tiles or building structures. There are three commodities to concentrate on: lands, wealth, and prestige. Each commodity will help on your path to victory. It is for you to decide each turn which is the most needed for you to win the game.

Game description from the publisher:

Samurai Sword is a new game based on the proven Bang! mechanisms and set in feudal Japan. In this game, the familiar features of Bang! are enhanced by more dynamic and fast-paced game play, and thanks to a new scoring system – based on honor points and resilience points – there is no player elimination. Everybody gets to fight to the very end! Also, weapons and attacks are fused into a single card.

I Am Vlad: Prince Of Wallachia – an epic board game about the real life of Vlad the Impaler and about the habits, mysteries and actual facts of Wallachia and Transylvania – can be played by two, three or four players. The players begin the game from their own base and each have control over a Vlad hero as well as an Archer and a Wallachian Knight.

During the game, they try to eliminate the opposing Vlad heroes through tactical movements and attacks with their own units. Gameplay takes place on two boards: the Game Map and the Underworld Map. While the Game Map is the board on which all the interactions between players take place (including movement, battles, tactical actions, and the positioning of units and outposts), the Underworld is the area Archers and Wallachian Knights enter once they die in battle. I Am Vlad: Prince Of Wallachia has two types of battles: against enemy units and against neutral units; for both types, players use battle cards, magic cards, tokens, and an eight-sided die. Other tactical actions are made through tokens, gold coins, outposts, and so on.