mythology

In the Ancient Greece, the poleis (city-states) thrived increasing their population and culture, occasionally waging war against each other, erecting buildings and celebrating ceremonies to get the favour of the deities abiding on Mount Olympus. The players will lead one of these city-states (like Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Thebes, Argos and others) expanding it and worshipping the various gods in order to become the hegemonic power of the Peloponnesus!

Olympus is a deterministic (i.e., non-random) strategy game, based on worker-placement, resource management and building an efficient engine to score victory points (VPs). It also features a few more aggressive options than the average game based on the same premises (but the savvy player knows how to defend against them, if he prefers to quietly develop his own position).

Each player leads a city-state that is defined by six values representing population, culture, military and productivity of the three resources (grain, venison and fish). During your turn, you send one of your three priests to worship one of the ten deities (Zeus, Hera, Demetra, Artemis, Poseidon, Athena, Aphrodite, Ares, Hephaestus or Apollo). Each opponent can now send one of his priests to celebrate the ceremony with you. After that, the deity grants his favor to whoever has sent a worshipper: the favor is larger for the leading priest (the one of the active player) and smaller for all the others (for example, Athena boosts culture by two points for the city of leading priest and by one point for the others; of course no boost is given to those who refused to send a priest to worship her). That deity cannot be chosen again in the current turn.

Since almost all deities are specialized in a certain field, the players must choose which ones they prefer to worship sooner (also guessing which ones may be of interest for the opponents and which ones are safer to skip as they will not be chosen until later) and when it is better to get a smaller benefit following the priest of another player rather than saving a priest to get a greater boon but in a field that may not interest them as much (sort of quality over quantity).

The resources your city produces (worshipping the correct deities) can be spent (worshipping other deities) to create buildings giving a variety of effects (and VPs), thus offering a lot of different strategic approaches to the game. Victory can be achieved with a plethora of buildings but also with very few ones. There are 45 different buildings: 33 can be built by anyone (even if someone else already did), while the other 12 are unique as only one copy of each can exist (introducing another element of contention between the players). You can also wage war to steal the resources of the other cities (if they were so foolish to keep their warehouses full and their military underdeveloped, it's just what they deserve) or invoke a terrible plague to decimate their population.

All the actions (development, production, building, war, scoring, etc.) are done by worshipping the proper deity (and some gods give you a choice like "do you develop your grain productivity – thus receiving more grain the next time you will produce it – or do you produce it now even if you won't get much?", adding crucial tactical decisions to the game).

When all the priests have been used, there's a brief upkeep to check some simple conditions (e.g., players with more than five unused resources must discard those in excess) and then a new turn begins (all priests return home and all deities can be worshipped again).

Being the first to reach the maximum value in a certain field (e.g. culture 10) gives you an award worth two VPs. When four of these awards are claimed, the game ends. Each player receives bonus points based on how developed his city is and the highest score wins.

In Amyitis the players are rival architects competing to earn the most prestige building one of the seven wonders of the ancient world: the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The game is named after the daughter (or granddaughter) of Cyaxares, the king of the Medes, who married King Nebuchadnezzar II, ruler of Babylon. The myth says that Amytis' homesickness for the forested mountains of the Median Empire led to the construction of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, as Nebuchadnezzar attempted to please her by planting the trees and plants of her homeland.

The players embody noble Babylonians in quest of prestige. All along the game, they strive to raise their status by building gardens and their irrigation network, and by trading and recruiting. At the end of the game, the player with the highest prestige is the winner.

In this game the players compete to build gardens, acquire plants, hire craftsmen, build irrigation and trade with ancient cities. Points can also be gained from building your palace and controlling the temples. On a turn the players chose one of the following actions: a) Recruit a craftsman, that grants an action (priest on temple, resource, irrigation or camel) b) Move the caravan (to purchase plant or court card or trade) c) Pass to potentially gain income. It is an interactive game where a player's actions directly affect the other players.

The hanging gardens were one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world, as all history courses teach. But, did they actually exist? Nothing remains of their reported splendor, which was built for the eyes of Amyitis.

Without an exact reference to follow, the 2-4 players will re-establish the hanging gardens according to their own tastes.

Card follows card with magnificent buildings, sparkling fountains, and exotic plants as the players work to rebuild the legendary gardens. In the end, the queen will be pleased and rewards the victory palm to the player whose work on the gardens most impresses her highness.

Together, the players use cards to try to build the eight wonders of the ancient world. The number they build varies, but can't be more than seven. (Hence the subtitle of the game, "...or why the eighth wonder was never built.") While building together, each tries to provide the majority of the components for each wonder and collect scoring disks (in four suits). When it's someone else turn, you offer cards to the active player, and by good offers, can earn points (or sometimes even the disk). So a feature of "Tower of Babel" is that players always perform actions and can earn points during another's turn. Card trade offers, collecting disk sets, and building wonders are the three ways to earn victory points. The game ends when a player takes the last disk of any one of the four suits, so players have some influence on the game's end moment. And, the victory points determine the winner at game end. Typical game length is less than an hour.

Reiner Knizia Variant--some recommend against using the action cards because the publisher rather than Reiner Knizia added them and because they damage the game balance. To play with this variant, simply leave the action cards in the box. There is no bonus to the person who completes the final stage of a wonder.

Two to five players act as leaders of different peoples and command them to explore, send out fleets, build trading posts, and generate the highest possible profit. Poseidon contains most of the basics of 18xx games and due to the relatively short running time of two hours is as suitable for 18xx-newbies who want to explore this wonderful world as it is for experienced train gamers.

The 18xx basics included are:
1) Instead of running a corporation, players control a country/people
2) The goal of the game is personal wealth, the wealthiest player at game end is the winner
3) Players create trade routes similar to railway lines in 18xx games
4) Trains are replaced with common modes of transportation at the time (i.e. ships) with varying types
5) 18xx type stations are replaced with trading posts

Game Contents: game board, eight "possession sheets", play money, lots of wood pieces, cards, 1 rule book