Voting

In 982, a Viking jarl called Erik the Red sailed from the western coast of Iceland and discovered a new land. He named it Graenaland, a green land. Four years later the first colonists arrived to Greanaland and founded settlements that lasted more than four centuries.

Take the role of one of the jarls leading their clans to the new home. You have to settle the coast and to agree with your neighbors on how to distribute the spare resources the land is giving away. As Eric wants no fights amongst Vikings, any conflicts are solving by voting. You could improve your position in order to gain more votes; however, you can also try to be righteous and to keep good relations with all your neighbors. Cooperating with them, you can fertilize and improve the land easier than when struggling for influence; just keep your position strong enough for the case something goes wrong.

At first glance, it might remind you just another settler-like game – there are tiles of different terrains, there are villages and other buildings built on the tiles, and there are resources produced to build more of them. However, Graenaland uses these elements by very unusual way, and offers brand new player interaction.

The main difference is that villages produce no resources; the tile produces them. They remain placed next to the tile, until players agree how to distribute them. Every village on the tile gives one vote to its owner, as well as the traveling heroes just visiting the tile – and you need more than half of the votes total for your proposal how to distribute the resources.

A tile produces only one resource per turn, no matter how many villages of how many players is built on it. Building more villages on the same tile strengthens your position here; however, if another player does the same, you both are spending lots of efforts and resources struggling for still the one resource card. May be it would be wise to live in peace instead. If you are able to come to an agreement, you can take turns taking the resource. You can vote together in the case an intruder appears. You can build some improvements on the tile together, increasing its resource production. You can spread your villages to other tiles and let your hero travel where it is more needed, rather than struggling for influence on this tile.

If you trust each other, you can work much more efficiently. However: does your neighbor deserve your trust? What if he returns with his hero unexpectedly, and confiscates the whole harvest of several turns? What if he builds another village here instead of the improvement he promised? And especially – what would you do if you get such an opportunity yourself?
The game mechanics – simultaneous movement of heroes, small anomalies in player roles (one player has special role every turn), and decent randomness and uncertainty in resource harvesting (each terrain produces resources of more types, with different probabilities) lead to enough interesting asymmetric situations, and it is up to you whether you take any advantage you have, or whether you try to appear fair and righteous to the others instead. As the others take it in to account when searching for partners for their deals.

Sylla was the name of a Roman Consul and dictator; the name of the game is a reference to his person. The designer tried to bring together "Res Publica Romana" and "Saint Petersburg," furthermore playable in one hour.

The players will try to become the premier Consul of Rome. Each of the five years (turns) is subdivided into seven phases in which the players take their actions. It will be semi-cooperative as one player alone cannot influence all parts of the Roman social or political life. They also have to prepare for negative events like epidemic plague or persecution of the Christians and also decadence.

The Ystari games website has downloadable rules for the game for 2 players.

From the Publisher:
In this version you'll find questions that are ethical, bizarre and mind-bending, but each is a field-tested conversation starter that is guaranteed to provoke ridiculous fun, break the ice at any party, and - if played correctly - open a unique window into the wild imaginations of friends and family!

See how well you know your neighbors and how well they know you. Pick a room to play in and get ready to redesign it. Answer questions, then compare. The first team to "spend their budget," by matching opponents answers, wins!

At the beginning of the game each player receives a different set of picture tiles. To start a round, a theme is shown, e.g. "Women like it..." Everyone thinks about this and selects a tile from his set, but does not show it to the other players. Players lay their tiles picture-side down on the table, and these tiles are mixed up with random tiles from the stock.

On the board there are slots which are numbered from 0 to 6. Tiles are placed next to slot 3 so that everyone can see the pictures. The goal for each player is to have his tile reach the top (slot 6) of the ranking of items that best meet the requirement. Each player receives points equal to the slot number where his tile is at the end of each round. The point total is reduced if another player correctly guesses which tile belongs to whom and marks it with the player's color.

When it is your turn, choose two tiles in the same row/slot and compare them to one another in meeting the requirement of the theme. (Important: You can only compare two tiles in the same row. If there is only one tile in row 4, you cannot compare this tile to one in a different row!)
For example, say, "I think women like lipstick more than a car." Then, you move the lipstick tile up one row and the car tile down one row. After you have done that, the others can guess your tile, by placing a stone of your color on any tile. Each player has only one stone of each color and can only guess the active player, so this must be done selectively and timely!

The round ends when one tile reaches the 6 slot and another is in the 0. Then, you calculate the points. Each player gets points equal his slot, minus every correct guess stone on the tile. So, if your tile is in slot 4, but there are 2 correct color stones are on it, you get only 2 points (4 - 2 = 2).

Before the beginning of the next round everyone gets a new picture tile from the stock and a new theme is shown.

The first player to score 15 points after a round ends the game and is the winner. He is the RanKING.