Worker Placement

In Augustus, you vie with your fellow players to complete "objective" cards for special powers and ultimately for victory points. Each card has 2-6 symbols which you must populate with legionnaire meeples in order to complete the card. These symbols are drawn one at a time from a bag, with all players gaining the benefit equally, but interestingly, the bag contains more of some symbols than others.

So the pivotal skill you'll deploy is in making your choice of which three objectives you'll start the game with (you're dealt six) — balancing potential difficulty of completion against value of the reward — and then which of five available objectives you'll add to your plate each time you complete one of your three. The game ends when someone completes seven objectives.

Game description from the publisher:

In Maharani, the players are architects helping the King to complete the Taj Mahal palace by placing beautiful mosaic tiles. These tiles come into play through a rotating rondel, which enables every player to place the tiles in different parts of the palace. Once the mosaic is complete, the best architect wins the game.

A city as large and crowded as Tempest depends on the daily arrival of supplies and foodstuffs, and the wealthiest echelons of society demand the latest goods and luxuries almost as frequently. Domination of this bustling trade is the ultimate goal of every merchant house in the city.

In Mercante, you control one of these merchant houses. Deploy your trusted agents to purchase goods from arriving ships and sell them into the most profitable markets. You must also do more – from "enticing" senators to outright skulduggery – to claim your rightful place at the pinnacle of Tempest's merchant class. Do you have the business acumen and ruthlessness required to claw your way to the top?

Designed for 3–5 players, Mercante is a game of economic warfare. At the beginning of the game, each player controls one warehouse and two agents. On each turn, goods are purchased at auction and stored in the warehouse to be sold at the various markets when the time is right.

Players compete to accumulate crowns to finance their operations, and senatorial favors (victory points) to win the game. The player who accumulates the most money and favors will control all trade and profit in the City-State of Tempest!

Number 2 in the Tempest Shared World Game Series

Aquileia, the second most important city of the Roman Empire, had been originally founded as an outpost against the Barbarian invaders. From its military origin comes the peculiar quadrilateral structure divided by the main streets. Later, the city developed to become an important political and cultural center and a prosperous trading city, especially for precious goods, thanks to its convenient and efficient river port. Important monuments such as the Gladiator Arena, the horse-racing Stadium, and the famous theater were built, as well as craftsmen's workshops, patrician villas which completed the architectural network of the city.

In Aquileia, players want to become the most powerful figure in the city by trading and building. Each player, representing a wealthy Aquileian patrician, owns a certain number of henchmen (pawns) which he uses for these main activities: sports playing, culture, trading, and building. Each activity can bring expenses, earnings and sometimes victory points (VPs).

Each round begins with a placement phase in which players take turns placing their henchmen on action spaces and their tiebreaker disc on the tiebreaker track. Placing the tiebreaker is mandatory; placing henchmen is not (but you probably want to place them). Once everyone has passed or placed all of their tokens, players resolve the action spaces in numerical order:

The Mercatus allows players to buy weapons, arms and slave cards, collect money through a die roll, claim four blue dice for use with the Arena and Stadium, and trade one currency for another. (This is the only way to make change, and some actions require specific currencies; if you must pay bronze and have only silver and gold, then you cannot take that action!)
At the Arena, players compare fighting strength, with that number determined by the starting strength on the action space claimed, the roll of three dice and the playing of slave and weapon cards. The winner gets three bronze coins and either double his strength in VPs or a slave card. The second and third best players receive lesser rewards.
The Stadium is similar to the Arena, with the horse cards coming into play and the winner receiving gold or silver coins and his choice of two laurel cards; laurel cards deliver 3-10 VPs or are a multiplier for endgame scoring.
The Theatrum brings a bid for a dual-colored laurel card, with players needing to ante and raise in particular currencies.
In the Forum, players build villas and private banks, sometimes scoring points for doing so when they pay the specific costs with the proper coins.
Finally, the Portus gives players a chance to activate their buildings, thereby earning them VPs or money.

After six rounds, the game ends and players score VPs for their hidden point cards and the product of their villas' values times laurel cards of a matching color. (For example, a total of 8 points of blue villas and three blue villa cards equals 24 points.) The player with the most victory points wins.

Stake your fortunes in the mysterious island world of Bora Bora. Journey across islands, building huts where the resilient men and women of your tribes can settle, discovering fishing grounds and collecting shells. Send priests to the temples, and gather offerings to curry favor with the gods.

In Bora Bora, players use dice to perform a variety of actions using careful insight and tactical planning. The heart of the game is its action resolution system in which 5-7 actions are available each round, the exact number depending on the number of players. Each player rolls three dice at the start of the round, then they take turns placing one die at a time on one action. Place a high number on an action, and you'll generally get a better version of that action: more places to build, more choices of people to take, better positioning on the temple track, and so on. Place a low number and you'll get a worse action – but you'll possibly block other players from taking the action at all as in order to take an action you must place a die on it with a lower number than any die already on the action.

Three task tiles on a player's individual game board provide some direction as to what he might want to do, while god tiles allow for special actions and rule-breaking, as gods are wont to do. The player who best watches how the game develops and uses the most effective strategy will prevail.