Worker Placement

The King of Babylon wants to offer a marvelous present to his wife, Queen Amytis: The most beautiful city ever created. He asks two of the best Architects in the world to design the city, and only the very best one will be built. It's now up to you to create the best design.

Les Architectes d'Amytis ("Architects of Amytis") is a Tile placement game, containing some worker placement and even some "Tic Tac Toe" mechanisms.

During your turn, you'll have to select a tile among the available ones on the main board, and place one of your Architect Pawn on the corresponding pile. Then, you'll place the tile on your board wherever you want (on a free spot, or covering another tile to make your city grow higher). Each tile is colored and represents a building type. Buildings all have 2 types of scoring.

Each building type will score directly when you place the tile. And the colors will allow you to reproduce some of the King's projects (a colored pattern inside your city) that will grant you points at the end of the game. Furthermore, while placing your architects on the main board, if you manage to create a line, row or diagonal of 3, you'll be granted a King's favor: another type of score, triggered at the end of the game.

Dearest Player, you have been invited, at the behest of your titled host, to make your debut during the 1851 social season of Victorian London.

Apistocracy is a 2-4 player game featuring worker placement, as well as a trick-taking game based on Whist. Each player has a season host with a unique ability. The hosts provide influence to open the first doors of the season, but players must make connections, thus building influence, to gain invitations to the most coveted events. Over the course of four weeks, players climb to the top of the social beehive to become Queen Victoria's favorite, commission painting sets in the gallery to become the artist's muse, make valuable connections in the ballroom to become the favored guest, learn secrets in the tea room, and curate their hand for the final whist game in the parlor. The player with the most Victoria points at the end of the season is named the "season's favorite" and wins.

The game offers players nuanced action selection, with opportunities for strategic decision making. Do you spend your resources to move up the beehive? Do you dance in the ballroom to gain a valuable card for your player mat? Do you commission your portrait and complete your painting set? Regardless of your choice, the main goal is to have fun! If you happen to create a buzz and become the season's favorite in the process, then bravo! If you do not achieve the coveted title, you need not give up — there's always next season!

The Warring States period was a pivotal era in Chinese history, marked by constant warfare, significant bureaucratic and military reforms, and the consolidation of power among rival states. The game is set around 260 BCE, a time when the seven warring kingdoms were locked in fierce conflict, both against each other as well as against nomadic groups like the Xiongnu, who posed a threat from the north. Although sections of the Great Wall of China had been constructed as early as the 8th century BCE, the later years of the Warring States period saw a surge in defensive building projects. Before Qin ultimately unified the kingdoms, extensive fortifications, watchtowers, and new sections of the wall were erected to bolster defenses.

In Tianxia, players take the role of leaders of noble families who want to earn prestige, as well as favors from the powerful rulers that govern the seven Warring Kingdoms.

The game lasts four rounds in which you install Governors in the regions and bolster the power of rival ruling houses, thus gaining their favor. You also sell goods to merchant ships that sail the Chinese shores to gain wealth and other benefits. Nevertheless, you must not forget about the nomadic warriors who pose a constant threat on the northern borders of the seven kingdoms. Thus, you must train soldiers and build walls and towers to weaken the invaders and protect your interests, earning prestige in the process.

Each round, the nomads advance toward the borders of the seven kingdoms and gather even larger numbers. When they reach the border, a battle takes place that affects all players.

At the end of the game, the player who was the best governor, politician, merchant, and protector wins.

The mystical island of Emberheart is home to the last dragons. They were living in harmony with the villagers until poachers from the Distant Lands arrived to capture, raid, and plunder. To keep the island safe, the Dragon Ambassador now seeks the King’s support. As one of the King’s champions, your mission is to join forces with the villagers, rescue and protect the dragons, and stand against the evil poachers.

Emberheart is a quick-playing, medium-weight worker placement game . As one of the King’s Champions, your task is to recruit heroes, rescue dragons and expand their preserves, train your own dragon companion, and oppose the roaming poachers.

On your turn, you can either take an Aide token (granting you a unique bonus for the round), or send a party of hirelings to one of the locations on the island. The number of hirelings you send matters just as much as where you send them: the more you commit to a location, the earlier you get to choose from its limited rewards, and the less likely your opponents are to outbid you with a larger party. There are various hirelings at your disposal: Grunts are versatile but single-use, while Scouts, Rangers and Wardens are permanent, but limited to specific locations. Your Dragon Companion can also join a party of hirelings as you place them, giving them various bonuses based on how you trained it.

The locations’ rewards allow you to recruit Heroes with unique abilities, rescue Dragons from the poachers’ grasp to get them to safety in matching Preserves, and launch counterattacks against the poachers. In the heat of some actions, and during the Poachers’ Raid at the end of each round, you may get burned, and advancing too far on the Flame track will take its toll at the end of the game.

Rescuing Dragons, recruiting Heroes, training your Dragon Companion, and keeping your Flame low will earn you Glory at the end of the game. After five rounds, the Champion with the most Glory wins, inheriting the title of Dragon Ambassador.

Silverfrost is the next standalone edge of the map series of Everdell. Beyond the snow-capped Spirecrest mountains to the south of Everdell Valley, lies the bold country of Silverfrost. It is your task to build and maintain a city in this challenging landscape. You must clear the piling snow, burn the fires to keep your citizens warm and prosperous, and complete important quests for the Ranger’s Guild.

In Silverfrost, you send critter workers to various Locations on the board, cards, or the mountain to gather resources and activate unique effects. You use these resources to play cards face up in front of you, forming your own city. Each turn, you take 1 of 3 possible actions — Place a worker, Play a card, or Prepare for the next season.

You may place 1 of your workers on any Basic Location, Red Destination card in your city or opponent’s cities, the Forge, the Hot Springs, or a mountaintop Beacon, so long as it is not blocked by Snow or another worker. You then claim the listed resources or perform the action. If there is Snow at the location, you must first spend a Fire resource to clear the snow pile. If you use your unique Ranger worker, you can visit an occupied location, or gain a Fire resource if visiting a location alone.

To play a card, you must pay the listed cost of resources. If it is a Critter, you may instead play it for free by using 1 of your 2 Chimneys, so long as you have the necessary Fire to light it. Cards may be played either from your hand, or from the area of face-up cards on the board known as the Valley. Nearly all of the cards in Silverfrost feature new and powerful abilities, offering a huge variety of strategic depth and combos to explore.

If all of your workers are deployed, you may prepare for the next season by bringing back all of your workers, gaining a new worker, and performing the action described for the following season, introducing new snowfall to the board and to your city, as well as other challenges. A player is finished when they have played through the last season (Spring) and cannot perform any more actions. After all players have finished, the player with the most points is the winner.