Board Game Posts

It should come as no surprise that I have some disagreements with "the almost-complete Strategy Guide" presented in this site by Alex Pomeranz. Everyone plays the game differently and therefore there are different dynamics to playing the game with almost each group.

Whereas his tips are meant to be "general" and thus without all that much weight, his overall assessment of the value of particular resources and such could be considered more specific and unchangeable, and those are what I'll discuss. …

Object of the Game

In Through the Desert, each player controls a number of caravans consisting of pastel-colored camels. Players take turns placing more of these camels on the board, expanding their caravans in order to score points.

The game ends immediately after the last camel of any one color is played from the supply, after which players compare their point totals to determine the winner.

Components

• 1 Double-Sided Game Board
• 175 Pastel Camels (5 colors, 35 of each)
• 5 Gray Camels
• 30 Plastic Riders (5 colors, 6 of each)
• 5 Plastic Palm Trees
• 45 Waterhole Tokens (3 types, 15 of each)
• 15 10-point tokens
• 29 5-point tokens
• 5 Caravan Tokens

Before Your First Game

Before your first game, you will need to assemble the riders and their camels. Take the six riders of a single color and attach each one to a different-colored camel (green, pink, yellow, purple, turquoise, and gray). …

This variant will allow you to familiarize yourself with the game and beat your record by attempting various strategies.

The game's rules are identical to the 2 player game with the following exceptions:

During setup, the elements indicated on the 1 player Game Reference card (identical to the 2 player one) are placed in each bag.

At the beginning of the game and during the maintenance phase, 6 elements are drawn from each bag.

At the beginning of the game and during the maintenance phase, 4 Character cards are drawn. …

The Cities and Knights of Catan (German: Städte und Ritter) is an expansion to the board game Settlers of Catan for three to four players (five to six player play is also possible with the Settlers and Cities and Knights five to six player expansions).

It contains features taken from the Settlers of Catan, with emphasis on city development and the use of knights, which are used as a method of attacking other players as well as helping opponents defend Catan against a common foe. …

Red and Purple Character Cards

Each player begins the game with the same set of these 8 Character cards. These cards allow you to perform the necessary basic actions in the game.

Most of the other Character cards acquired during the game allow you to perform more powerful actions; however, they are all based on the basic set of actions.

Shopkeeper, Lumberjack, Stone Sculpter and Brick Worker

When you play one of these 4 cards, you take exactly 1 of the specified goods from the general supply and place it your personal supply. …

Components

• 1 "barbarian tile" with movement spaces for the barbarian ship
• 36 commodity cards
• 54 progress cards
• 6 "Defender of Catan" victory point (VP) cards
• 4 development flip-charts ("city calendars")
• wooden playing pieces in 4 colors
• 3 metropolis pieces (yellow wooden city gate pieces)
• 3 metropolis tokens (die cut cardboard)
• 2 sheets of knight labels
• 1 barbarian ship (wooden ship piece)
• 1 merchant (wooden cone piece)
• 1 event die (with 3 ships and 3 city gate symbols)

What You Need From Your Catan Game To play Cities &Knights you will need most of the components from a copy of Catan. Set aside the following Catan pieces, as you won't need them: the development card deck, the "Largest Army" card; and the building costs cards. …

Port + Temple Of Apollo

The player may choose as income each round between one wood, one stone, one food, or one coin.

Tiryns Fortress

The player loses one inhabitant when taking this tile. If he does not have any inhabitants to lose, he may not take this building.

The inhabitant is not returned to the player, should the building be lost in a later round.

Market + Agora

Every bid by this player is now worth !6 coin more. This makes it possible for him to bid the same amount of coins as a previous player at the same Tile, forcing the opponent to move his bid to another …

For each island where you place 1 House, you earn Prestige Points (PP) for the symbols that are on the island, as indicated by the card.

For each island where you place 1 House, pick the Resource present on the island with the lowest count. …

You are a member of a legendary detective squad, just a few days from retirement. Your only regret: never catching "The Atlantic Seven".

The commissioner's voice booms over your radio: "Atlantic's back! This is your last chance!" If your team can catch Atlantic and his gang before they steal $50,000, you can buy that sweet boat you've had your eye on and retire in peace.

If not, you can spend your golden years seething over the one that got away. Good luck, detectives! …

This section explains several optional rules that players may freely use to customize the game to their liking.

Although not all of the optional rules can be used together, players can experience Nexus Ops in many different ways by using several optional rules during the same game (e.g., players can use the alternate units, intercepted transmissions, and the vortex).

Before starting the game, players must all agree on which optional rules (if any) they wish to use.

Time is of the Essence

The game ends immediately after a player acquires 10 or more victory points. That player wins the game. The game still ends if a player is eliminated, as described in "Winning the Game". …