Set collection

In a large town in medieval China, several talented artisans – Masters in their own right – aspire to become recognized as Zong Shi: the Grand Master craftsman. You are one of these master artisans and together with your apprentice, you are competing with the other Masters to attain this elevated status in the town. To succeed, you'll have to impress the townspeople with your skills. How shall you do it? Will you acquire a specialist's mastery over certain material, or will you enlarge your workshop? Will you create a large number of smaller projects or will you build fewer, but greater, masterworks? That is for you to decide.

Zong Shi blends worker placement, resource management, project completion and special action cards. To set up the game, lay out the project cards (eight types, each with a special power) and masterwork projects (only three at a time) on the game board; draw goods randomly for the two markets; lay out the exchange tiles in the pawn shop; and lay out a certain number of Scrolls of Fortune and material tiles. Players take turns drafting Scrolls (which have one-shot abilities) and materials (needed to complete projects), then the first round begins.

In each round, players take one action with their master or apprentice, then take one action with their other figure. The possible actions are:

Begin a project – Master only. Pay the material cost, then place the master on the time track in the space shown on the project.
Go to the market – Hang out and shoot the breeze until the next phase.
Go to the temple – Draw one Scroll (or more if your master is at the temple and donates material).
Go to the pawn shop – Choose an exchange tile in the shop and place the exchange tile on your player board. You may then swap one material shown on that tile for the other material on the tile.
Pay respectful visits – Visit a townsperson, donate materials of the right type equal to the visit tile you place there, then take the special action associated with that person this game.
Pass

Those in the market then take turns choosing materials located there. You can hold no more than five materials. Players then advance their master on the time track to represent work on the project. Refill materials in the market, pass the start marker, then begin a new round.

When a player completes his sixth project, players complete that round and one additional full round. Players tally points for completed projects, incomplete projects (which are penalized), number of townspeople visited, a full board of exchange tiles, completion of six projects and unused scrolls and material. The player with the most points wins.

The sultan has issued a decree: Whoever can build the most amazing palace in the city of Sultaniya will be made Grand Vizier. Become a character from 1001 Arabian Nights and build graceful minarets, dazzling gates and soaring cupolas to draw the eye of the sultan and carve your name in history. Players will carefully select the best building tiles to erect the most impressive structures, scoring points for following patterns and fulfilling secret objectives. Earn sapphires, and use them to secure the services of the mighty Djinn, whose aid will be invaluable in your quest to create the most stunning palace the city has ever seen.

The Witches: A Discworld Game is the second of three games by Martin Wallace set in Terry Pratchett's Discworld, the first being Discworld: Ankh-Morpork.

The Witches is set in the magically charged land of Lancre. Players take on the role of trainee witches, such as Tiffany Aching and Petulia Gristle, learning their craft and dealing with all the problems, both petty and serious, that life on Discworld can throw at them. A subtle blend of headology, magic and, of course, the all-important cup of tea will see our heroines tackle everything from a sick pig to a full-blown invasion of elves. Each player tries to be better at everything than the others, while also cooperating to prevent crises from escalating.

Life can be tough for a young witch in Lancre. Fear not, however, as some of Terry Pratchett's most famous characters will be on hand to aid your quest. Along the way you'll meet Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg and Magrat Garlick, as well as a rich supporting cast of familiar faces from the Discworld series. When things get really tough and you feel you are turning "Black Aliss", you can always have a cup of tea with one of your fellow witches.

The Witches can be played competitively, cooperatively, or solo.

In Citadels, players take on new roles each round to represent characters they hire in order to help them acquire gold and erect buildings. The game ends at the close of a round in which a player erects her eighth building. Players then tally their points, and the player with the highest score wins.

Players start with a number of building cards in their hand; buildings come in five colors, with the purple buildings typically having a special ability and the other colored buildings providing a benefit when you play particular characters. At the start of each round, the player who was king the previous round discards one of the eight character cards at random, chooses one, then passes the cards to the next player, etc. until each player has secretly chosen a character. Each character has a special ability, and the usefulness of any character depends upon your situation, and that of your opponents. The characters then carry out their actions in numerical order: the assassin eliminating another character for the round, the thief stealing all gold from another character, the wizard swapping building cards with another player, the warlord optionally destroys a building in play, and so on.

On a turn, a player earns two or more gold (or draws two building cards then discards one), then optionally constructs one building (or up to three if playing the architect this round). Buildings cost gold equal to the number of symbols on them, and each building is worth a certain number of points. In addition to points from buildings, at the end of the game a player scores bonus points for having eight buildings or buildings of all five colors.

The expansion Citadels: The Dark City was initially released as a separate item, but the second edition of the game from Hans im Glück (packaged in a tin box) and the third edition from Fantasy Flight Games included this expansion. With Dark City, Citadels supports a maximum of eight players.

The Speicherstadt is an auction card game. Players compete for victory points, which come mainly from contracts (sets of resources) and special cards (like a collected set of 1-4 identical "counting offices", the port rewarding collected ship cards etc.). The game is build on two core concepts:

1. Players bid for cards by building "towers" with their meeples over them. Each meeple in a tower increases the cost of a card - but only for players "below" it. This is the main mechanic of the game - players must consider WHEN to bid (place their meeple) over a certain card and when to use their meeples to make others pay more. This important, because a player can make only three bids during a round.

2. Players are punished by negative points for not collecting firemen cards. Thus, ignoring security may cost a player a victory. By many players, the "punishing" mechanic is considered a trademark of the author - Stefan Feld.

The deck is divided into four seasons - winter, spring, summer and autumn. In later seasons, more powerful cards appear, so players need to think ahead in managing their resources.

---- Promotional blurb from the publisher ----

Hamburg around 1900 - the gate to the world. Within the harbour there stretches a unique complex of storehouses: Speicherstadt. The network of canals and bridges houses a terminal for spices, coffee, tea and carpets from all over the world.

As one of Hamburg´s wholesaler at the heyday of the Speicherstadt you acquire shiploads for the storehouses, not too expensive, of course, as you like to make a profit selling them. Who makes the best deals within a year and supplies his clients with the right goods will be the winner of the game. But beware! Sudden fires cause heavy losses. You might be advised to invest in fire protection early.

Playing Speicherstadt you will be thrilled by the simple and original mechanism of acquiring desired action cards.