Geoengineering 101: A 30-minute card game for 2-6 Players

*It's 2050. Efforts to limit carbon emissions have fallen short, putting geoengineering on the table as a last chance to keep the world habitable. As a world leader, try to save your regions with untested geoengineering programs such as artificial clouds, orbital sun shields, ocean fertilization, and maybe even setting off a volcano or two.

Your rivals are doing the same, and you'll have to try to anticipate their moves, because it's 2 rounds down the road from when you initiate a secret program to when the results happen. In geoengineering, things can be hard to stop once they're started and, 2+2 can equal 3, or 5, or even 10! That sun shield that saves one region from the heat might turn another into a frozen wasteland – while triggering a super hurricane in a third. Who will be the last to fall?*

Game Contents:

• 24 Region Cards
• 88 Program Cards
• 1 Board with pieces to keep track of temperature, rainfall, and storm strength. There are separate tracks for Tropical, Subtropical, and Temperate regions.

Game Setup:

Each player is dealt 4 Region cards. Each region shows the conditions at which they become uninhabitable. For example, the Eastern US is toast when temperatures hit 6, while the Southern US floods when a storm reach a strength of 10.

Each player also draws a starting hand of six Programs. These are things you can do to change the weather. For example, Artificial Clouds drops the temperature by 3 and adds one die roll to storm strength – two rolls if another Artificial Cloud has already been played. In general, the bigger the impact, the bigger the side effect or uncertainty.

Setup Turns:

1. Each player picks on of their Programs and places it in the center face down. Shuffle these cards. Each player then draws a new card to replace the one they played.
2. Repeat the process, placing the new set of cards beneath the first set.

Subsequent Turns:

1.Flip over the top card on the center pile, and carry out the actions on it.
2. Insert another Program at the bottom of the center pile.
3. Draw a new card to your hand.
4. Raise the Temperature by 1.

Winner is the last player to have any regions remaining.

The Last Age of Kings

“Kings built tombs more splendid than the houses of the living and counted the names of their descent dearer than the names of their sons. Childless lords sat in aged halls musing on heraldry or in high cold towers asking questions of the stars.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

In The Last Age of Kings, players take the reins of a failing empire at the cusp of the industrial revolution. Their task is not to save their kingdom, but to cement its place in history by: - Constructing great works (cards bought from a market which offer flat (but substantial) bonus) - Tracking its storied lineage (building sets of family members from your deck) - Solving a mystery of nature (moving up a technology track with a non-linear value increase) - Simply writing themselves into lore (adds a minor number of points)

The converse of a deck-builder, The Last Age of Kings is a deck de-constructor. Players each start with an Empire deck of roughly 36 cards, which can be pre-set, semi-randomized or built by players. These cards include: - Territories, which produce resources (Exploit) - Family Members, used as ancestors (points) or heirs (abilities) - Other important figures like Historians and Scientists, who perform specialized actions - Buildings, which improve actions On their turn, a player draws a new hand of cards. At turn’s end, however, they must choose one of the cards they played or all of the cards they did not play and remove them from the game (Inverse Expansion). The former eliminates a presumably valuable card; the latter depletes the deck faster.

During their turn, players use cards from their hand to build their empire’s legacy.

For example, a player might use coal from a Mine card to fuel a Steam Power Plant, assisting a Professor of Engineering, moving that empire up the technology track.

Or, a player might use a Historian to add one of their Family Members to their Lineage, while playing a Library to prevent one unused card from being removed.

Cards played during a turn stay on the table until their next turn. These cards can be taken by other players. Taking a card is costly – it usually requires a player to spend one or two cards from their hand, but the card goes directly into their hand to use, which may create a better combo for their turn. This also removes a card from the opponent’s empire (Exterminate). For this reason, it might be more strategic to remove a valuable played card rather than all unplayed cards at turn’s end.

Once a player’s empire is depleted (i.e., cannot draw to 5 cards even after re-shuffling), the game ends immediately. Remaining cards in each player’s deck add to their final score, except for the player with the most cards, whose cards subtract from their score. Players tally up the rest of their points from great works, technology and lineage. The highest total wins.

Exploration intentionally left blank.

Welcome to the autumn of civilization, a time of high hopes, expanding borders, technological advancement, and warmongering. This is a game about the inevitable fall of civilization.

Autumn Empires is an abstract 4X game for 2 – 4 players where each player spends his dwindling resources to explore the world, expand their empire’s borders, exploit what new resources they can find, and attempt to exterminate everyone else...before the end of the world.

Components: 1 deck of 54 cards
11x World cards represent exploration of the world.
11x Military Action cards represent armies and allow players to attack one another.
11x Resource cards provide the necessary materials to build things and sustain food supplies.
11x Expansion cards allow a player to add food collection, defense, and manufacturing to their civilization.
10x Catastrophe cards cause players to discard cards.

How to win: A player wins the game when he controls the last or strongest surviving civilization after four catastrophes have hit everyone.

Starting the game:
Separate and shuffle each card type into its own deck then draw the top card of each deck. Each player chooses one card for himself and the rest (if there are any cards remaining) are removed from the game.

First player: After everyone has a card, each player reveals their cards. The player with the lowest value goes first. Play continues clockwise around the table. Each player draws one card from the Catastrophe deck, face down. These cards are added to each of the decks, third from the last card in the deck. There can only be one Catastrophe per deck. The remaining Catastrophe cards are not used.

Note: When a player discards a card, it is added to the top of the deck it belongs to and that deck is shuffled.

Each of the cards has one or more instructions on them and some may provide other benefits.

Playing the game: Each turn, players may perform up to two actions: Draw, Play, Attack, Recycle, or Pass.

Draw: A player may draw only from stacks that his current tableau allows.
• World cards can always be drawn.
• Resource cards may be drawn only if the player controls World cards or Expansion cards.
• Military cards can only be drawn if the player controls Resource cards.
• Expansion cards can only be drawn if the player controls at least one Military card and one World card.

Play: Play a card from your hand to your tableau.

Attack: You attack another player by comparing the total face value of your Military cards to the total face value of the opponent’s Defensive cards. If you win, you choose whether the opponent discards one card from his tableau or his hand. If you lose, discard one-half of your Military (round up).

Recycle: A player discards a card from his tableau or hand.

Pass: Pass the turn.

Play continues until all four Catastrophes have been revealed and the effects applied to everyone who is affected. The strongest surviving civilization is the winner!

ARC

ARC is a game for 2-4 players about survival in the harshness of space. You command an ARC (Artificial Reclamation Craft), a titanic space colony sent out from a dying earth to colonize the stars. Your supplies are almost depleted and your ARC is slowly breaking apart. You are forced to either take your chances with the exploring space or to take what you need from the other ARCs that were launched alongside you.

Set Up

Players begin with an ARC that is made up of 9 tiles, set up in a 3x3 grid, with the bridge tile in the center.

Players take 4 crew and place one on each housing tile.

Shuffle the remaining tiles and placed in face-down in the exploration deck.

Players draws 4 tiles from the exploration deck, ignoring hazard tiles. They place those four tiles adjacent to any tile on their ARC.

Players take 12 supply tokens and 12 energy tokens.

Randomly determine who goes first.

The Turn

Designation Phase:

Starting with the first player, each player may move their crew to any tile on their ARC.

Orders Phase:

In order, players may choose to resolve an event on a tile a number of times equal to the amount of crew located on it.

Maintenance Phase:

Players remove one structure tile from their ARC and place it in the exploration tile discard pile. If there is a crew on this tile, it is removed as well.

Players remove 1 supply from their supply pile. If a player cannot remove the required supply they can instead remove a single crew. Players then add 1 energy to their energy pile.

If a player runs out of crew or has no more structure tiles on their ARC, they are eliminated from the game.

The first player rotates clock-wise.

Winning the Game

You win the game when your ARC is the last one left intact, with crew aboard.

Tiles

Structure tiles have 4 components:

Name Capacity –The max number of crew that can be on this tile Usage –Number of supplies and/or energy used by each crew member that on this tile\ Event –A description of what occurs in the orders phase for each crew the structure tile has on it

**Hazard tiles have 3 components: **

Name Damage – Number of supplies and/or energy removed by the player whom reveals this tile Event – Any further effects that occur when this tile is revealed

Example Structure Tiles:

Hanger – Capacity: 2, Usage: 1 energy. Draw the top card of the exploration deck, if it is a structure tile attach it.

Missile Battery – Capacity: 1, Usage: 4 energy. Force another player to remove any structure tile of their choice on their ARC.

Deep Space Scanner – Capacity: 1, Usage: 2 energy. Look at the top 3 cards of the exploration deck and remove one.

Example Hazard Tile:

Asteroid – Damage: 1 energy or 1 supply. Instead of paying the damage you may remove a structure tile from your ARC.

A hex on both your houses

Two mining dynasties House Castle and House Maine vie for control of the interstellar spice mining trade. After initial rapid expansion both houses fall prey to decay where all mines stop producing. Then a bitter fight of mutual extermination ensues. Only one house can survive.

Equipment

24 space hex tiles
1 decay hex tile
25 House Castle mine markers
25 House Maine mine markers
100 Spice resource markers
1 House Castle battleship
1 House Maine battleship

Setup

Place two hexes beside each other.
Place the House Castle battleship on one hex and the House Maine on the other.
Split the space hex tiles into 3 roughly even piles.
Shuffle the decay hex tile into one pile and place that pile beneath the other two piles to create a draw pile.
Give each player 3 of their own mines.
Place one mine on the hex with that player's battleship.
The player who last saw a star at night goes first.

Turn

Exploit: For any mines on space hexes the player puts 1 spice resource marker on that hex tile.
Excise: To remain in control of his battleship the player pays 1 spice resource which is taken out of play.

A player chooses to either (a) explore and expand on this turn or to (b) exterminate instead.

(a)
Explore: the player draws the top hex tile and places it on any empty space next to the hex where his battleship stands.
Expand: the player moves their battleship to a neighboring empty tile and claims it by adding a mine from their stock.

(b)
Exterminate: the player moves his battleship to a neighboring hex with an opponent’s mine and potentially some resources. The battleship cannot move onto a hex where the enemy battleship is standing.
During the Exterminate step of one player the attacked player gets to choose the form of retreat. In a runaway retreat the attacked player gives up all resources on the attacked hex to the attacker and the attacked players mine is destroyed. In a slash and burn retreat the attacked player pays one of his resources, not from the attacked hex, and all of the resources are destroyed and the attacked players mine is destroyed.

When the decay hex tile is drawn all mines stop producing spice resources.

Winning

As decay sets in and the players inevitably turn to exterminate each other one battleship will eventually be unable to pay excise. If the other player can pay excise on his subsequent turn he wins. If he can't it is a draw.

Introduction

Humans define Empire as a collective group of countries or planets, but for red squirrels it is the scattered store houses of food that will see them through the harsh winter.

Oak Acres is the only universe the red squirrels know and the players must (explore) it to locate the fallen acorns. By blowing the brown leaves around the players can cover the acorns of their opponents and limit the movement of their squirrels, while protecting their own acorns.

Components and Setup

The game has 72 leaf tokens with a green leaf and a flower in one of 6 colors (12 tokens for each color) on one side. The other side features a brown leaf with an icon.

The icons are distributed as follows

18 acorns in six colors
18 grey squirrels in six colors
24 wind
12 trees

A disc featuring a top down tree graphic with 6 colored starting points is placed in the centre of the table. The players put their squirrel pieces on the starting point of their color.

36 leaf tokens are scattered around the tree with their green leaves facing upwards. The remaining 36 leaf tokens are placed to one side, with their green leaves exposed. These tokens constitute the draw pile.

Player Actions

On their turn a player can do ONE of the following

1) Look at the leaf token their squirrel is on.

2) Move their squirrel to any exposed green leaf with a flower matching the color of their current leaf or move to the centre tree card. A squirrel on the centre tree can move to a flower of any color.

3) Turn over the green leaf token their squirrel is on and perform its icon action. After turning over any leaf the squirrel returns to the tree.

(Wind) The player can blow any brown leaf onto any other leaf or discard (exterminate) it. If the brown leaves are in a stack they can blow/discard the top leaf or all of them.

(Tree) The player can draw 3 new green leaves and place them around the tree.

(Acorn) Each player has 3 acorns of their color. When an acorn is revealed the player it belongs to can move onto it, on a subsequent turn, providing they move from a green leaf with a flower matching the color of the acorn. If a player does this they can return their squirrel to the centre tree, place the acorn tile back in the draw pile and shuffle it.

(Grey Squirrel) The grey squirrel token is discarded and the player can turn over any visible green leaf with a flower matching the colored outline of the grey squirrel. If the leaf token features an acorn it is discarded. Visible acorns make easy pickings for grey squirrels.

Ending the Game

After the green leaf pile is depleted all the green leaf tokens that aren’t obscured by brown leaves are turned over. The player with the most visible acorns is the winner.