Point to Point Movement

I Am Vlad: Prince Of Wallachia – an epic board game about the real life of Vlad the Impaler and about the habits, mysteries and actual facts of Wallachia and Transylvania – can be played by two, three or four players. The players begin the game from their own base and each have control over a Vlad hero as well as an Archer and a Wallachian Knight.

During the game, they try to eliminate the opposing Vlad heroes through tactical movements and attacks with their own units. Gameplay takes place on two boards: the Game Map and the Underworld Map. While the Game Map is the board on which all the interactions between players take place (including movement, battles, tactical actions, and the positioning of units and outposts), the Underworld is the area Archers and Wallachian Knights enter once they die in battle. I Am Vlad: Prince Of Wallachia has two types of battles: against enemy units and against neutral units; for both types, players use battle cards, magic cards, tokens, and an eight-sided die. Other tactical actions are made through tokens, gold coins, outposts, and so on.

Merchant of Venus uses many elements which come together to form a very interesting game. Players take on the roles of space traders who move their ships through interconnected systems discovering new alien worlds to trade with. As players start to make money delivering commodities in a unique supply-and-demand system, their earnings can be used to purchase better ships and equipment (shields, lasers, engines, etc...) and construct their own spaceports (which speed up trading) and factories (which create better commodities). Variations included in the rulebook allow for interplayer combat. The player who first acquires enough total value ($1000, $2000, $3000, $4000) in cash and port/factory deeds takes the day.

For the 2012 edition of Merchant of Venus from Fantasy Flight Games, the company promises that this revision "remains true to its magnificently campy core while updating the map and game components and expanding game play in surprising ways that will cause even the most hardcore fan to celebrate." That said, the player count has been lowered from six (in the Avalon Hill edition) to four, with the four races in the game being Human, Whynom, Qossuth, and Eeepeeep.

This game uses the very popular card system which first appeared in Avalon Hill's We the People game to detail the struggle between Carthage's Hannibal and the Roman Republic in approximately 200 BC.

(from Valley Games website:)

One of the greatest military commanders and tacticians in history descends on the Roman Empire once again. Do you face him as Rome and try to ward the invasion that comes from the North, or do you climb atop your war elephant and show Rome you will take that which they hold most dear: their territory.

Players use strategic-level cards for multiple purposes: moving generals, levying new troops, reinforcing existing armies, gaining political control of the provinces involved in the war, and generating historical events. When two armies meet on the battlefield, a second set of cards, called Battle Cards, are used to determine the winner. Ultimately both players seek victory by dominating both fronts: military and political.

In Dragon Delta, you want to move your pawn over a system of bridge-like planks to the other side of the board. An easy task! Or at least it would be if everyone were working together, but alas you're not. Instead you're all working on your own right next to one another, each convinced that your way is best.

In game terms, players simultaneously select one card from a set of five actions that's available to each player. The actions allow players to place plank foundations, place planks, move their pawns, cancel other players' actions, or remove planks or foundation stones. As can be expected for a design with simultaneous action selection, the game is rather chaotic.

The 2012 edition of the game, River Dragons, includes a double-sided game board not present in earlier editions, with one side of the board featuring rock piles on which you place stones (as in the original Dragon Delta), while the other side has a featureless river on which players can place stones in any location.

Grand Conquest is very similar to earlier versions of Donald Benge's Conquest. However it adds some interesting features. Now there are camels, catapults, siege engines and a moat around the five home points. The tube package comes with a vinyl roll out map, pieces in more distinguishable colors than previous versions, and a separate puzzle book (The Conquest games have had collections of puzzles developed similar to chess puzzles that are quite entertaining and engaging for abstract strategy players).

Re-implements:

Conquest