Stronghold Games

Captains of the Gulf is a thematic action selection game, full of flavor. In the game, 2-4 players each operate a fishing boat in the Gulf of Mexico, hoping to make the largest profit over eight game turns. The players try to upgrade their fishing boat, add crew members, then move out to fish crabs, oysters, and shrimp, after which they need to deliver them to ports. Cards are multi-purpose; they are added to a players mat on top (licenses), at the left side (crew), or at the right side (boat upgrade). Moreover, when you fish you need to play them out of your hand.

Designed by world reknown game designer, Uwe Rosenberg (Cavera, Agricola, Cottage Garden, Spring Meadow, et al), Second Chance has each player starting with a 9×9 grid that they want to fill as completely as possible. To begin the game, everyone receives a different card with a starting tile and marks off its spaces on their grid. Every turn, two puzzle tile cards are revealed, and each player chooses one of them, then marks off squares on their personal grid that match the shape of the image shown on their chosen card. Multiple players can choose the same card. If a player cannot fit either revealed shape into their grid, they get a Second Chance and reveal one card from the deck just for them. If they can fit this shape in their grid, they do continue normally next round; otherwise they are eliminated from play. The game ends when all players have been eliminated, the deck of puzzle cards has run out, or a player has completely filled their grid. If someone has filled their grid, they win. If all players have been eliminated or the deck ran out of cards, then whoever has the fewest empty spaces wins.

In the 2400s, mankind begins to terraform the planet Mars. Giant corporations, sponsored by the World Government on Earth, initiate huge projects to raise the temperature, the oxygen level, and the ocean coverage until the environment is habitable. In Terraforming Mars, you play one of those corporations and work together in the terraforming process. However, you must compete for prestige which is awarded not only for your contribution to the terraforming, but also for advancing human infrastructure throughout the solar system, earning awards, and achieving specific milestones.

In Terraforming Mars Ares Expedition: Crisis , players will play as corporations, just as in the original Ares Expedition. You choose phases and play project cards as normal. The difference is players are working together to keep Mars habitable after a natural disaster has landed the planet in crisis. Every round, a new Crisis card will be drawn that will require the players to achieve a certain goal to remove that crisis from play. Each turn that a Crisis card is not completely dealt with, it will lower one or more of the terraforming metrics that keep Mars habitable. Handle all the crises as they arise. Eventually, a Crisis card will be drawn that allows the players to win the game once they have completed re-terraforming Mars.

Terraforming Mars: Big Box is both a storage option for all the Terraforming Mars material released to date the base game, five expansions, and the first-player rover and a set of 3D terrain tiles to dress up the game. Terraforming Mars: Big Box also includes three new cards that relate to the three new special tiles, card dividers, and five plastic markers for the global parameters.

Our world has widened before us. Corporations expand their operations to all corners of the solar system in pursuit of minerals and resources. Most places are not suited for terraforming, but building colonies may greatly improve your income and your possibilities in achieving that higher goal — the terraforming of Mars. Send your trade fleet to distant moons! Colonize the clouds of Jupiter! And let your Earth assets propel you to success! Terraforming Mars: Colonies, an expansion for Terraforming Mars that can be played with only the base game or with any combination of expansions, lets you visit the outer solar system. It features colony tiles where you can build colonies and send your trade fleet. It also includes new cards and corporations.

Terraforming Mars: Hellas & Elysium, the first expansion for Terraforming Mars, consists of a double-sided game board presenting two new areas of Mars: • Elysium takes players almost to the opposite side of Mars' equator, with vast lowlands for oceans in the north and a dry, mineral-rich south. Place a tile on Olympus Mons, the highest peak in the solar system, to gain three free cards! • Hellas, the southern wild, includes Mars' south pole and the enormous seven-hex Hellas crater that just begs to become a giant lake. Building around the pole gives you new placement bonuses in the form of heat and possibly even water. Each of these maps consists of new sets of milestones and awards with relevance for that particular map. Place three tiles around the south pole to be a Polar Explorer, for example, or race to have the most estates beside water on Elysium!

As the mega corporations are getting ready to start the terraforming process, you now have the chance to make those early choices that will come to defi ne your corporation and set the course for the future history of Mars - this is the prelude to your greatest endeavors! In Terraforming Mars: Prelude, you get to choose from Prelude cards that jumpstart the terraforming process, or boost your corporation engine. There are also 5 new corporations, and 7 project cards that thematically fi t the early stages of terraforming. Terraforming Mars: Prelude is the third expansion to the smash-hit game, Terraforming Mars, and can be combined with any other expansion or variant.

Turmoil, the fifth expansion to Terraforming Mars, takes players back to Mars, and the struggle for control and progress of human society on a big and dangerous planet. The expansion includes new corporations, new projects, and a new type of cards — Global Events, from dust storms to riots to rising alloy demand — that give you something to plan for 3 generations in advance. At the heart of this is the political arena of the Terraforming Committee. A new action allows players to add delegates to different parties, the first delegate each generation being free, and additional ones costing 5 MC. Neutral delegates are added by the global events, representing the wishes and trends of society. When a player(even the neutral player) has more delegates in a party than any other player, that player takes over the party leader seat for that party, and when a party has more delegates than any other party, it becomes dominant. The dominant party will become ruling during the next generation, imposing its one-time bonus, its ongoing policy, and granting chairmanship for its party leader, awarding that player 1 terraform rating. The political arena also determines the players’ influence, which can be used to moderate or enhance the effect of the current global event. Influence is gained from being the chairman of the Committee, being party leader in the dominant party, and for having a non-leader delegate in the dominant party. In order to pay for all these new bonuses, the Committee is revising the terraform rating, lowering it for all players by 1 step each generation. In Turmoil, players can try to force their own agenda, or push it in a more moderate, economic way. They can play to mitigate the global events with influence, or adjust their play to better take advantage of them. And they can anticipate the competing players’ agendas and try to benefit from them, or counteract them. Turmoil is an expert expansion – be prepared to meet the full spectrum of human civilization in the era of terraforming Mars!

Terraforming Mars: Venus Next, the second expansion for the Terraforming Mars base game, has players building flying cities and making the atmosphere more hospitable on the deadly planet Venus. In Venus Next, the World Government chooses to also fund the terraforming of Venus. Around 50 project cards and 5 corporations are added, with a special focus on how to make Venus habitable. With the new floater resource, a new milestone, a new award, a new tag, and a new terraforming parameter, players are given more paths to victory and an even more varied play.

Each turn the active player rolls six dice, chooses one of them to mark off a space on their scoring grid, places any dice with lower numbers aside, then re-rolls any remaining dice. The white die is a joker and can be used as any one of the other five colors. After the active player chooses at most three dice, then the other players each choose one of the set-aside dice for use on their scoring sheet.