DouglasReay/NamelessGame

I don't have a name yet for this game. Here's how it works:

The aim of the game is to end up with the most money when the game finishes.

Game Elements

You earn money either by selling the labour of your workforce on the labour market or by shipping goods (or by a couple of other routes I'll detail later).

There is a board made up of hexes. Each hex is either a village (which produces labourers), or a bit of country:

 * woodland producing wood
 * goat pasture producing goats
 * copper mines producing copper
 * silver mines producing silver

Your labour force spreads out over the board, trying to control hexes. If you control a hex, you get what it produces in the harvest phase.

Before I list the phases, there is one other element. Advantage cards.

Advantage cards may either be constructed, using specific resources, or purchased in an auction.

Advantage cards are a mix of long and short term advantages, such as:

 * plus 10 dollars to any auction bid you make
 * 2 additional people moves whenever movement phase happens
 * improve a hex:
   * woodland --> coal mine producing coal
   * goat pasture --> cow pasture producing cows
   * copper mine --> iron mine producing iron
   * silver mine --> gold mine producing gold

Some advantage cards (generally the more powerful ones) will take advanced resources to build

Phases

Auction

Put an advantage card up for auction. Everyone puts their bid in their hand (or conceal it in some other way) then simultaneously reveal. The winner gets it, paying their bid into the bank, and the other players return their bid money to their personal money stack.

Advantage to the person who picks the phase: they get back 10% of the winning bid.

After the auction players may, in turn, construct advantage cards if they have the correct resources.

When everyone has finished, more advantage cards are revealed from the deck to bring the number of visible ones back up to twice the number of players.

Hiring Fair (Slave Market ?)

In player order, players are given the opportunity to buy or sell labourers on the labour market. The market is a strip with numbered slots and a marker opposite the slot showing the current labour price. For each labourer put on the market, the marker is moved one slot to the left, lowering the price. For each labourer hired from the market, the marker is moved a slot to the right, raising the price you have to pay for additional workers (and the price at which you can sell workers).

Advantage to the person who picks the phase: the player moves to the top of the player order for next round

Each player has three tall cylinders of their own colour (red, blue, yellow, green). One is used for the players initial worker (who can't be sold), which goes on the board. One sits in front of the player, marking which colour they are. One goes in the player order queue, which determines the order in which players pick phases. Inside a phase, the order goes cyclic from the players chosing the phase, in the order in the queue.

Trader

Players can ship resources in return for money.

Advantage to the person who picks the phase: other players may trade with the person who picked the phase. Anything from in hand may be traded (eg money, men purchased but not yet placed upon the board, advantage cards, resources). Hexes, improvements and men on the board may not be traded. Deal involving future actions by players are not binding within the game mechanic (ie it is not cheating for a person to say "I won't attack you if you pay me 10 dollars" then go back on their word.)

Harvest

Hexes produce.

Advantage to the person who picks the phase: They get one additional resource of any sort (including advanced), even if they don't produce it.

Movement

Each player gets 6 moves, which can be used to move a man to the leader (from anywhere, in hand or on the board), or from one hex to a neighbouring hex. A man may only be moved into a hex that borders a hex the player already controls. A player controls a hex if they have more men in it than any single other player. Pieces of other colours may not be moved into a hex with a leader in it. Leaders may not move into hexes containing other leaders. You automatically control the hex with your leader in it, no matter how many men other players have in it.

Advantage to the person who picks the phase: They may split their moves, doing some of them first and some of them last.

Phases not picked get a coin added to them, once every player has picked a phase. Phases are then returned. When you pick a phase, if there is money on the phase, you gain the money.

CategoryGame