In the land of Terra Mystica dwell 14 different peoples in seven landscapes, and each group is bound to its own home environment, so to develop and grow, they must terraform neighboring landscapes into their home environments in competition with the other groups.

Terra Mystica is a full information game, without any luck, that rewards strategic planning. Each player governs one of the 14 groups. With subtlety and craft, the player must attempt to rule as great an area as possible and to develop that group's skills. There are also four religious cults in which you can progress. To do all that, each group has special skills and abilities.

Taking turns, the players execute their actions on the resources they have at their disposal. Different buildings allow players to develop different resources. Dwellings allow for more workers. Trading houses allow players to make money. Strongholds unlock a group's special ability, and temples allow you to develop religion and your terraforming and seafaring skills. Buildings can be upgraded: Dwellings can be developed into trading houses; trading houses can be developed into strongholds or temples; one temple can be upgraded to become a sanctuary. Each group must also develop its terraforming skill and its skill with boats to use the rivers. The groups in question, along with their home landscape, are:


Desert (Fakirs, Nomads)
Plains (Halflings, Cultists)
Swamp (Alchemists, Darklings)
Lake (Mermaids, Swarmlings)
Forest (Witches, Auren)
Mountain (Dwarves, Engineers)
Wasteland (Giants, Chaos Magicians)


Proximity to other groups is a double-edged sword in Terra Mystica. Being close to other groups gives you extra power, but it also means that expanding is more difficult...

Terra Mystica FAQ

Two thousand years ago, the Roman Empire ruled the lands around the Mediterranean Sea. With peace at the borders, harmony inside the provinces, uniform law, and a common currency, the economy thrived and gave rise to mighty Roman dynasties as they expanded throughout the numerous cities. Guide one of these dynasties and send colonists to the remote realms of the Empire; develop your trade network; and appease the ancient gods for their favor — all to gain the chance to emerge victorious!

Concordia is a peaceful strategy game of economic development in Roman times for 2-5 players aged 13 and up. Instead of looking to the luck of dice or cards, players must rely on their strategic abilities. Be sure to watch your rivals to determine which goals they are pursuing and where you can outpace them! In the game, colonists are sent out from Rome to settle down in cities that produce bricks, food, tools, wine, and cloth. Each player starts with an identical set of playing cards and acquires more cards during the game. These cards serve two purposes:


They allow a player to choose actions during the game.
They are worth victory points (VPs) at the end of the game.


Concordia is a strategy game that requires advance planning and consideration of your opponent's moves. Every game is different, not only because of the sequence of new cards on sale but also due to the modular layout of cities. (One side of the game board shows the entire Roman Empire with 30 cities for 3-5 players, while the other shows Roman Italy with 25 cities for 2-4 players.) When all cards have been sold or after the first player builds their 15th house, the game ends. The player with the most VPs from the gods (Jupiter, Saturnus, Mercurius, Minerva, Vesta, etc.) wins the game.

In this Sid Sackson classic, players must press their luck with dice and choose combinations tactically to close out three columns. The board has one column for each possible total of two six-sided dice, but the number of spaces in each column varies: the more probable a total, the more spaces in that column and the more rolls it takes to complete. On their turn, a player rolls four dice and arranges them in duos: 1 4 5 6 can become 1+4 and 5+6 for 5 & 11, 1+5 and 4+6 for 6 & 10, or 1+6 and 4+5 for 7 & 9. The player places or advances progress markers in the open column(s) associated with their chosen totals, then chooses whether to roll again or end their turn and replace the progress markers with markers of their color. A player can only advance three different columns in a turn and cannot advance a column which any player has closed out by reaching the end space; if a roll doesn’t result in any legal plays, the turn ends with that turn’s progress lost.

A predecessor from 1974, The Great Races, exists as a paper-and-pencil game.

The mythical realm of Hyperborea was ruled by an ancient civilization that used magical crystals as their main source of energy. With time, the Hyperboreans became greedy, and their search for power in the deep made the crystals unstable, causing earthquakes, mutations, droughts and floods. Hyperboreans just dug deeper, and only a few wise mages, foreseeing the inevitable, built an unbreakable magical barrier. When the unharnessed magical energy was unleashed from the deep, the Hyperborean civilization was destroyed in a single day, only the magical barrier preventing the disappearance of life from the whole land. The survivors living in the small outposts outside Hyperborea were now sealed out by the barrier. The knowledge of crystals was declared forbidden it was because too dangerous, or simply forgotten.

Over centuries, six rival realms were born from the ashes of the Hyperborean civilization: the militarist Red Duchy; the Emerald Kingdom and its death-delivering archers; the Purple Matriarchy fanatically worshipping the goddess of life; the skilled diplomats and merchants of the Golden Barony; the Coral Throne with its efficiently organized society and finally the secluded and enigmatic Celestial Reign.

The fragile peace between the different realms was not intended to last. One day, the magical barrier suddenly collapsed. A whole new land stood in front of the six kingdoms, still haunted by the old Hyperboreans turned into harmless but ominous ghosts, full of ruins to discover and cities to explore. Each realm is now sending its best warriors and explorers to Hyperborea in order to achieve dominance over their rivals, but which will prevail? Brutal strength or deep understanding of science? The discovery of valuable artifacts in the lost ruins or the retaking of long, lost cities? Only you, as the leader of one of the factions, can lead your people to the ultimate dominance over Hyperborea!

Set in a mythical land of the same name, Hyperborea is a light civilization game for 2 to 6 players that takes 20-25 minutes per player. The game begins at the time when the magic barrier protecting access to the mythical continent of Hyperborea suddenly falls.

Each player takes the role of the leader of a small kingdom situated just outside the now open to be conquered and explored land. Her kingdom has limited knowledge of housing, trade, movement, warfare, research, and growth, but new and exciting powers are hidden in Hyperborea. During the game, this kingdom will grow in numbers and raise armies, extend its territory, explore and conquer, learn new technologies, etc...

The game's main mechanism, which can be described as "bag-building", involves you building a pool of "civilicubes". Each cube represents specializations for your kingdom: war, trade, movement, building, knowledge, growth. Grey cubes represent corruption and waste, and players will acquire them by developing new technologies. (Power corrupts by its own definition, and the more complex a society becomes, the more waste it generates.) Each turn, players draw three random cubes from their bags, then use them to activate knowledge (technologies) they own.

The most talented architects in ancient Greece stand ready to achieve this goal. Build housing, temples, markets, gardens and barracks, so you can grow your city and ensure it triumphs over the others. Raise its prestige with harmonious planning that conforms to specific rules, and enhance it by building plazas.

Stone is an essential resource, so make sure you do not neglect it. You’ll need enough quarries so you can build higher up, making your city stretch towards the sky.


Choose a tile from the construction site
Arrange it in your city to unlock each district's full potential
Build on higher levels, increase the value of your districts and win the game


—description from the publisher

From the award-winning designer Bruno Cathala, Ishtar is a game in which you play the role of a gardener aiming to transform the dry desert into the Lost Hanging Gardens of Babylon. To accomplish your mission, you will have to plant flowers, which, if you place them well, can help you gather precious gems and activate actions. Whether to buy Trees (which will block the link between two Flower spots, as well as earning you points) or to purchase upgrades (such as getting two more points per Tree card at the end of the game), collecting gems will be a crucial part of the game. Get them before your opponents, recruit apprentices, send them to earn points in the copses of flowers you have created, block others and think carefully of the upgrades to purchase if you want to become the best gardener at the end of the game!

—description from the publisher

Small Star Empires is a quick area control game for 2-4 players. In this game, players colonize the galaxy using their ships, which they move on a modular board containing hexagonal spaces (systems). The modular board is made up of seven different double-sided sector tiles, which allows for a different map and different experience each time you play the game.

During a turn, a player must move one of their ships on the board. They can move the ship only in a straight line, as far away as they want, but they cannot go over systems controlled by other players. After moving the ship, the player has to choose whether to place a colony or a trade station in that system. Both of these mark control over the system until the end of the game, but the trade station gives the player bonus points for each adjacent system controlled by their opponents. The game ends when either all of the players have placed their colonies and trade stations on the board or until none of the players' ships can move (because they have become blocked by other players' systems).

After the game ends, points are calculated. Each player gets one point for each planet that they have in their systems. (Systems have 1 to 3 planets on the board.) Players also earn points for Nebulae; the more they have from one color, the more points they earn, with bonus points from other special systems such as the Unexplored System Tiles, which are part of a variant in the game. After calculating the points, the player with the most points wins!

In Kingdomino, you are a lord seeking new lands in which to expand your kingdom. You must explore all the lands, including wheat fields, lakes, and mountains, in order to spot the best plots, while competing with other lords to acquire them first.

The game uses tiles with two sections, similar to Dominoes. Each turn, each player will select a new domino to connect to their existing kingdom, making sure at least one of its sides connects to a matching terrain type already in play. The order of who picks first depends on which tile was previously chosen, with better tiles forcing players to pick later in the next round. The game ends when each player has completed a 5x5 grid (or failed to do so), and points are counted based on number of connecting tiles and valuable crown symbols.

In many ways 7 Wonders Duel resembles its parent game 7 Wonders. Over three ages, players acquire cards that provide resources or advance their military or scientific development in order to develop a civilization and complete wonders. What's different about 7 Wonders Duel is that, as the title suggests, the game is solely for two players.

Players do not draft cards simultaneously from decks of cards, but from a display of face-down and face-up cards arranged at the start of a round. A player can take a card only if it's not covered by any others, so timing comes into play, as it can with bonus moves that allow the player to take a second card immediately. As in the original game, each acquired card can be built, discarded for coins, or used to construct a wonder. Each player also starts with four wonder cards, and the construction of a wonder provides its owner with a special ability. Only seven wonders can be built, though, so one player will end up short.

Players can purchase resources at any time from the bank, or they can gain cards during the game that provide them with resources for future building; as they are acquired, the cost for those resources increases for the opponent, representing the owner's dominance in this area.

You can win 7 Wonders Duel in one of three ways: each time you acquire a military card, you advance the military marker toward your opponent's capital (also giving you a bonus at certain positions). If you reach the opponent's capital, you win the game immediately. Or if you acquire six of seven different scientific symbols, you achieve scientific dominance and win immediately. If none of these situations occurs, then the player with the most points at the end of the game wins.