One of the newest trends in board gaming in recent years has been the rise of “deck-building” games such as Dominion (and its various expansions) and Thunderstone (and its own expansion). The latest addition to this nascent family is Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer, the first publication from Gary Games, which boasts at least three Magic: the Gathering Pro Tour winners on its design team. 

In these games, players start with a very basic deck, usually consisting of ten cards, and use them to purchase and/or conquer additional cards with stronger powers. Ascension is unique among its deck-building peers in that there is not a set matrix of cards available for purchase. Instead, six cards are laid out from the 100-card “portal deck” to form a center row between the deck and three stacks of “always available” cards of two slight upgrades over your starting cards and an easy-to-defeat enemy of essentially infinite numbers. The cards in the center row are immediately replaced as they are purchased or banished (sent to a stack called “the void”, to distinguish it from each player’s personal discard pile), providing a constantly-shifting environment to which players must adapt as the game progresses. From two to four players are given a starter deck consisting of ten specific cards, drawing five of them to begin the game and at the end of each round (after discarding any remaining).

Cards come in one of three types. The most common are Heroes, which are one-shot effects that are played to generate runes (money), power (combat strength), honor (victory points), additional draws, and/or the ability to banish weaker (read: “starter”) cards from your deck in order to improve your overall draws. These Heroes come in four types, representing their general flavor and abilities. Like Heroes, Constructs also come in the same four types and generate useful effects, but unlike their counterparts Constructs remain active once played, providing their benefits every round. Both Heroes and Constructs are purchased by spending runes. The third type of card are Monsters, which can be defeated with power. Once defeated, Monsters are banished from the center row (rather than added to the player’s deck); in addition to providing honor, many Monsters also have an additional ability when defeated, which can include forcing opponents to discard one or more Constructs that they have in play among other effects.

Each game begins with a set number of Honor points (represented by plastic stones in values of one and five) available and ends at the end of a complete player cycle after that starting pool has been exhausted. Every non-starter card is worth an indicated number of Honor in addition to the stones gained via defeating enemies and/or the abilities of cards. Whoever has the highest Honor score wins, with ties being broken in reverse turn order — in other words, the first player always loses ties and so on down until the last player, who always wins ties.

I greatly favor Ascension over other deck-building games. I like the flexible structure of the player turn and multiple potential paths to victory. In my experience, too many games of (non-expanded) Dominion degenerate into “acquire tons of gold, purchase largest VP cards, repeat until game ends”, and I didn’t like the “dungeon or village” action segregation of Thunderstone, which frequently resulted in “wasted” turns during my only play of it thus far. Ascension occupies something of a sweet spot in between the other two, always allowing the players options without dead draws (aside from a single rune or single power without any way to draw more cards). This keeps the action moving; a game of Ascension can usually be completed in an hour or less. Also greatly in Ascension‘s favor is the quick set-up time, as there is no need to randomly select which cards are available for a given session; you just keep the “always available” and starter cards separated (easy to do when scoring at the end of the game), shuffle the other half, count out honor stones, and you’re good to go for another session.

Available for around $40 from most game retailers or around $36 on Amazon, the 200-card Ascension is a little lighter than Dominion (500 cards) or Thunderstone (over 500), but makes up for it somewhat by including the plastic Honor stone counters and a game board that provides the layout and turn reminders — plus unlike the other games, you use all of the cards every time instead of just a subset. The board isn’t really necessary, however, and makes the game ship in a box about three or four times larger than would otherwise be required. Ascension-specific sleeves and a card box are forthcoming, but you should be able to pick up generic equivalents for a nominal fee (the cards fit into Magic-sized sleeves) at any gaming store. I would recommend doing so, as the one complaint I really have about Ascension is the feel of the cards while shuffling. I’ve shuffled a lot of cards, both sleeved and unsleeved, and Ascension‘s kept giving me a nagging sensation of almost tearing the lamination off while doing so. Unfortunately sleeved cards don’t quite fit into the provided box insert, which is fairly generic (unlike Dominion​’s custom-tailored card-sorting tray). It’s an odd flaw considering the game’s pedigree, but ultimately a minor one for an otherwise top-quality game.

Modern strategy games can make a game out of just about any theme you could imagine. Farming, virulent outbreaks, colonial settlements, electric grid management… the list goes on. So it should come as little surprise when you learn that Thurn and Taxis is about setting up a postal carriage service in 16th-century Bavaria and its surroundings. 

Thurn and Taxis, designed in 2006 by Andreas Seyfarth (the creator of the top-rated Puerto Rico, among other titles) and his wife Karyn, earned several awards in 2006-7, including the prestigious 2006 Spiel des Jahres. 

The board consists of twenty-two cities connected by a network of roads and spread over nine color-coded regions. Each city is represented in the deck by three cards; six of these cards are arranged face-up as options for your mandatory draw each turn (or you could take a gamble with the top card of the deck, sight unseen). You must then place one card from your hand either on one end of your current route (towns must be connected by a road and the route cannot cross itself) or on a new route (trashing any previous route you may have at the time). Finally, you may then close your current route (if it is at least three cities long) and set up offices along it in one of two ways: 1) place in office all cities within a single region of the route; or 2) place one office in a city of each region spanned by the route. After closing a route discard down to three cards in your hand. If you close a region of sufficient length, starting at three cities and working up to seven, you may upgrade your carriage house one level.

In addition to the unique office placement rules, Thurn and Taxis also makes one of four special abilities, represented by various post office personnel, available on each turn: the cartwright allows you to virtually extend your current route by two cities for the purposes of upgrading your carriage house (the route must still be at least three actual adjacent cities); the postal carrier allows you to place two cards on to your current route (on either end); the administrator allows you to discard all six of the face-up cards and replace them with new ones before you draw for the turn; and finally there is the postmaster, who allows you to draw two cards in the same turn — and which must be selected if you begin the turn with no cards in hand, such as on each player’s first turn.

The game ends at the end of the round in which at least one player either obtains his fifth carriage house or places his last office; the highest carriage house obtained by each player is the only one scored. Setting up an office in each city within a region (or within two smaller neighboring regions) earns bonus points, as does having at least one office in each region. Additional points can be awarded by completing routes of certain lengths. All of these bonus points decrease in value as subsequent players earn them, rewarding those who can accomplish the various challenges with speed. There is also one final bonus point awarded to the player who first achieves a game-ending condition. Unplaced offices are then deducted from your total — a potentially harsh penalty if you’re not ready for the game to end — and whoever has the highest score wins. 

What makes Thurn and Taxis fun to play are all of the strategic choices at every turn. Which power will help you the most? Do you want to close your route now or try to extend it another turn for additional points and offices?Can you even extend your route with any of the cards available to you… and will those cards still be there by the time you get to draw them? What’s the most efficient way to score this route that contains two cities in three different regions? Careful use of the various powers usually helps to mitigate the luck factor in not drawing any useable cards, but trashing a route does still happen from time to time. 

A typical game of Thurn and Taxis will last from 45 minutes to an hour, and is best with three or four players (two is also supported) of ages 10 and up. Copies can usually be picked up for under $30 at gaming stores, or for under $25 on Amazon.

In Cyclades, designed by Bruno Cathala and Ludovic Maublanc (the same team responsible for Mr. Jack and Cleopatra and the Society of Architects), up to five rival cities vie to achieve dominance amongst the Greek islands by making offerings to gods, enlisting the aid of mythical creatures, and building metropolises.

The goal of the game is to construct a second metropolis (or a third in the two-player variant), which is normally accomplished by controlling one of each of the four building types although there are alternate methods. Each player begins with five gold pieces (kept secret behind their screen), control of two islands, and two fleets; each starting position has a total income of two gold, and each player has six troops and six fleets in reserve. The first cycle’s turn order is determined randomly.

At the beginning of each cycle (round), the mythical creatures track is filled with a new card for every empty space (except on the first two rounds) and the four god tiles are randomly placed on the bidding track; if there are less than five players some of them will be placed face down and be the first one(s) on the track for the next cycle (or every other cycle, depending). Each player then collects their income, represented by the number of controlled cornucopias. Starting with the first player, each player then bids an amount to offer to one of the four gods or seeks Apollo’s aid, which is free. If a player is outbid by another, the outbid player immediately places a new bid on a different god; this chain reaction continues until no player is outbid, at which point the next player who has not placed a bid does so. Once everybody has a standing bid (or has gone to Apollo), the offerings are paid simultaneously. The two-player rules allow each player to beseech two gods a turn, but otherwise this phase works the same.

Once the offerings are done, the players’ actions get resolved in the order of the gods on the track; the winner of the first god executes all of their actions, and then so on down the line. Each god except Apollo has several abilities, which includes a recruitment ability, a building ability, and  a special ability (except Athena). Additionally, all non-Apollo gods also have the ability to recruit creatures. Zeus recruits priests which reduce the amount required to pay for future offerings (to a minimum of one), builds temples which can be used to reduce the recruitment cost of a single creature (again, to a minimum of one), and can discard a creature on the track and replace it with the top card of the deck. Poseidon recruits fleets, builds ports that give extra defense to all friendly adjacent fleets, and can move fleets up to three spaces per gold spent. Ares is sort of a land-based Poseidon, recruiting troops, building fortresses, and allowing troops to move over a chain of fleets to conquer a new island. Athena recruits philosophers — four of which earn you a free metropolis! — and builds universities — whose only function is to be one-fourth of a metropolis. Finally, Apollo awards you an additional gold piece, or four if you are down to only one controlled island; the first player to beseech Apollo each cycle also gains an additional cornucopia to place on one of their islands for additional income. After you have used all of the abilities of your god that you wish to (and/or can afford to), place your bid marker on the lowest turn order space; the first to execute actions will bid last in the next round, while those on Apollo will go first.

When opposing fleets or troops share the same space/island, combat ensues. Each round of combat is resolved by the players rolling an averaging die (0, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3) and then adding the number of troops/fleets controlled, plus any defensive bonuses granted by fortresses/ports. The losing side sacrifices a troop/fleet, with both sides suffering casualties in the event of a tie. After each round each player has the option of retreating, if able, otherwise the combat continues with new rolls until one side is wiped out.  Any buildings and cornucopias on a conquered island are claimed by the victor, which includes a metropolis; this is the third and final way to gain one. You will also probably need to conquer additional islands in order to build your second metropolis, as each island has room for a limited number of buildings and building a metropolis may require the demolition of existing buildings if you are careless (usually relevant when getting your fourth philosopher). However, an opponent who controls only one island cannot be attacked unless that attack will result in the attacker winning the game via conquered buildings.

The powers of the creatures are unique and varied, with some extremely powerful and others of a more niche use. There are about fifteen of them, with the ability of one including reshuffling the “graveyard” back into the deck. Five of the creatures have a lasting effect on the board and have their own figures to represent this; the rest are one-shot effects. The cards use a symbology which makes sense if you know what the abilities are, but the handy quick-start guide includes descriptions for all of them. Using creatures will be a key factor in many games, and knowing which ones may be useful to those acting after you — and potentially before you — is one of many aspects of the game that should be tracked.

The game ends at the conclusion of a cycle in which a player obtains his second (or third) metropolis. In the event of a tie, the player with the most remaining gold wins. Since the win condition and everyone’s progress towards it is obvious to all, later rounds often shift into “stop the leader”, with the ultimate win ultimately coming either from an unstoppable breakthrough round, an under-the-radar sneak win, or a kingmaker action (especially when two players are both vying for the same route to victory). Sadly, the random nature of the combat die and the creature deck can sometimes cause “lucky” wins that owed little to actual strategy (that round, at least), but it’s a minor problem in an otherwise finely strategic game. A session of Cyclades is usually complete in about an hour. 

Cyclades retails for around $60, but you get a lot of materials for that price. Each city’s fleets and troops are uniquely sculpted plastic pawns (as opposed to the generic wooden pawns of the European editions), as are the larger-than-life creature pawns (which the European version lacks entirely; the cardboard tokens used for that edition are also included), and the massive amount of gold coins are heavyweight cardboard. The cards are stronger than most games, even though only the creatures will be shuffled. Finally, the three-piece game board is double-sided to accommodate different board sizes for different numbers of players (the back of the god/creature track is a mural image).