Roll for the Galaxy: Ambition is when games is won or lost. Eventually, you hit a sweet spot with your engine running like clockwork, churning out credits constantly, but twelve-tile limit is a ticking clock to watch out for. Now you’re no longer just building; you’re harvesting. Enter the calculator. Plug in state of your … Read more

It is rare for a game of Gathering Storm for Race for the Galaxy to end clearly. More often than not, it comes down to a mess of cards on the table. You’ve played your 12th card and fired off the end game, and now your brain hurt trying to count all the points from … Read more

Winning points in Puerto Rico feels a bit like doing an audit. There are chips everywhere on the board. Buildings are all laid out in front of you with numbers printed on top of them. Rows of colonists wait to be placed, each one occupying some large building that looks harmless enough until you realize … Read more

By this time, you’ve established a network of cities throughout the map. It’s an impressive web of wires connecting your towns to their power plant. On board, it look cool. However, when you go to grab some resources to ensure lights stay on, your hand comes up empty. That’s what happens in the classic Power … Read more

Half the game in Gaia Project is spent constructing an efficient engine. You transform QIC into ore into colonization. Your planet transition from gray rock to lush Gaia worlds. Then it’s the last round. There are so many research tracks, tiles, and token on the board. Keeping track of victory points seem like a hard … Read more

After three hours of shuffling pawns, settling territory disputes, and jockeying for influence over various cults, the board is a confusing maze of interlocking structures and disputed tiles. And now… it’s time for the thing we all hate: final scoring. In Terra Mystica Fire and Ice, points aren’t awarded for sheer number of buildings. Points … Read more

With the Carcassonne: Traders & Builders expansion, Carcassonne transforms from a spatial puzzle game into an economic strategy contest where you must manage not only placement of tiles, but also time and supply chains. The calculator handles the arithmetic so you can focus on the tactical implications. Instead of doing math in your head, the … Read more