New Game Round-up: Ragnar Ends with The Romans, and Tasty Minstrel Digs Up the Past

The Romans traces the history of the Roman Empire from its inception as a small Italian Kingdom, through its development and expansion as a Republic and thence to the full blown Empire that dominated the classical world. Enemies mount challenges throughout the game and ultimately the barbarian invasions drive deep into the Empire with Rome itself as their target.

But this is not just a game of conquest. Senators grapple for power in the buildings of the capital and players will score victory points by developments through the game.

Players start with four Senators and their number increases through the game as five buildings come into play. These Senators can be placed in the various buildings to gain promotions, recruit legions, take revenue and build cities, fortifications and fleets, gain victory points, and a whole lot more. Alternatively, the Senators flip to become Generals which the player then deploy with armies on their own map board to expand the Kingdom, Republic and Empire.

Players make a range of decisions as there are multiple scoring opportunities and routes to victory. Game play is speedy and at time simultaneous. The fortune of dice rolling is mitigated by the sharing of many rolls and players who fall behind in the game will benefit from three recovery mechanisms that ensure the game remains tightly balanced until the dramatic climax of the game.

This is the third quantum game from the Ragnar Brothers and gives players a unique opportunity for each to experience the thrilling rise of Roman power. The game also builds upon the auto-player mechanisms which have been a feature of the solo rules in their recent games.

In the game, players draft various "Tetris-like" wooden shapes from the quarry to race to build structures from blueprints. These completed buildings are added to the growing town of Stormtryne. The player who successfully builds the most structures wins. The game features a novel "cube-building mechanism".

You are an adventurous archaeologist, digging into the earth for artifacts, treasure, and other goodies. Every day requires a new plan to be efficient, so you and the other archaeologists on the site will be competing to see whose is the most efficient!

Each turn in Big Dig, you draft a card from the center that shows you the shape in which you must dig (by crossing out squares on your personal dry-erase board). You must touch either the top of the digging area or a previously dug area, and you can't go through certain areas (though you may forgo regular digs to blow up stones that are in your way). When the cards in the center run out, everyone returns their cards to the center and flips them over so that different digging shapes are now available.

Every game, three random goals are dealt out, and the first person to accomplish all of them wins!

An empresario was a person who had been granted the right to settle on land in exchange for recruiting and taking responsibility for new settlers. Both Spain and Mexico used empresarios: the first to help develop their land in Spanish Louisiana in the late eighteenth century, and both to settle the eastern areas of Coahuila y Tejas in the early nineteenth century. The word is Spanish for entrepreneur.

By empresarios attracting immigrants mostly from the southern United States to Texas, they inadvertently encouraged the spread of slavery into this territory. Although Mexico banned slavery in 1836, Texas gained independence that year, and continued to develop an economy dominated by slavery in the eastern part of the territory.

The journey out west was daunting and fraught with peril, but you made it! And now you've been granted land to take responsibility for new settlers.

In Old West Empresario, you take on the role of an empresario, building a prosperous town in newly settled western territories. Attract settlers through clever dice drafting and tile placement. Build the most valuable town with the most population to become the state capital!