Rockwell (2013)

Each player represents a mining company drilling the Earth to get resources. But drilling often request the help of other players (forced or not). Each one therefore moves four drills on the arcs stratum of the planet to successfully implement his mines and extract maximum resources. The Fame points are acquired by spending materials, filling objectives and having majorities of material and money at the end of the game.

Goal of the Game...

Acquire the most Renown points at the end of the game. There are three ways to achieve this:

• accomplish achievements (nine in total),
• make investments,
• get majorities after the game.

Gameplay...

The game is divided into three phases that are repeated as many times as necessary until one of two conditions endgame is met:

• a majority of the players have reached the center of the earth with a drill crew
• a player has completed the nine Achievements.

Then the current round is completed before determining the winner.

Preparation for the turn...

Each player has two vice presidents he will deploy to act in Phase 1, 2, or 3, in order to perform actions. The order in which the players’ vice presidents are deployed is determined by a closed-fist auction.

Phase 1...

This is the main phase. Players will move their drill crews are at a rate of one per round (there are four rounds before Phase 2). Depending on the position of your vice president, if you deployed him to act in this phase, you can corrupt opposing drill crews (in order to attract them to the same tile as your active drill crew) or hire a subcontractor (to increase your drilling power).

Each tile of the earth's crust has a value indicating its resistance to drilling. If the sum of the drill crews who are present equals or exceeds this value, the tile is excavated and turned over; then draw an Extraction card to see what resources you discovered, which is evenly split between the players who participated in the drilling. The indivisible remainder goes to one of those players (prioritized by whoever has a mine on the tile, then the player who has the greater drilling power, then the one who triggered the drilling).

Finally, after the four rounds, the mines laid on drilled tiles provide the resources printed on the back of the tile.

Phase 2...

Players with a vice president here can perform market transactions, which is to say that they can buy or sell resources.

Phase 3...

In this phase, players can make investments to get renown points and improve their drilling conditions in different ways…

• augment the drill crews’ power (maximum = 4),
• place mines in the game (maximum three mines),
• improve mine safety (in order to avoid wasting resources at extraction time),
• improve the movement of drill crews.