Crowdfunding Round-up: Galaxy Defenders, Chronos Conquest, Robotech RPG Tactics, Supremacy 2020 & Belfort: The Expansion Expansion

In Belfort: The Expansion Expansion, the King has requested that the architects construct expansions to their existing buildings. Because this sounds like extra work, the King has decided to let the architects use his Assistants!

These expansions open up new and individual scoring paths for each player as they expand their own properties. Assistants are chosen in reverse turn order every round and can either help you with their own unique ability (which changes every season), or they can be used to acquire a new permit for an expansion.

Belfort: The Expansion Expansion also includes new guilds, some of which can be used with only the base game and others that require the components in this expansion.

Galaxy Defenders is a cooperative tactical board game in which up to five players fight together – each taking control of one agent with unique powers – to defend the planet from an alien invasion. The battle for Earth against the aliens will develop in a series of missions organized in a story-driven campaign. Missions are based on modular maps designed by Øone Games and are played over a variable number of rounds; each mission may have multiple endings and the outcome of any mission will change the flow of the story. The agents will gain experience during the missions, and this experience can be used to transform a good soldier into a perfect Galaxy Defenders Agent with multiple skills, basic and improved tactics, and the ability to use new devices, advanced human weapons, and Alien technology.

The battles themselves will be carried on round after round, with a tactical combat system that uses custom d10 dice and with each player playing in sequence his agent turn, then one alien turn. After that, the game passes to the Event phase that will bring the players to the next round.

In Galaxy Defenders the aliens are controlled by the game itself through an artificial intelligence system based on two objects:

• Alien cards, which represent the A.I. of the alien, with its movements, skills, life points and weapons. Each alien figure on the map will be bonded to a specific card to keep track of its powers and life points.
• Close encounter cards, which are drawn by the active player at the beginning of each alien turn to determine which aliens must be activated.

This system grants a different A.I. for each alien species, in addition to simulating the chaos of battle because the agents will not know in advance which alien will be activated during the next alien turn. In order to save our planet from the incoming aliens, no matter which one is doing what, the players may choose up to five agents:

• Marine: Coming from U.S. Special Forces, the Marine is an excellent soldier who can manage different combat situations, especially against multiple enemies; he has an average movement ability and firepower.
• Hulk: The Hulk was a successful mercenary and now is one of the best GD agents; although slow on the battlefield, he enjoys an extraordinary resistance to damage and has a high firepower.
• Infiltrator: A deadly woman who can perform stealth actions, and a lethal weapon who hides in the shadows, she has fast movement and good short-range combat ability.
• Sniper: A silent sharpshooter, expert in camouflage and ranged combat; the sniper has excellent long-range firepower.
• Biotech: The Biotech is the most technologically adept agent in service. He can use nano-technology to heal wounds or to control war drones. He also likes old-fashioned style; in fact he has always his faithful shotgun for close encounters!

The level of difficulty will scale dynamically based on the number of operative players in the game. This system grants the right level of difficulty with any number of players. In this way, a player who wants to play alone is not forced to use more than one agent at the same time due to the lack of difficult balance. Even in the event of some players dying during the game, the system will recallibrate the difficulty to a reasonable and enjoyable level.

In the real-time game Chronos Conquest, an expanded version of Witty Chronos that shares the same core game mechanism, the Gods of Mount Olympus do battle with sand timers!

Each player has two or three sand timers and (at any time) may flip them onto cards from the board. A flowing sand timer may never be moved. When a player moves an empty sand timer from a card, he gains that card – provided that no other sand timer is on that card! When two players both have a sand timer on a card, the player ready to wait longest will gain it. Bargaining is allowed, though, so if you're not content to wait, try to strike a bargain.

Each card shows points (with one of the winning conditions being to reach 200 points), monsters, winds (which is another path to victory), or plagues (allowing you to, for example, place opposing sand timers in Hell).

The Greek Gods get into the game as well, with six of the forty God cards in play each game; each God card has a special power that a player can activate by offering some of the cards he's acquired. In addition, two of twelve City cards are in play each game, each with a special power that a player can activate with a sand timer.

Prepare for invasion! Robotech RPG Tactics is a tactical miniatures game set in the Robotech universe. While the 1/285th scale game pieces can be used as a companion to the Robotech RPG, the game system is designed to be played as a tabletop miniatures game. Players build armies of multiple squadrons of mecha to fight it out in scenario-driven, objective-based game play. Take command of the fighting forces of the United Earth Defense Force (UEDF) valiantly defending Earth from alien annihilation – or lead the massive clone armies of the Zentraedi Armada to recover an alien artifact of immense power and enslave humankind. Depending on the faction, and their choice of mecha, a player's army may include anywhere from two game pieces to as many as you desire! The rules are scalable from small skirmishes to mass combat with hundreds per side.

Robotech RPG Tactics uses a dynamic turn system. Players trade off activating squadrons during each turn, ensuring that a player never has to sit and wait while his opponent moves and attacks with his entire army. By using alternating activation of squadrons, the game's action unfolds at a fast and furious pace, allowing large scale battles to be easily carried out in a single evening. Each player receives a number of Command Points each turn based on the number of mecha they have on the field, and the quality of their officers. Command Points are spent throughout the turn on maneuvers such as boosted movement, devastating weapon salvos, breakneck dodging counterattacks, and potent special abilities.

The wide variety of mecha in the boxed game bring to bear the myriad and awesome weapon systems from the Robotech universe to lay waste to your foes. Even the battlefield itself can alter over the course of the game as buildings are leveled by destruction unleashed during the battle.

After the cold war, boom years and the great recession, new superpowers emerge to contest the old.

In Supremacy 2020, six superpowers battle for global supremacy in a tense yet simple game of nuclear brinksmanship. Players compete in international trade for vital resources: minerals, oil and grain. Speculate and trade commodities on the world market. A strong economy fuels the arms race as you build armies, navies, nukes and a "star-wars" defense system. Borrow money from the world bank or invest in bonds to increase your income. Don't borrow too much or the crushing interest will bankrupt you!

As conflicts and nuclear arsenals grow, the world becomes a much more dangerous place. A nuclear strike may vanquish an enemy, but will the retaliation trigger a nuclear winter destroying the world? To win, you'll need a delicate balance of diplomacy, economic and military strength. You must form alliances, negotiate, threaten and bluff. Many strategies can lead to victory – but only one superpower will achieve supremacy.

This redesign of the classic cold war game Supremacy has an updated map and currency for the 21st century, along with corrected and streamlined rules to make the game faster, simpler and more intense.