New Game Round-up: Previews at Gen Con, Trick-Taking World Domination & Dominic Crapuchettes Wants to Club You

In Alliances, you will play a superpower nation seeking world domination along with its ally. Each trick represents a local struggle to control a country in the world. The world is composed of a vast number of countries, each one represented by a tile on the table. Each country also has its own defensive attributes: a certain military strength, economic strength and political strength which need to be overcome. In order to win, your alliance has to dominate the world by gaining control over the most countries.

Alliances includes three different games in one box:

-----• For 2 players, a basic introduction game.
-----• For 3 players, a game in which one player plays a superpower empire each turn with the other two players fighting him off as rebels.
-----• For 4 players, the full game experience, with you and your ally fighting to control the world!

Clubs is a climbing game similar to Tichu, Haggis, and The Great Dalmuti, but it is as simple to teach as Hearts and Spades. It shines with 3-6 players, but a two-player variation is included in the rules. There are two ways to earn points in Clubs:

-----• Play all of the cards in your hand as quickly as possible.
-----• Win tricks with clubs in them.

To play a round, deal out all of the cards. The player with the 1 of hearts leads with a hand of cards; legal hands include any singleton, pair, 3-of-a-kind, or 4-of-a-kind, and any run of 2 or more cards. Players can either pass or follow with a similar hand of higher rank. When all of the players have passed consecutively, the pile is taken by the person who played last. That player continues play with the next lead.

Players score bonus points for playing all of their cards:

-----• 1st out: 15 bonus points + points for clubs
-----• 2nd out: 10 bonus points + points for clubs
-----• 3rd out: 7 bonus points + points for clubs
-----• 4th out: 5 bonus points + points for clubs
-----• 5th out: 3 bonus points + points for clubs

The last player out for the round does not get bonus points and does not receive points for any clubs he may have taken. The points for clubs varies from 5 points (for the 1 of clubs) to 1 point (for the 10-15 of clubs). The first player to 100 points wins the game.