Prepare for a Galactic Renaissance, and Make Your Mark in Copan: Dying City

• Designer Christian Martinez's biggest success to date has been Inis, which debuted in 2016, and now publisher has announced what it's calling "the second installment of the Political Trilogy" from the designer-publisher combo: Galactic Renaissance.

Details on the setting and gameplay are minimal for now:

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Throughout Galactic Renaissance, you build your team, adding new specialists — each one unique — to the core in your deck of cards. With this team, you discover new planets and systems, reconnect with lost civilizations, expand your influence, build embassies, and sow disorder in opposing factions — all in an effort to score victory points faster than your opponents. Sending emissaries to new planets, for example, allows you to discover new civilizations or cement relationships on known planets. Opponents may try to convince a planet to join them instead with their own emissaries, causing disorder in the process.

Note that the cover lists the player count as 2-5, whereas Matagot's website lists it as 1-4. The title isn't due out until 2023, however, so those details will surely be ironed out by then.

• Another large-scale game coming from French sources and due out in 2023 is Copan: Dying City from designers Eric Dubus and Olivier Melison and publisher Holy Grail Games, with all three entities having previously partnered on Museum, Encyclopedia, and Dominations: Road to Civilization.

Here's an overview of this game for 1-4 players that takes 60-180 minutes:

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Welcome to the city of Copan, shining jewel of the Maya civilization. The city is flourishing, and as one of its ruling families, this golden age holds many opportunities for you to increase your influence and wealth. But Copan is destined to fall. Dark times lie ahead, and as you work to secure your legacy over generations, you have to face the city's slow decline. Your progress will hindered by dwindling resources, crumbling political structure, natural disasters, and war.

Will your family become a part of the history of Copan, forever carved into the steps of the hieroglyphic stair? Or will your story be forgotten?

Copan: Dying City is a heavy Eurogame with both worker-placement and tile-placement mechanisms. The game features a reversed difficulty curve because when play begins, resources are plentiful, making most actions easy to accomplish. However, all resources are finite. When they reach critical levels, they trigger potentially devastating events, and once they run out, they're gone forever. Every move you make impacts the rest of the game, both for you and other players, as Copan's inevitable fate looms.