Protect Rome from Discordia, and Achieve Fame on Mount Olympus in AEOLOS

The SPIEL '22 Preview hasn't yet overtaken the Gen Con 2022 Preview in number of titles listed, but it's coming close. Here are a few listed titles that I haven't yet covered:

• Discordia is a design for 1-4 players from Bernd Eisenstein of Irongames that breaks his habit of P-named games with a cover that fits this year's habit of calm and inviting game covers.

As for the setting and gameplay, here's an overview:

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The first cities on the Rhine emerged from Roman outposts protecting the border with Germania. As the governor of one of these cities, your task is to develop it in the best possible way, while also defending it against the Germanic tribes. Empress Agrippina and her son Nero will inspect your actions and honor the most successful governor.

In Discordia, you develop your city by building farms, barracks, defenses, harbors, and markets, and by trading with ships. Use your seamen, soldiers, merchants, and farmers profitably, fulfill decrees, and secure privileges — acting carefully at all times so that your city grows neither too fast nor too slow. Will you have the best-developed city at the end of the fourth year, or will you manage to impress the empress before then and win the game early?

English and German rules are posted on the BGG game page for those who want to know more.

• One Word is a design from Fedor Korzhenkov and publisher Noris Spiele for 2-12 players with rules only in German, French, and Italian, but the description below is probably all that you would need to play in any language:

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Your challenge in One Word is to rid yourself of cards as quickly as you can, but you need to be clever to do so.

Each player has a deck of face-down cards that show a color on their public face and two colors on their hidden reverse side. On a turn, you look at the hidden side of your topmost card, roll the nine dice into the color fields of the game box, then think of a word that corresponds to the dice sitting in the three colors depicted on your card. If another player correctly identifies your two hidden colors, both you and that player discard a card; if they're wrong, they can no longer guess. Once someone guesses, the next player takes their turn. Whoever first gets rid of all their cards wins.

The game includes variants for team play, play with only two players, and so on.

• Disney Villains: The Card Game from Leo Colovini and Ravensburger is a re-make of 2019's Heul doch! Mau Mau, which I wrote about with affection in that year.

The gist of the game is that like in Crazy Eights, you can play a card on your personal discard pile only if it matches the top card in color or number — but if that card matches your left or right neighbor's top card, then you have to play it on their pile instead, and cards are worth points equal to their face value, so you don't want to give anything away.

The twist for Disney Villains: The Card Game is that each player has their own deck of cards instead of everyone drawing from the same deck, so now you know that you'll draw as many 6s, 5s, etc. as everyone else, but that won't necessarily help you hang on to them. Each deck has two special-powered cards that you can shuffle in or leave out as players desire.

Board Game: Disney Villains: The Card Game

• Finally, we have a sparse listing for AEOLOS, a design for 2-4 players from Guido Eckhof, Arve D. Fühler, and SPIEL DAS! Verlag that was announced with this description as a SPIEL '22 release:

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Whoever receives the most acclaim on Mount Olympus in AEOLOS will be accepted as a beneficiary in the alliance of the gods.

To do so, you should build settlements in seven harbors, construct ships, collect sacred crystals, and use the "favor of the gods". Sail your ships up river to the temples of the winds to deliver sacrifices, or send your prophet on a journey over the sacred mountain to invoke Olympus and speak of your great deeds.