RYCE – What is it about?

There are some temporary resources on Mars, that have to been harvested, before other players do it. But if somebody has the majority in an Area, the other players are not able to harvest in that Area. To get even more resources and over a major distance, you have to upgrade your technology.

Furthermore, you can build mines on mars, to get continuos resources. But you have also to take care, that the other player doen’t lurch the resources or mines from you.

A disturbing factor – you can save your nation from it, with the right technology – are the CRAWLERS (Gigant Sand Creatures). These CRAWLERS appears randomly in one are and cause sand storms. The sand storms can be dangerous for your units, but they can also bring fresh resources.

In the course of the game, there are coming event cars with calls (after resources) of the 3 different factions (EARTH, MARTIANS, BROTHERHOOD) for the players. According to the commpliance or not compliance of the call, the player rise or fall in the influence of the factions. If you rise influece, you get an influence card, which can give you benefits, or let you block the other players. There are some nice things like the Displacement of units, or the sabotage of mines.

The player, who is leading in the favor of a faction gets a special benefit in form of a special unit. These special units supports the player in Area Control, by raising the majority value. The Brotherhood figure, for example, can take control up to 2 units of other players with mind control. Cause that the favor of the factions can change, even the control of this special units can change.

Finally it all comes down to victory points. You can get victory points with the upgrade of your technology (through resources), or with the influece by the factions (through resources) and with the control of the capital importance mine areas of the planet.

Ryce – Empire of Sand uses victory points you can loose and that you cannot loose. So the came is exciting till the end. The downtime of the players is low, because of short suceeded actions. That allows a game with up to 6 players with a playing time with 3 hours.