Sultaniya

Players: 2–4 players
Play time: 45 min
BGG rating: 6.5

The sultan has issued a decree: Whoever can build the most amazing palace in the city of Sultaniya will be made Grand Vizier. Become a character from 1001 Arabian Nights and build graceful minarets, dazzling gates and soaring cupolas to draw the eye of the sultan and carve your name in history. Players will carefully select the best building tiles to erect the most impressive structures, scoring points for following patterns and fulfilling secret objectives. Earn sapphires, and use them to secure the services of the mighty Djinn, whose aid will be invaluable in your quest to create the most stunning palace the city has ever seen. Game play: Players start out with a board, with a "triangle" of 3-tiles worth built, and have to expand that out to make the best (most VP-earning) palace. There are separate stacks of tiles for each layer of the palace, color coded (blue, red, green, and sky). Besides the color-coded levels, there are attributes that have to match up, like doorways and columns. To get tiles, players reveal tiles from one pile and display them in front of the pile (up to 3 can be showing - the top of the pile is face up but can't be taken) and then choose a tile from any of the available tiles in any color. You try to choose a tile that will give you points and/or gems. The gems let you buy genies, which have special powers like building twice in one turn, or moving a tile you previously placed. Players are limited by the edges of the starting board, including the bonus tiles (question marks). You have to have at least one tile beneath you to build, and you can't make a hole in the palace, so things are somewhat constrained. The tiles are two-sided and can be flipped if you need the mirror-image tile. Each player board has attributes that score points, like windows or plants. You also have 2 hidden objectives/bonuses, which might be points for making a column of windows. The game ends when someone builds their fifth sky tile. The player that scores the most points is the winner.