¥€$ (YES) is a new game produced by Armstrong Company and launched in 2004. There are 6 types of commodity spread across the 5 continents and players must control these to satisfy two different winning conditions. So to win, you might need to control two tractors and two factories for one condition, and one commodity in each continent for your second condition. Alternately, the first player to earn 1 million wins.

There are decks of cards; Country (which shows a commodity in a country and a price, e.g. Factories are in Britain and cost 70,000), Yes (good stuff), No (bad stuff), Auftrag (winning conditions). You start with some cash money, a few countries and two Auftrag. For the countries you own, you put the plastic commodity onto your colored disc onto the country. So the player owning Britain puts a factory on one of their discs onto Britain. This way, ownership can be seen and can change.

The game is driven by two dice. The player rolls them, chooses one for itself and the other for the player on the left to use. The dice are marked Buy, Sell, Country, Yes, No, Cash. Buy means you can buy a commodity/country from another player - regardless of whether they want to sell it - at the price on the card. There is also a red die you can roll to gamble on the price, making it higher or lower. Sell means you may sell a Country back to the bank. Country means you draw a Country card and place the commodity on your disc on it. Yes/No means you draw from the appropriate deck and apply the result, e.g. all players get a dividend, or pay a tax, etc. Cash means you move a marker on the board and whoever has that commodity or continent gets a bonus.

Since the game is completely driven by two dice, it is pure chance if a good thing or bad thing happens to a player. Due to the nature of the dice, the cards, and the rules, it is quite possible for the game to end in the first round. ...or it can go on forever. [See Fluxx.]

Spices of the World

Spices of the World

Description