Cyclades

Poseidon grants the player a free ship and allows you to buy more ships, move ships, and to build ports on islands you control. (Islands vary in size; you can only build if there’s space on the island.) Ares grants you a free soldier and buy more soldiers. You can use soldiers to attack other islands, if you’ve got a chain of ships leading to an island you wish to fight. You can also build a fortress. Zeus gives you a priest, who provides huge discounts for the bidding. Zeus also provides a temple, which provides a discount off buying mythological creatures. Some of these beasties have their own fantastic model, such as the cyclops, or the kraken. Athena, meanwhile, grants a philosopher card, and a university.

If you can trade in one of each building type (or four philosophers), you can convert them into a metropolis. Providing, that is, you control an island with the capacity to house such a city! The first person to build their second metropolis wins Cyclades. But look out! Are you going to do all the hard work, yourself? Or use your wily nautical ways and conquer someone else’s metropolis and claim it for your own?