Indus 2500 BCE

Each round, a market of terrain cards is laid out, one per player. In turn, each player takes one card: either a terrain from the market, whose shape you draw onto your map as houses, farms, forests or canals, sometimes with a free stretch of wall, or the top card of the deck, which you keep for its resource side. Resources pay for special buildings, a reservoir, or a granary or bathhouse that may only go in the upper town. Some resource cards are artefacts instead, sculptures, toys, jewellery and seals, which you collect for points.

Two calamity cards are hidden in the deck. When one turns up, everyone crosses out the parts of their city it strikes, a flood, a drought, an earthquake, plague, locusts or a landslide, and walls are your main protection. The game ends as soon as the second calamity has been dealt with, so you never know exactly how many rounds are left.

At the end, whoever has the most houses, farms, forests, canals or walls still standing scores 5 points for each of those types, and ties share them. Each special building is worth 3 points, artefacts score more the more different kinds you hold, and the two score cards add their bonuses. The most points wins. The box has a booklet of 200 maps, and Mozaic Games also sells a refill booklet of 200 more.

A note on history: the Indus Valley, or Harappan, civilisation flourished from roughly 2600 to 1900 BCE in what is now Pakistan and north-west India, in cities such as Harappa, Mohenjo-daro, Dholavira and Lothal. Archaeologists found planned streets, baked-brick houses, drains, large water reservoirs, the Great Bath of Mohenjo-daro and a big building often called a granary, along with seals, beads and terracotta toys. The game borrows these as buildings and artefacts. Its calamities are a game idea: why the cities declined is still debated, with changes in climate and rivers among the leading explanations.