Jaipur vs Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth
Jaipur
Jaipur is an incredibly strategic and fun, 2-player card and chips game that's based off on the buying and selling that's going on in the thriving marketplace of Jaipur back in the day. In this game, your goal is to make as much money as possible - more than your opponent, obviously - by trading goods at the market. You can play the game against an AI of a difficulty of your choosing via Solo mode or you can try your hand against a friend in its Pass and Play mode or another player online in its Online Duel mode.Interestingly, the game offers a fascinating campaign where you'll compete with other merchants across various districts in India to edge out the competition and become the sole monopoly. From time to time, you may encounter scenarios in which a local asked you for some monetary help or some bully came over to your store to demand "protection money" as well. The decisions you make may aid you, or cause you harm, as you progress through the campaign.
Despite its seemingly complicated rules, Jaipur is a really easy game to play once you go through its tutorial. It's incredibly strategic too as you may need to make drastic moves to deny your opponent a card. If you enjoy strategic card games that deal in trading in general, you'll love Jaipur.
Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth
Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth lets you play as the leader of a pioneering group of spacefarers as you set off for the stars in hopes of creating a new civilization in space. The science fiction-themed in this game is a pretty far cry from the usually historical theme in the award-winning Civilization game franchise, but the game was pretty well-done mainly because it contains many of the features that had made Civilization 5 such a resounding success while changing things up a bit, such as replacing religion with affinity, just so everything is relevant to the overall theme of the game. There are also items that you can find on the alien planet that you're trying to colonize which will unlock nice storylines and quests for you to experience. And of course, there's the epic DLC, Rising Tide, which has elevated a mediocre but interestingly-themed game into an impressive one.If you're hoping for a game that's as amazing as Civ 5, Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth might end up disappointing some of you, but if you consider that this is the franchise's first attempt in doing a game that's not history-based, then well, this is a pretty good first attempt for an established, triple-A series.