Amun RE

This is an excellent game. This game is best with 5 players. Its fairly quick, lasting only 6 turns, is fun to play and somehow does have the feel of Ancient Egypt. There are a number of phases in each turn, but they are reasonably short and the pace of the game is fast.
Every turn each player bids on a number of areas of Egypt, near the River Nile. Each area has one or more of the following – farmers and/ or farming areas, a set income, income from camel routes, temples, special cards, money and quarried stones (for building pyramids). The bidding mechanism allows some cheap but allows for some good interplay of bluff and double bluff.
Players then buy farmers, more building stones and special cards.
Special cards are played to gain victory points (VPs), gain extra farmers or stones or allow the player to do unusual actions outside the normal rules.
Players can either try to build pyramids in all the areas they own, in sets, or try to build the biggest number of pyramids in one of their areas.
Next comes the fun bit – the sacrifice to the Gods.
Players place a one or more money tokens secretly in their hand or use the -3 money. Then the total sacrifice of money is totalled, the larger the amount sacrificed the better the harvest. More sacrifices mean farmers make more money. Caravan routes will not make if the harvest is good, and those with fewer farmers will not make as much as those with more farmers. This results in some players sabotaging the sacrifice with the -3 money card. This reduces the sacrifice as they reduce the total. Also that player gains 3 money!
However there is a balance here, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd highest bids do gain benefits of extra farmers, stones or cards.
Players next gain money based on the sacrifice, from areas they own and the camel route (if the sacrifice total was low) and then move on to the next turn.
This is done for 3 turns after which VP are totalled up, based on Pyramids and temples and special cards played for things like having all your areas on the same side of the Nile. Players keep their money and cards but lose everything else - farmers are removed and all areas are returned to the deck. Only the Pyramids remain…
This is the end of the ‘Old Kingdom’, then 3 more turns of the New Kingdom occur in exactly the same way as before he winner is the one with the most VPs at the end. Runaway victories have occurred but so have a number of very close games wih 3 players within one point of each other.