Alhambra (board Game)
''Alhambra'' (german: Der Palast von Alhambra, literally "The Palace of Alhambra") is a 2003 tile-based German-style board game designed by Dirk Henn. It was originally published in Germany by Queen Games in a language-interdependent version; an English-specific version was released in North America by the now-defunct Überplay. The game is an Arabian-themed update, set during the construction of the Alhambra palace in 14th century Granada, of the 1998 stock trading board game ''Stimmt So!'', which in turn was an update of the 1992 mafia influence board game ''Al Capone''; the original version was subsequently released as ''Alhambra: The Card Game''. Upon its release, ''Alhambra'' won numerous awards, including the Spiel des Jahres award. Its success has led to the release of numerous expansion packs and spin-off games, and is becoming Queen Games' flagship franchise. Gameplay The game consists of a deck of "currency cards" of various values in four currencies ( suits) an ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Currency
A currency, "in circulation", from la, currens, -entis, literally meaning "running" or "traversing" is a standardization of money in any form, in use or circulation as a medium of exchange, for example banknotes and coins. A more general definition is that a currency is a ''system of money'' in common use within a specific environment over time, especially for people in a nation state. Under this definition, the British Pound Sterling (£), euros (€), Japanese yen (¥), and U.S. dollars (US$)) are examples of (government-issued) fiat currencies. Currencies may act as stores of value and be traded between nations in foreign exchange markets, which determine the relative values of the different currencies. Currencies in this sense are either chosen by users or decreed by governments, and each type has limited boundaries of acceptance - i.e. legal tender laws may require a particular unit of account for payments to government agencies. Other definitions of the term " ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Italian-American Mafia
The American Mafia, commonly referred to in North America as the Italian American Mafia, the Mafia, or the Mob, is a highly organized Italian American criminal society and organized crime group. The organization is often referred to by its members as Cosa Nostra (, "our thing" or "this thing of ours") and by the American government as La Cosa Nostra (LCN). The organization's name is derived from the original ''Mafia'' or ''Cosa nostra'', the Sicilian Mafia, with "American Mafia" originally referring simply to Mafia (or ''Cosa nostra'') groups from Sicily operating in the United States, as the organization initially emerged as an offshoot of the Sicilian Mafia (known also as ''Cosa nostra'' by its members) formed by Italian immigrants in the United States. However, the organization gradually evolved into a separate entity partially independent of the original Mafia in Sicily, and it eventually encompassed or absorbed other Italian immigrant and Italian-American gangsters and Ital ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Troisdorf
Troisdorf () is a city in the Rhein-Sieg-Kreis (district), in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Geography Troisdorf is located approximately 22 kilometers south of Cologne and 13 kilometers north east of Bonn. Division of the city Troisdorf consists of 12 districts (population as of April, 2014): * Troisdorf-Mitte (16,414 inhabitants) * Altenrath (2,292 inhabitants) * Bergheim (5,750 inhabitants) * Eschmar (3,078 inhabitants) * Friedrich-Wilhelms-Hütte (7,161 inhabitants) * Kriegsdorf (3,129 inhabitants) * Müllekoven (1,793 inhabitants) * Oberlar (6,100 inhabitants) * Rotter See (3,918 inhabitants) * Sieglar (8,668 inhabitants) * Spich (12,765 inhabitants) * West (5,367 inhabitants) : Total: 76,435 inhabitants History Troisdorf became a free city in 1952. In 1969, the urban area expanded with the annexation of the township of Sieglar and the villages of Altenrath and Friedrich-Wilhelms-Hütte (total population in 1969: about 51,000). The first large settlements in this area go ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Carat (board Game)
''Carat'' is an abstract tile laying German style board game designed by Dirk Henn and published in 1993 by Queen Games and db Spiele. In 2004, after the success of ''Alhambra'', Queen Games released an updated version of the game with an Arabian theme called ''Die Gärten der Alhambra''. Gameplay The game board consists of regular octagon In geometry, an octagon (from the Greek ὀκτάγωνον ''oktágōnon'', "eight angles") is an eight-sided polygon or 8-gon. A '' regular octagon'' has Schläfli symbol and can also be constructed as a quasiregular truncated square, t, whi ...s and squares, tiled such that each square is surrounded by four octagons. Players first take turns to place square tiles on the squares to set up the game. They then place octagonal tiles around the squares. Each square tile is worth a number of victory points, and each octagonal tile contains a number of each player's influence markers. When a square tile is surrounded by octagonal ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Moors
The term Moor, derived from the ancient Mauri, is an exonym first used by Christian Europeans to designate the Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages. Moors are not a distinct or self-defined people. The 1911 ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' observed that the term had "no real ethnological value." Europeans of the Middle Ages and the early modern period variously applied the name to Arabs and North African Berbers, as well as Muslim Europeans. The term has also been used in Europe in a broader, somewhat derogatory sense to refer to Muslims in general,Menocal, María Rosa (2002). ''Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain''. Little, Brown, & Co. , p. 241 especially those of Arab or Berber descent, whether living in Spain or North Africa. During the colonial era, the Portuguese introduced the names " Ceylon Moors" and " Indian Moors" in South Asia and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bazaar
A bazaar () or souk (; also transliterated as souq) is a marketplace consisting of multiple small stalls or shops, especially in the Middle East, the Balkans, North Africa and India. However, temporary open markets elsewhere, such as in the West, might also designate themselves as bazaars. The ones in the Middle East were traditionally located in vaulted or covered streets that had doors on each end and served as a city's central marketplace. Street markets are the European and North American equivalents. The term ''bazaar'' originates from Persian, where it referred to a town's public market district. The term bazaar is sometimes also used to refer to the "network of merchants, bankers and craftsmen" who work in that area. The term ''souk'' comes from Arabic and refers to marketplaces in the Middle East and North Africa. Evidence for the existence of bazaars or souks dates to around 3,000 BCE. Although the lack of archaeological evidence has limited detailed studies ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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City Gate
A city gate is a gate which is, or was, set within a city wall. It is a type of fortified gateway. Uses City gates were traditionally built to provide a point of controlled access to and departure from a walled city for people, vehicles, goods and animals. Depending on their historical context they filled functions relating to defense, security, health, trade, taxation, and representation, and were correspondingly staffed by military or municipal authorities. The city gate was also commonly used to display diverse kinds of public information such as announcements, tax and toll schedules, standards of local measures, and legal texts. It could be heavily fortified, ornamented with heraldic shields, sculpture or inscriptions, or used as a location for warning or intimidation, for example by displaying the heads of beheaded criminals or public enemies. Notably in Denmark, many market towns used to have at least one city gate mostly as part of the city's fortifications, but duri ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bureau De Change
A bureau de change (plural bureaux de change, both ) (British English) or currency exchange (American English) is a business where people can exchange one currency for another. Nomenclature Although originally French, the term "bureau de change" is widely used throughout Europe and French-speaking Canada, where it is common to find a sign saying "exchange" or "change". Since the adoption of the euro, many exchange offices have started incorporating its logotype prominently on their signage. In the United States and English-speaking Canada the business is described as "currency exchange" and sometimes "money exchange", sometimes with various additions such as "foreign", "desk", "office", "counter", "service", etc.; for example, "foreign currency exchange office". Location A bureau de change is often located at a bank, at a travel agent, airport, main railway station or large stores—namely, anywhere there is likely to be a market for people needing to convert currency. Th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Vizier
A vizier (; ar, وزير, wazīr; fa, وزیر, vazīr), or wazir, is a high-ranking political advisor or minister in the near east. The Abbasid caliphs gave the title ''wazir'' to a minister formerly called '' katib'' (secretary), who was at first merely a helper but afterwards became the representative and successor of the ''dapir'' (official scribe or secretary) of the Sassanian kings. In modern usage, the term has been used for government ministers in much of the Middle East and beyond. Several alternative spellings are used in English, such as ''vizir'', ''wazir'', and ''vezir''. Etymology Vizier is suggested to be an Iranian word, from the Pahlavi root of ''vičir'', which originally had the meaning of a ''decree'', ''mandate'', and ''command'', but later as its use in Dinkard also suggests, came to mean ''judge'' or ''magistrate''. Arthur Jeffery considers the word to be a "good Iranian" word, as has a well-established root in Avestan language. The Pahlavi ''vič ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Wolfgang Panning
Wolfgang is a German male given name traditionally popular in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The name is a combination of the Old High German words ''wolf'', meaning "wolf", and '' gang'', meaning "path", "journey", "travel". Besides the regular "wolf", the first element also occurs in Old High German as the combining form "-olf". The earliest reference of the name being used was in the 8th century. The name was also attested as "Vulfgang" in the Reichenauer Verbrüderungsbuch in the 9th century. The earliest recorded famous bearer of the name was a tenth-century Saint Wolfgang of Regensburg. Due to the lack of conflict with the pagan reference in the name with Catholicism, it is likely a much more ancient name whose meaning had already been lost by the tenth century. Grimm ('' Teutonic Mythology'' p. 1093) interpreted the name as that of a hero in front of whom walks the "wolf of victory". A Latin gloss by Arnold of St Emmeram interprets the name as ''Lupambulus''.E. Fö ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Suit (cards)
In playing cards, a suit is one of the categories into which the cards of a deck are divided. Most often, each card bears one of several pips (symbols) showing to which suit it belongs; the suit may alternatively or additionally be indicated by the color printed on the card. The rank for each card is determined by the number of pips on it, except on face cards. Ranking indicates which cards within a suit are better, higher or more valuable than others, whereas there is no order between the suits unless defined in the rules of a specific card game. In a single deck, there is exactly one card of any given rank in any given suit. A deck may include special cards that belong to no suit, often called jokers. History Modern Western playing cards are generally divided into two or three general suit-systems. The older Latin suits are subdivided into the Italian and Spanish suit-systems. The younger Germanic suits are subdivided into the German and Swiss suit-systems. The French sui ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Spin-off (media)
In media, a spin-off (or spinoff) is a radio program, television program, film, video game or any narrative work, derived from already existing works that focus on more details and different aspects from the original work (e.g. particular topics, characters or events). One of the earliest spin-offs of the modern media era, if not the first, happened in 1941 when the supporting character Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve from the old time radio comedy show '' Fibber McGee and Molly'' became the star of his own program '' The Great Gildersleeve'' (1941–1957). In genre fiction, the term parallels its usage in television; it is usually meant to indicate a substantial ''change in narrative viewpoint and activity'' from that (previous) storyline based on the activities of the series' principal protagonist and so is a shift to that action and overall narrative thread of some other protagonist, which now becomes the central or main thread (storyline) of the new sub-series. The ''new pr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |