Placing the first Structures

Skip this section when reading for the first time. In the introductory game, the first Structures are placed on predefined spaces.

Beginning with the Starting player and in clockwise order, place one of your Dwellings on an existing Home terrain. Then, beginning with the last player and in counterclockwise order, place a second Dwelling in the same fashion. (The Nomads place their third Dwelling after all players have placed their second one. The Chaos Magicians place their only Dwelling after all other players have placed all of their Dwellings – if necessary, after the Nomads have placed their third Dwelling.)

Details

• Dwellings may only be placed on a faction’s Home terrain. (Other than that, there are no restrictions.)
• When placing the first Structures, players may not transform any Terrain spaces. This will only be possible later in the game.
• All Structures, incl. the Dwellings, are taken from left to right off your Faction board.
  After placing the first Structures, there will be empty spaces on the Dwelling track. These spaces define your income.

Choosing the first Bonus card

Beginning with the last player and in counterclockwise order, each choose and take one Bonus card.

Bonus cards provide additional income, unlock Special actions or award Victory points for certain Structures at the end of a round.

Place 1 Coin from the general supply on each of the leftover Bonus cards. (The purpose of these Coins is to make the less frequently taken Bonus cards more attractive in later rounds.)

At the end of each round, there will be 3 leftover Bonus cards that each get 1 Coin.

Flow of play over 6 rounds

Further flow of play goes over 6 rounds. Each of the six rounds goes through three phases:

• PHASE I: Income Phase
• PHASE II: Action Phase
• PHASE III: Cult bonuses and Clean-up Phase

Collect new Workers, Coins, Priests, and Power.
You also go through this phase on the 1st round. Consequently, you first collect your faction-specific starting income and then also the income for the 1st round.

Your income depends on the Structures you have built, on the Bonus card you have chosen, and (later in the game) on the Favor tiles you own. On all components, income is symbolized by an open hand.

Basic income for Structures

Workers: Take a number of Workers from the general supply equal to the number of visible Worker symbols on your Dwelling track.

Coins: Take a number of Coins from the general supply equal to the number of visible Coin symbols on your Trading house track.

Priests: Take a number of Priests from your supply equal to the number of visible Priest symbols on your Temple track. Another Priest symbol will be visible once you have built your Sanctuary. (Both the Swarmlings’ Sanctuary and the Darklings’ Sanctuary provide 2 Priests.)

Put the newly gained Workers, Coins, and Priests on your Faction board. (If the supply of Workers or Coins runs out, replace the missing components with something else. Only your supply of Priests is limited.)

Power: Power is gained according to the visible Power symbols on the Trading house track. The Stronghold usually provides additional Power (except for the Alchemists who collect 6 Coins instead, or the Chaos Magicians who collect 2 Workers instead, or the Fakirs who collect 1 Priest instead) .

Additional income for cards and tiles

Beside the income collected via your Faction board, add the income depicted on your Bonus card and Favor tiles.

During the Action phase, beginning with the Starting player and in clockwise order, each player takes exactly one Action. Continue to do so until no player wants to take any more Actions.

There are eight possible Actions to choose from. Except for passing, all Actions can be taken multiple times during the same Action phase (but only once per turn).

This section explains the relations between the Actions.
Action #1 - Transform and Build - is to build Dwellings on unoccupied terrain. Actions #2 - Advancing on the Shipping track - and #3 - Advancing on the Exchange track - facilitate building. At the end of the game, there is a special scoring for the largest connected area.
Action #4 - Upgrading a Structure - is to upgrade Structures. Many factions need to build their Stronghold as soon as possible. On the other hand, Temples and the Sanctuary are also very valuable as they provide Priests and Favor tiles, needed to score well during the Cult scoring at the end of the game.
Action #5 - Send a Priest to the Order of a Cult - directly affects the Cult scoring and provides additional Power via Priests and Cults. Power can then be used for special Power actions (#6 - Power actions -).
Action #7 - Special actions - explains the Special actions that you can unlock during the game.
Finally, Action #8 - Passing and new Starting player - needs to be taken when you cannot or do not want to take any more Actions in the current Action phase.

First, you may change the type of one Terrain space. Then, if you have changed its type to your Home terrain, you may immediately build a Dwelling on that space.

Building a Dwelling

• of your color (i.e. it needs to be your Home terrain)
• unoccupied
• directly or indirectly adjacent to one of your Structures (“Adjacency” is defined here).

Also, you need to pay its building costs. Each Dwelling costs 1 Worker and 2 Coins. (Exceptions: The Engineers build Dwellings for 1 Worker and 1 Coin, the Swarmlings for 2 Workers and 3 Coins.)

When building, take Structures (incl. Dwellings) from left to right off your Faction board.

If the current Scoring tile depicts a Dwelling, you get 2 Victory points for each Dwelling you build.

Power via Structures

Each Structure has a Power value. The Power value of each Structure is depicted to the right of its track on the Faction board:

• The Stronghold and Sanctuary have a Power value of 3.
• Trading houses and Temples have a Power value of 2.
• Dwellings have a Power value of 1.

When building a Dwelling (Action #1) or upgrading a Structure (Action #4), you must inform the owners of Structures directly adjacent to your Structure that they may gain Power (see “The Bowls of Power”).

In order to determine the total number of Power an opponent may gain, add up the Power values of their Structures directly adjacent to your newly built Structure.

Example: The Mermaid player (blue) needs to inform the Nomad player (yellow) that he may gain exactly 3 Power due to the newly built blue Dwelling: 1 Power for the yellow Dwelling plus 2 Power for the yellow Temple. The Nomad player does not gain Power for the yellow Trading house as it is not directly adjacent to the blue Dwelling.

Details

• You do not gain Power for your own Structures. Power can only be gained when an opponent builds Structures.
• Beginning with the player to the left of the active player and in clockwise order, each affected opponent needs to decide whether to actually gain the Power or not. (The next section explains why you might want to refuse to gain Power.)

The price of Power

Details

• You may not end up with a negative score when losing Victory points.
• You may not gain less Power in order to save Victory points. Either take it all or gain nothing. (Exceptions: If you have not enough Power tokens in Bowls I and II, gain as many Power as needed to move all of them to Bowl III and lose Victory points accordingly. Also, you may gain less Power to avoid a negative score. In this case, only gain as many Power as needed to end up with 0 Victory points.)
• You only lose Victory points when gaining Power via Structures. You do not lose any Victory points when gaining Power otherwise.

Transforming a Terrain space

Transformation has its price: Each step between the source and destination terrain on the Transformation cycle of your Faction board costs 1 Spade. Thus, transforming adjacent types of terrain (on the Transformation cycle) into one another costs 1 Spade, with a maximum cost of up to 3 Spades if they are on opposite sides of the cycle as you can move in either direction on the cycle. (Exception: Giants always have to pay exactly 2 Spades to transform any type of terrain into their Home terrain.)

Spades can be acquired in a variety of ways.

You may exchange Workers for Spades. The Exchange track of your Faction board displays the Exchange rate: At the beginning of the game, this is usually 3 Workers for 1 Spade (see Action #3). (The Darklings pay 1 Priest for each missing Spade instead.)

1 or 2 Spades can be acquired via certain Power actions (see siehe Action #6 or Appendix I).

One of the Bonus cards provides 1 Spade (see Action #7, or Appendix IV).

(Halflings and Giants gain additional Spades for immediate use after building their Stronghold.)

Spades may only be applied to a single Terrain space. However, there are two special cases:

• If the Spades gained via a Power action or Bonus card do not suffice to transform a Terrain space into your Home terrain, you may exchange Workers for the missing Spades ( at the current Exchange rate of your Exchange track ).
  (The Darklings pay 1 Priest for each missing Spade instead.)
• When gaining 2 Spades, if you only need one of them to transform a Terrain space into your Home terrain, you may apply the second Spade on another Terrain space. However, you may not place a Dwelling on this second space. (The same is true when the Halflings build their Stronghold, immediately gaining 3 Spades, see last page.)

Details on using Spades

• You may not save Spades for future Actions. Spades need to be used immediately.
• If the left side of the current Scoring tile depicts a Spade, you get Victory points for using Spades during the current Action phase.
• After transforming a Terrain space, you do not need to build a Dwelling immediately. You can do this in another Action at a later point in time.
• You do not need to transform a Terrain space into your Home terrain, you may stop at any other type of terrain (e.g. if you can not afford more Spades) . However, during their turns, your opponents may claim that Terrain space for themselves. (Terrain spaces with Terrain tiles on them but no Structures are considered unoccupied.)
• Even when transforming a Terrain space without building a Dwelling, the transformed Terrain space needs to be directly or indirectly adjacent to one of your Structures.
• You may not transform a Terrain space containing Structures.
• You may also get Spades via Cult bonuses (see Phase III of a round) . As these Spades are gained outside the Action phase, you may not build a Dwelling immediately afterwards, nor do you get to exchange Workers for more Spades. (You have to wait for the next Action phase to build a Dwelling.)
  If you gain more than 1 spade you may use them on several spaces as long as those spaces are adjacent to any of your buildings.

Structures can be upgraded step by step. The costs for each upgrade are depicted on the Faction board to the left of a Structure.

• Always take newly placed Structures from left to right off your Faction board.
• When upgrading, you are replacing Structures by one another. Take the Structure that you wish to upgrade off the Game board and return it to your Faction board. This reduces your income for the given type of Structure. When returning Structures to your Faction board, always put them as far to the right as possible on their proper track. Place the new Structure on the same space on the Game board where the just removed Structure has been.

There are four possible upgrades (two of which can only be done once per game).

Dwelling → Trading house

Upgrading a Dwelling to a Trading house costs 2 Workers and 6 Coins. If there is at least one opponent’s Structure directly adjacent to that Dwelling, you only need to pay 3 Coins instead of 6. If the current Scoring tile depicts a Trading house, get 3 Victory points for this upgrade.

(Engineers pay less and Swarmlings pay more when upgrading to a Trading House or Temple.)

Trading house (1x)→ Stronghold

Upgrading a Trading house to a Stronghold costs a number of Workers and Coins depending on the faction. After building its Stronghold, each faction gains a specific special ability (see Appendix VI). If the current Scoring tile depicts a Stronghold, get 5 Victory points for this upgrade.

Trading house → Temple

Upgrading a Trading house to a Temple costs 2 Workers and 5 Coins. As a reward, immediately choose and take one Favor tile and put it face-up in front of you. (Chaos Magicians always get 2 Favor tiles instead of 1.) You may immediately take advantage of the newly gained Favor tile, or use it during the current Action phase, respectively. You may not take a Favor tile that you already have. For further details on Favor tiles see Appendix II.

Temple (1x)→ Sanctuary

Upgrading a Temple to a Sanctuary costs a number of Workers and Coins depending on the faction. This is also awarded with a Favor tile. (Chaos Magicians always get 2 Favor tiles instead of 1.) If the current Scoring tile depicts a Sanctuary, get 5 Victory points for this upgrade.

There are 4 spaces below each of the Cult tracks of Earth, Water, Fire, and Air that each can hold exactly 1 Priest. As an Action, you may place one of your Priests on one such space to advance 3 or 2 spaces (as indicated on the space) on the corresponding Cult track.

You may gain Power when advancing on a track. You gain 1/2/2/3 Power when advancing to the 3rd/5th/7th/10th space of a Cult track. You only gain this Power once when advancing to or passing by these spaces.

There is no way of getting these Priests back. Keep in mind that you only have a total of 7 Priests at your disposal.

If you do not want to lose a Priest, alternatively, return him to your supply (next to your Faction board) and only advance 1 space.

Only one player on space 10

Only one player may advance to space 10 of each Cult track. To do so, you also need to have founded a Town for each space 10 you want to advance to. See here for details on founding a Town.

There are two types of Power actions: fully-fledged Actions and auxiliary Actions.

Power actions on the Game board

The Power actions on the Game board (indicated by orange octagons) may only be taken once per round – first come, first served.

Whenever taking one of these Actions, move a number of Power tokens from Bowl III to Bowl I equal to its indicated cost. Then, put an Action token on its space on the Game board to indicate that this Action may not be taken any more this round.

All the Power actions on the Game board are explained in detail in Appendix I.

Conversions (anytime)

Anytime during your turn, on top of your Action, you may do any number of Conversions. Therefore, you have the following options (also depicted in Bowl III on your Faction board):

• Spend 5 Power for 1 Priest.
• Spend 3 Power for 1 Worker.
• Spend 1 Power for 1 Coin.
• Convert a Priest to a Worker.
• Convert a Worker to a Coin.

A Conversion is not considered your Turn action.

On your turn, you may do any number of Conversions before or after your Action.

Each player has 12 Power tokens that are distributed among three Bowls. Power actions require Power in Bowl III (the one on the right).

Whenever you gain Power in the game (as income, when an opponent builds Structures, or by advancing on the Cult tracks), you do not get new Power tokens, but rather move the existing ones from Bowl to Bowl. Also, when spending Power on a Power action, you do not lose Power tokens, but move them around again.

Power tokens move (always in clockwise order) according to the following rules:

Gaining Power

1. If there are Power tokens in Bowl I, for each 1 Power you gain move one token from Bowl I to Bowl II.
2. Once Bowl I is empty, for each 1 Power you gain move one token from Bowl II to Bowl III.
3. Once all Power tokens are in Bowl III, you cannot gain further Power.

Spending Power

Sacrificing Power

Summary: How do I gain Power?

You gain Power…

• when an opponent builds Structures
• as income from your Trading houses and Stronghold (and Temples if you are playing the Engineers)
• as income from two specific Bonus cards
• as income from two specific Favor tiles
• as a one-time reward when founding a Town and taking the specific Town tile
• as a one-time Cult bonus in Phase III if the specific Scoring tile is up for the current round
• when advancing on the Cult tracks

Each Special action may be taken only once per round. Special actions, like Power actions, are indicated by orange octagons and can be gained in a variety of ways. Some factions unlock a Special action when building their Stronghold. (These are explained in Appendix VI.)

One Favor tile and one Bonus card provide a Special action to advance 1 space on a Cult track. Another Bonus card provides a free Spade for transforming a Terrain space.

Use Action tokens to cover taken Special actions.

On your turn, if you cannot or do not want to take any more Action, you have to pass and stop taking Actions for the remainder of this round.

The first player to pass becomes the Starting player for the next round (and takes the Starting player token).

When passing, immediately return your Bonus card and take one of the three available ones. This may be a card another player has already returned this round. (Exception: Do not take any Bonus cards in the last round of the game – round 6.) If there were Coins on the newly taken Bonus card, put them on your Faction board.

You may get Victory points when returning certain Bonus cards.

• Freely choose which one of the three available Bonus cards you want to take. (You may not immediately take the card that you have just returned.)
• You may wish to put the newly taken Bonus card face-down in front of you to indicate that you have already passed.
• There is no limitation for how many resources you may keep for the next round.
• You may take as many Actions as you wish, even if all other players have already passed. As long as there is at least one player left taking Actions, the current Action phase continues.

When all players have passed (see Action #8 on the left), the current Action phase is over. In rounds 1 to 5, the Action phase is followed by a Clean-up phase preparing the next round. There is no Clean-up phase after the last round.

Cult Bonuses

First, the Cult bonuses depicted on the current Scoring tile need to be awarded. Each player with enough progress in the depicted Cults gets the depicted reward, multiple times if need be.

Details on the Cult bonus “Spades”

• The Cult bonuses are awarded in the play order of the next round. This is relevant for Spades.
• You may not acquire additional Spades when getting them as a Cult bonus. (Neither may the Fakirs do a Carpet Flight, nor the Dwarves do Tunneling when getting Spades as a Cult bonus. A Carpet Flight and Tunneling have costs that cannot be paid outside the Action phase. Also, if the Giants get only a single Spade as a Cult bonus, this Spade will be forfeit.)
• You may not save Spades for future turns.
• You may apply these Spades on different adjacent Terrain spaces.
• You may not build a Dwelling in Phase III.

Return Action tokens

If there are any Action tokens on

• Power action spaces on the Game board,
• Special action spaces on Faction boards, or
• Favor tiles and Bonus cards,

Coins on Bonus cards

Put 1 Coin from the general supply on each of the three leftover Bonus cards. (If a card has not been taken by any player for two rounds, it will now have 2 Coins on it.)

Turn the Scoring tile face-down

As the last act of the current round, turn the current Scoring tile face-down so that only the Scoring tiles of the following rounds remain face-up.

You can tell by the Scoring tiles in which round you are.

Summary - How to get Victory points?

At the end of the game, the player with the most Victory points wins the game. The following overview lists the various ways to get Victory points in this game.

There is a Scoring tile for each of the six rounds. Each of them displays how to get Victory points in a given round: by building Dwellings (Action #1), Trading houses, the Stronghold, or the Sanctuary (Action #4).

Additional Victory points may be awarded for transforming Terrain spaces (spade symbol) and founding Towns (key symbol).

You will be facing a dilemma: on the one hand, you might want to build the best Structures for your faction (one faction wants a quick Stronghold, another many Temples), on the other hand, you might want to concentrate on the Structures that score Victory points this round.

Three out of the nine Bonus cards award Victory points when you have completed all the actions you wish to take in the current Action phase (called passing). Then, Victory points are either awarded for

• all of your Dwellings on the Game board,
• all of your Trading houses on the Game board,
  or
• your Stronghold and Sanctuary on the Game board.

Two Favor tiles award Victory points for Dwellings and Trading houses whenever you build them. Another Favor tile awards Victory points for already built Trading houses when passing.

You get Victory points when founding Towns. You also get additional rewards on top of that.

You get Victory points when improving your Shipping (Action #2) or Terraforming skills (Action #3).
This is why these actions are not only useful in the beginning of the game, but also towards its end.

Some factions have special abilities to gain additional Victory points. (For example, the Alchemists are particularly good at converting Coins to Victory points.)

At the end of the game, Victory points are awarded for the largest connected areas on the Game board (Area scoring).

Improving your Shipping and Terraforming skills not only provides Victory points directly, but is also helpful in creating a large connected area.

Also at the end of the game, Victory points are awarded for progress on the four Cult tracks (Cult scoring).

On the one hand, you want to have a lot of Dwellings to create a large connected area but on the other hand, the more valuable Temples and the Sanctuary provide a lot of Priests. These are needed to score well in the Cult scoring (Action #5).

Close adjacency to other players enables you to trade Victory points for Power. This is why you start the game with 20 Victory points.

Due to some rules, it is important to distinguish between direct and indirect adjacency of Terrain spaces.

Direct adjacency

Terrain spaces and Structures are considered directly adjacent to one another if they share a hexagon edge. Additionally, Terrain spaces and Structures separated by a River but connected via a Bridge are also considered directly adjacent to one another (see Power action “Building a Bridge”, Appendix I).

Indirect adjacency

Terrain spaces and Structures are considered indirectly adjacent to one another if they are (not directly adjacent to one another, but) separated by one or more River spaces and your Shipping value is high enough to cover the distance.

(Terrain spaces and Structures that Dwarves can reach via Tunneling and Fakirs via Carpet Flight are also considered indirectly adjacent to one another.)

During the course of the game, one or more Towns may be founded.

Towns are founded automatically whenever these two conditions are met:

• There are at least 4 Structures of one color directly adjacent to one another.
  Exception: Only 3 Structures are required if one of them is a Sanctuary.
• These Structures have a combined Power value of at least 7.

Reminder:

• Dwellings have a Power value of 1
• Trading houses and Temples have a Power value of 2
• the Stronghold and Sanctuary have a Power value of 3

Indicate a founded Town by choosing and taking a Town tile (see Appendix V) and placing it under one of the Structures forming that Town.

Founding a Town has three benefits:

• Immediately get a number of Victory points as indicated by the chosen Town tile. Get additional Victory points if the current Scoring tile depicts a key.
• Immediately and only once, collect the rewards depicted on the chosen Town tile (either +1 space on each of the Cult tracks, 1 Priest, 2 Workers, 6 Coins, or 8 Power).
• Each Town provides a key. Each key allows you to advance to the last space of one Cult track (space 10). Without a key, you have to stop at space 9.

Details

• When founding a Town, all Structures directly adjacent to one another form that Town (Bridges are key here), even if there are more than the required number of Structures.
• Indirect adjacency (especially via River spaces) has no relevance when founding a Town. (Exception: The Mermaids may ignore any one River space when founding a Town.)
• Building new Structures directly adjacent to an existing Town expands that Town rather than forming a new one.
• When a Structure is built combining two existing Towns to one larger Town, these Towns do not lose their individual rights or functions (despite the fact that you cannot tell anymore where their borders are).
• The total number of Towns for one game is limited to 10.