Overview

Have the most points at the end of 5 Rounds

Income Phase

Start each round with an income phase

All players gain income for items where there's a hand underneath it

The main places you'll see hands are on bonus tiles and on the player boards

Bonus tiles give everything on them

Player Board hands only give income if the space is not blocked by an unbuilt building

You are always free to see what a blocked space would give you if built

If you gain Power, move it between your bowls. First move the amount of power gained from bowl 1 into bowl 2. Once Bowl 1 is empty, any further power you gain moves power in bowl 2 into bowl 3. Later on, you can only spend power if it resides in bowl 3. Gaining power is shown with a white arrow whilst spending power is a black arrow.

Action Phase

This is the main part of the round, and consists of each player taking a single action or passing until all players have passed. Once you do pass, you are done for that round.

Excluding Pass, there are 7 actions to choose from:

Make Habitable and Build

Upgrade Building

Increase Sailing

Build a Bridge

Power Action

Special Action

Power Exchange

Make Habitable and Build

To turn a terrain into your faction's preferred terrain costs 1 or 2 shovels, as depicted on your player board

A shovel can be bought for 6 money or you may have powers which give you free shovels

If you transformed a terrain, you have the option of building a house on it. If you did NOT transform a terrain, you have the option of building a house on a previous faction preferred terrain already available as long as it is adjacent to one of your buildings (either directly or via sailing based on your sailing limit)

Regardless of how you build a house, it costs 4 money

All other players gain one power for each of their buildings adjacent to where you built

In short, you have 3 options in this action: Make Habitable, Build House, or Make Habitable AND Build House

Upgrade Building

You can transform a house into a Trading Post or transform a Trading Post into a Palace

A Trading Post costs 10 money normal or 7 money if the House is adjacent to an opponent's building

A Palace costs 14 money, each palace has a different ability so choose carefully before deciding

Once bought, the old building is placed back on the player board ready to build again later

Note that whilst the new building will reveal a new income opportunity, the old building will block off a previous income

Like with Build, players will gain one power for each of their buildings adjacent to where you upgraded

Finally, check for Town Creation which is made when you have at least 4 adjacent buildings with total value of 7 (Houses value 1, Trading Post value 2, Palace value 3). If successful, take a town bonus tile

Increase Sailing

Pay 8 money to advance your sailing track, sailing is useful for adjacency

Build a Bridge

Pay 10 money to build a bridge, this connects land spaces without needing sailing

Power Actions

If you see yellow octagons, these are power actions, they can be found on tiles or player boards and do a variety of effects. As the name suggests, they work off power, and you are required to spend an amount of power from Bowl 3 into Bowl 1 to use them.

Once you take a power action, cover it with a used token so you can't take it multiple times even if you can afford to

Special Actions

Special Actions work more or less the same as Power Actions, with placing used tokens on them when used, however these don't require power to activate

Power Exchange

This allows you to spend power to gain money, 1 power gives 1 money

Remember, power has to be in Bowl 3

This is a bonus action, and does not count as your action

As such, it can be taken at the same time as you pass (which may be useful if you expect to gain power during the next income, but all your power is already in Bowl 3, so nothing would be gained during Income)

This bonus action is also available just before the game ends

End of Round

The round ends when all players have passed

Any yellow octagons with used tokens on them have their used tokens removed

Place 1 money on each bonus tile

Flip the current round scoring tile

End of Game

The game ends when everyone passes in the final round, round 5

Gain 1 point for every 3 money (Remember you can exchange Bowl 3 power for money)

Find out who has the biggest connected group of buildings, the most gains 12 points, 2nd gains 8 points, 3rd gains 4 points

The player with the most points wins