Prepare

• For all decks: Go through and remove cards according to the player count shown in bottom right corner
• For Age 3: remove all purple, draw number of players +2, add them back into the deck and shuffle
• Each player gets: 3 coins and a wonder board (choose a side, day is simpler than night)

Game

• 3 rounds – deal out the deck, each player gets a hand of 7 cards.
• Choose 1, play it, pass the hand (deck gets passed clockwise/anticlockwise as pictured on the back of the cards)
  • Playing a card can be done in 3 ways:
    • construct it into your city, paying the cost on the card (or for free if your have the matching chain symbol)
    • use it to construct a stage of your wonder (from left to right), face down paying the cost on the wonder board (not the card)
    • sell it for 3 coins
• On the 6th turn, when you have a hand of 2 cards, 1 gets chosen, the other discarded.
• At End of Round, Resolve military conflicts: compare the total of your military power with your neighbours (left and right)
  • equal: no tokens taken
  • less: take a defeat token
  • higher: take a victory token corresponding to the current age

During play

• You can’t build the same thing twice
• It’s a good idea to tuck constructed brown and silver cards under the top left of your wonder board
• When constructing
  • Coin costs must be covered at time of selecting the card, i.e. not depending on income from neighbours during the turn
  • Resource costs can be covered by resources from your own city
    • Each resource can only be used once per turn
    • Can be the starting resource on your board
    • Can be a grey, brown or yellow card in your city
  • Resource costs can be covered by buying resources from a neighbouring city for 2 coins
    • Each resource can be bought once per turn per player
    • Can be the starting resource on their board
    • Can be a brown or grey resource (not yellow)
• Clarification: “construct the first age card in each color for free” e.g. If you have 0 green (scientific) cards in your empire, the first green card you build is free.

Score Points From

• Wonder Board victory points
• Treasure: 3 coins = 1VP
• Military conflict tokens
• Blue cards, add the total up
• Yellow cards, according to effects
• Purple Cards, according to effects
• Green cards
  • Each set of 3 different symbols = 7VP
  • For each symbol type: number of identical symbols:
    • 1 = 1VP
    • 2 = 4VP
    • 3 = 9VP
    • 4 = 16VP
    • 5 = 25VP
    • 6 = 36VP

Tips

Don’t forget the starting resource at the top left of your wonder board
Green (science) cards have the best chaining – each enables 2 chains in the next Age
Age 1 blue cards chain to blues in Age 2 or Age 3
Yellows chain through all 3 ages