Each player will take a sheet with a grid on it. Across the grid are ruins and mountains and possible a massive canyon, depending on the difficulty chosen. You will then set up the cards for the current season. The four seasons you play through get progressively smaller - in theory, so you will need to make forward thinking decisions from the off. To score points you must collect coins, and achieve goals. Four goal cards are laid out but only two are scored each season. A & B, then B & C, then C & D, before D & A. This means each card will score twice and that you know when they will score, allowing you to plan ahead. Of course most games you will get lost in a couple of the objectives, forgetting the ones you were meant to concentrate on this round!

Ambush and Hero cards do not have a time impact, presumably because it doesn’t take long to write “don’t go there” on a map whilst running away. When an Ambush card comes out, pass your map to the player next to you in the direction indicated on the card. Your opponent will then draw the monsters for you, most likely in the most unhelpful place they can put it. Now take the Scoring Cards; you’ll notice that there are four of each set signified by a red, green, blue or yellow symbol. Shuffle each set of Scoring Cards and then draw one from each set, and place these four cards, at random, below the four Edict Cards. These give players the Edicts - the scoring conditions they’ll be working towards - so make sure everyone can see them!Players have a year to map out the world, whilst simultaneously completing the queen’s four edicts. As they do so, they gather reputation stars. Whomsoever has the most at the end of the game is the winner. After you have flipped enough explorer cards for their time values in the top left corner to equal or exceed the season total, you move to scoring for that season. Each of the four seasons are going to have a combination of 2 of the four letters (Like A/B or B/D or A/C) that is unique to that season. These are the two unique scoring edicts that you score this round. Each of those will have their own condition to get you points. Add it up and fill in the total in the respective space at the bottom of your scoresheet. Rift Lands: If the rift lands card is revealed, each player draws a 1×1 square anywhere on their map and fills it with any terrain type shown on the card. All normal rules and restrictions apply. One thing I found frustrating was when the hero cards came up before the monsters. You end up placing them in really odd spots, which end up being nowhere near the monsters as your opponent places them. I’m also more excited about the monsters than the heroes. Whilst the monsters are classic fantasy opponents, like a dragon and a troll, the heroes are a little generic. The monsters also have some really interesting abilities. Like the ever-spawning zombie plague, which grows exponentially if you don’t pay attention to it. The end of the fourth season marks the end of the game, the winner being the player who has accumulated the greatest number of points. [4] Expansion [ edit ]

Now take the Scoring Cards; you’ll notice that there are four of each set signified by a red, green, blue or yellow symbol. Shuffle each set of Scoring Cards and then draw one from each set, and place these four cards, at random, below the four Edict Cards. These give players the Edicts – the scoring conditions they’ll be working towards – so make sure everyone can see them!Mastrangeli, Tony (17 April 2020). "2019 Board Game Award Winners". Board Game Quest. Archived from the original on 1 September 2021 . Retrieved 19 November 2021. When an Explore card is revealed it’s going to display two distinct items – the feature(s) that will be drawn in and the possible shapes that feature can take on the map. If there are multiple features shown the players choose which one they wish to draw. Some players may decide to draw one feature while other players decide to draw the other – and that’s perfectly fine. That’s one of the nifty things about playing this game: your final map is going to look nothing like anybody else’s. Just two of many possibilities. If the current season is winter, the game is now over; proceed to the end of the game. Otherwise, prepare for the next season. PREPARING FOR THE NEXT SEASON