Eminent Domain - Technologies

I'm thinking of a potentially streamlined way to do the technologies, once they're split up into 3 levels of techs and you purchase the one you want:

Nomenclature
For the sake of discussion, let's refer to the 6 actions in the game as A, B, C, D, E, and F. Let's also say that any given Technology deck will be comprised of cards with 2 icons each, one of which will be one of the 2 associated with the type of deck (i.e. Harvest and Colonize for the Fertile deck). Therefore each card in the deck can be described as XA, XB, XC... YA, YB, YC... where X and Y are, in the case of the Fertile deck, Harvest and Colonize.

Now, on with the post...

Proposed technology deck format
Suppose there were just 1 Action/Effect/Ability associated with each of the 6 actions (A-F). Maybe each level of technology in a deck should have those 6 Actions/Effects/Abilities on 2 cards each:
XA, YA: Action/Effect/Ability A
XB, YB: Action/Effect/Ability B
XC, YC: Action/Effect/Ability C
... etc.

It could be that the Level 1 techs have no Action/Effect/Ability (just double symbols), or a weak one (maybe the same action as the Role card - thus a Harvest/Colonize card would be exactly the same as a Colonize card, but with a Harvest icon on it as well. The level 2 techs would have the nifty Action/Effect/Abilities on them*. Level 3 techs are probably going to be cards with strong abilities that stay in play, and are worth significant points.

* Ooh, just thought of this - the Level 2 tech cards could have BOTH actions - like a WS card could have "Action: Get 1 Army AND Draw 2 cards" (!) - this removes interesting abilities, but might be good anyway, and easy to try.

Updated ED Proto?

Despite deciding that I probably don't want to go with a 2D array of planet cards or tiles, I went ahead and made a set of tiles... each one has a planet type and one of it's associated icons (or a + hand size icon or +1VP icon). The intent is to lay them out in a hexagonal board. The center tile has all 6 symbols represented, making it good for all actions, and therefore more valuable. Player 'home' planets would be attached to 5 blank tiles in a sort of pyramid shape, and appended to one side of the large hexagon, so in order to get to any planet tile you'd have to move your ship 2 spaces from your home planet.

The idea here is that the Survey action moves your ship around, the Warfare action attacks the tile your ship is on (for a standard number of armies maybe 5), and the Colonize action colonizes the tile your ship is on for a variable price, which increases as you approach the center of the hexagon.

There are 4 rings to this board, the first ring would cost maybe 2 to colonize, the next ring would cost 3, the 3rd would cost 4 and the center tile would cost 5 (or something like that, maybe it would ramp up more, like 3/4/6/7). When you attack or colonize a tile you would take the tile in front of you so you could see what bonuses you've got, and you would place a player marker of some sort on the space... the VPs of the tile would be based on it's location as well, representing that you had to do more work to colonize a tile near the center. After colonizing or attacking (let's call that "claiming") a tile, your ship would jump back to your home tile, and you'd have to make your way out there again.

One benefit of this board is that it lets you aim for particular bonuses - if you want to go the warfare route, you might target tiles that give you +1 Warfare. If you notice a number of tiles near your base that have Harvest and Trade icons, maybe you'll decide to go that route. Maybe you'd prefer to survey your way out toward the center of the baord and try to claim tiles that are worth more points. Or maybe you'll eschew abilities and go for planets with +1VP on them. Another plus is that it could create more direct player interaction - the early Surveys move your ship in front of your own home base, but later in the game you might decide to move over to the area in front of an opponent and compete with them for planets. Most notably, suppose another player chooses the Survey role, moving to a particular tile, and you can follow and move to the same tile, then on your turn you colonize it out from under them!

On the down side, this idea is kind of bulky. Is the game a board game or a card game? Does it need a bunch of (60+) tiles in addition to a whole lot of cards? It might just be simpler to draw from the deck, and my latest ideas on that mechanism seem to be working out alright.

Latest Survey mechanism
In my last playtest I tried laying out some planets (face down) in a similar manner to what I described in a previous post. This time I said "If you pay 2/3/4/5 symbols you get to take the 1st/2nd/3rd/4th card AND EVERY CARD BEFORE IT, look at the back, choose the one you want to keep face down in front of you, and put the rest back in any order." This meant an opponent Following the role would do the same thing, but they would have to have at least 3 symbols as that would be the cheapest card available. that worked alright, and I realized afterward that that was almost the same thing as saying "draw 1 card from the deck per symbol, keep 1 face down and put the rest back on top." Except for the costs of things. The next time I'll try that, the Role action will be "draw 1 card per symbol, keep 1." and the Follow action will be "draw 1 card for every 2 symbols, keep 1." This is a little cheaper than the original rules for 1 card, the same cost to look at 2 cards, and a little more expensive thereafter.

If that goes well, I might consider redoing the planets a bit so some are definitely better than others, to lend more value to looking at more cards at a time. But will that feel like luck of the draw if I can only afford 1 planet, and it happens to be a good one? In any case, the planet you get goes face down, and you still have to Claim it via Warfare or Colonization actions.

I'm using the same format for Research as well - draw 1 card per symbol when you choose the role, 1 card per 2 symbols if you Follow the role. I'll see if that works. Of course, this would change if I ever get around to changing the technology system to one where you bu the tech you want with research symbols. Lately I've been thinking that while that would be good, I'm kind of wondering if it's necessary. Maybe I'm just getting used to the original system.

I also made player aides describing the turn order, and the Action, Role, and Follow effects for each of the 6 Role cards. I think that'll help, since some of the Role cards don't describe what they do.

More Eminent Domain playtests!

Wednesday night I got the opportunity to play a couple 2p games of Eminent Domain with Mikey - I hadn't updated my prototype for the new ideas I've been having, so we played by the old rules, with the following exceptions:

1. Starting deck DID contain Warfare but DID NOT contain Trade cards.
2. The Colonize Role could also flip a planet (if desired, instead of adding to it) - the Follow could only add icons still.
3. Used "Collect 1 VP from supply" as the ACTION on Trade role cards.
4. The Warfare Role could also flip a planet (if desired, instead of collecting Armies) - the Follow could only collect Armies still.

The games went well! The first one dragged on a little longer than we would have liked, ending with the VP pool running out. For the second game Mike removed 5 cards from each deck and I reduced the VP pool by 8 (from 32 down to 24). That one ended with the Colonize pile running out, and it was over too quickly so we put the 5 cards back in each pile and kept playing, and it was a little too long. The third game we kept the setup the same, and the game ended via the Survey pile running out, and again it took a little too long.

My conclusion is that 19 cards in each pile is probably too many for a 2p game, but 14 is too few. Maybe 15 or 16 would be better. The VP pool at 24 is probably fine for 2p. With more players I'm sure there will have to be more VPs in the pool and more cards in the stacks, but maybe not many more... for each player in the game, the piles of role cards begins with 2 fewer cards in it... so in a 4p game there's only 11 cards in each pile! Will that be enough?

Overall I kinda liked how it played out. I think I would still like to re-organize the technology decks and have players "buy" the techs they want as I've described before, but I'm not so sure about the 2d array of planet cards anymore. I might try a Stone Age style row of Planet cards, like I've mentioned, but maybe put them face up so players know which one they want, and the 1str one in the display costs 2 Survey icons, the second costs 3, the third costs 4, and the 4th costs 5 icons. Then you'd take the planet and still have to "unlock" it via colonize or Warfare actions.

I was liking the idea of taking abilities off the planets and simply having Action and + hand size icons on them, but there are some abilities that are really good which would have to be static, like "play an additional Action card each turn" and "remove a card in hand from the game before choosing a Role" and "draw an additional card when not following a role" which kind of have to be on planets - unless I want to make Tech cards that are Static. I suppose I could do that - they could look different (different color text/background), there could be just 1 copy, and it would go in play in front of you rather than into your hand or deck.

Eminent Domain, cont'd.

In light of the new structure of the game, here is a restructuring the actions and roles for Eminent Domain... now the Follow action is the same as the Role action - but having chosen the role you get 1 additional symbol (from the Role card you must take):

Survey

• Action: Peek at any face down planet tile.
  
  
• Role: Move ship 1 space per symbol played.

Colonize

• Action: Draw 2 cards.
  
  
• Role: Play symbols based on location of ship. Claim planet tile under your ship.

Warfare

• Action: Collect 1 Army.
  
  
• Role: Collect 1 Army per symbol played OR Discard 5 Armies to attack planet under your ship.
  

Harvest

• Action: Produce 1 Resource on one of your planets.
  
  
• Role: Produce 1 Resource on your planets per symbol played.
  

Trade

• Action: Collect 1 VP.
  
  
• Role: For each symbol played, discard 1 Resource from your planet and collect 1 VP.

Research

• Action: Remove 1 card in hand from the game.
  
  
• Role: Look at a legal Tech deck and choose a Tech costing no more than the number of symbols played. Shuffle all cards from that Tech into your deck.

Each player will have a ship pawn which will start on their staring planet site. Via the Survey action you can move your ship around the array of face down planet tiles, turning face up the one you land on. You can take this planet tile in front of you and claim its benefits by either the colonize action (cost in symbols depends on distance from start tiles), or the warfare action (cost is a standard 5(?) armies).

Each planet tile will have either an Icon for one of the 6 actions, a 1VP symbol, or a +1 Hand Size. All other benefits will be rolled into the technology decks, which should either be bigger, or there should be 6 (one for each action) instead of 3. I'm not sure if I want to split that up into 6 decks yet - if I do that I might also make 6 types of planets - 1 per action (rather than 3 types of everything, 2 actions associated with each type). I kind of like 3 types, each with 2 actions associated with it, so I'll probably keep it that way. I might make a 4th type - a generic typs - which has 1 of each icon represented in the set.

Eminent Domain - more ideas

I have not tried it yet, but the more I think about it, the more happy I am with my plan for the Tech decks in Eminent Domain, which is as follows:

Instead of drawing X cards and keeping 1, I would prefer that players pick up the entire Tech deck, and 'purchase' any card they want - using the Research icons they played. So if you choose the Research role and add 4 symbols to it, you can take a tech costing up to 5. Your opponent who Followed the action with only 3 symbols can take a tech costing up to 3. In addition, I think I'll make 2 copies of each card, and you get to take both of them.

The decks could be structured as such:
5 3-cost cards with 2 symbols and a decent ability
4 5-cost cards with 2 symbols and a good ability and worth 2vp each
3 6(?)-cost cards with 3 symbols and a good ability and worth 3vp each.

And again, 2 copies of each card. Or maybe 3 copies of the 3-costs, 2 copies of the 5-costs, and 1 copy each of the 6-costs. When you purchase, you get all copies of that tech card and shuffle them into your deck (not into discard, that way you'll draw them soon).

In other news...

I have a friend named Sebastian who is a great game designer. He lives in London, and works on games with the famous and prolific Reiner Knizia, and he's also published one of his own games, On the Underground (which I rate very highly, and not just because I know the author!). I really enjoy chatting with Seb about game designs, he often gives me an idea which helps me look at a game in a whole new light, or which helps me fix a problem I have with a game. For example he made a comment about All For One which led to the current version of the story tracks I'm using in that game. Today I was bouncing Eminent Domain ideas off of him and he made some great comments which, coincidentally, were akin to the thoughts I was having - only 1 step further. The funny part was that I had not yet mentioned the thoughts I was having on the subject!

Seb's suggestion was this: regarding the planet card display, instead of a row of cards like I was talking about, try a 2D array of cards which players move a Ship pawn around on.

The upshot of this is that the Survey action could move your ship, and the Colonize and Warfare actions could simply grab up the planet your ship is on. This adds a geographical element to the game, which I like. It also gives the opportunity for interaction (you could move over and colonize my planet before I get a chance). It also allows me to separate the costs for colonization vs warfare - the Colonize cost could be based on position on the board (just paid at once, no more hiding colonize cards under planets), while the warfare cost (generally higher) could be printed on the card.

And incidentally, I could turn the cards into tiles. I'm thinking they'd be laid out face down with only the type showing, and when you land on a planet, you turn it face up and learn it's ability and Warfare cost (Colonize cost is known already because it's based on position in the array). Thus, the ACTION on the Survey cards could be "peek at a face down tile."

I think I will try this next - now to update my prototype!

Prototype night!

Last night I had a few people over for the express purpose of playing All For One - the Three Musketeers game I had been working on with David Brain, which has been on Hiatus for about 3 years :(

Eminent Domain
Andrew, Ashley and Brian arrived first, and the 4 of us first tried Eminent Domain - I thought it would be short, as Tuesday's 2-player games went quickly (I actually thought 4p might go even more quickly!) - and while it wasn't as short as I thought it would be, it actually seemed to go pretty well. I had made some minor modifications since Tuesdays first attempt, and for the most part they were a step in the right direction, however there are definitely some aspects that still need work. The biggest of which is probably the Colonize and Warfare actions and how they flip over planets.

Since currently the Colonize cards get stuck under the planets until you flip it, players easily get to the point where they actually don't have any Colonize cards left in their deck. In a sense this is kinda neat, as you can sort of hide Colonize cards under planets and never have to draw them again if you don't want to. However, it led to a disappointing circumstance where in order to flip the planet, a player would have to take a Colonize role just to get a colonize card into his deck, then later draw it and use it. Then they're left with an extra Colonize card they don't really need, which is kinda lame too. By contrast, Warfare seems a lot better. you can simply aggregate armies little by little when other players choose Warfare, and eventually you can attack a planet to flip it, without filling your deck with a bunch of warfare cards.

Part of the problem is perhaps that I'd made the Role effect for each of those actions simply to accumulate Colonize icons under planets of pile up Armies, and the Action effect to actually flip a planet. Perhaps both the Role and the Action should allow either. Brian suggested that with the current mechanics, simply lowering the cost for Colonization and increasing the cost for Warfare might do the trick. I could easily test that by simply reducing the Colonize cost of all planets by 1, and increasing the Warfare cost of all planets by 1. There would still be planets that are 'easier to take over by warfare' and some that are 'easier to colonize' - but each cost would be 1 more/1 less than at present. Instead of 6/4, 5/5, and 4/6, it would be 5/5, 4/6, and 3/7 - not a ton of difference.

Another, different idea that I'm considering is putting the planets in a display like the cards in Stone Age, where the first one costs maybe 2 icons to colonize, the 2nd costs 3, the 3rd costs 4... in this way, perhaps you would see the front of the planet so that you'd know what you were going after to begin with. This would change the dynamics of the game a lot, and maybe take away some of the more original aspects, but might make for a better game overall - as I suspect players would be annoyed by the current system in which the benefit of the planet you get is unknown until you colonize it (though that hasn't happened yet). So in this scheme, the Colonize ROLE would be to colonize a planet, and you'd need the required number of symbols to do it. The other players would get to do the same, but they don't get a +1 from the new Role card. Warfare ROLE would be "Attack!" and would be similar - you attack a planet by discarding a certain number of Armies depending on the location in the display - maybe interesting if the costs were inverted - 2 warfare => 4 to colonize and vice versa...

So what of the Warfare ACTION? well, that's easy, collect an army. And maybe the ROLE should allow you to collect X armies instead of attacking if you like. Should the Warfare ACTION allow you to attack? Or should other players get to get a planet whenever you do (if they have Armies to spend)? I think the latter. What about Colonize? It seems there would have to be a way to get colonize icons into your deck, so what would it mean to Colonize without actually having enough symbols to take a planet? Maybe there should always be a planet which costs just 1, so you can always take it? Does that make it far too easy to obtain planets? And what about the Survey role, does it go away altogether? Or does it perhaps monkey with the planets in the display? Definitely things to think about.

Utopia
Andrew had brought a protoytpe of his own called Utopia, which I played once and recall it being inspired by Wealth of Nations (though not just a copy of that game). Since David and Steve had arrived we had too many for All For One, and since David wasn't interested in A41, he, Steve and Andrew played Utopia. I'm not sure how it went, but it seemed to go kinda long - a little longer than All For One did and I think they cut it off early. I saw that David had A TON of debt - I don't recall what that means for that game. I believe you pay $1 interest per loan each turn, up to a maximum of $5 - so while each loan also reduces your score I guess David decided to "go big or go home."

I believe that game has a nifty scoring mechanism in that the resources you have are worth points at the end depending on how many are left in supply. The resource with the most left in supply are worth 3vp each, 2nd most are worth 2vp each, and least left in supply are with 1vp each or something like that. I remember thinking that was cool from when I played it that on time.

All For One
While David, Steve and Andrew played Utopia, Brian, Ashley and I played All For One. I was excited to play it again since it has been over 2 years since I played! At BGG.con 2007 I played the game, then sent it home with Zev from Z-Man games. Sadly, it sat on his shelf for an entire year as he had other things going on and didn't get a chance to play it. When he finally did play the game, he thought it was "too Euro for a theme that screams Ameritrash," and so he was not interested in publishing it. I had him send the game to another publisher, this one in the UK, Jackson Pope of Reiver Games. I had a suspicion that he wouldn't have the capital to produce the game. It turns out I was right, but since the game was in England I thought it might be a good idea to have Jackson send it not back to me, but to my co-designer David Brain. It was David's original game idea in the first place, and I came on as a co-designer and developer way back in 2003! as such, we're coming on 7 years that this game has been around (since I got involved) and it's still not published! The theme is spectacular, and the game has been received very well by most players at conventions...

Sadly though, David seems to have lost pieces and was not able to send me back my prototype that I'd missed so dearly. I have not been able to play the game since I gave my copy up to Zev! In an effort to correct that, I set about making a new copy of the game. It's not as good, as the mapboard had changed by hand and I had to sort of re-create the changes. I had to make a whole new set of Plot Tokens as well. Luckily I had invested in additional Musketeer minis from Reaper so that I actually had another set to use. A months ago I finished putting together the prototype, but it wasn't until last night I got to play the game again!

So how did it go? I was hesitant because it seems like I wasn't liking the latest version as much or something. I also couldn't recall exactly how to play, but fortunately my rulebook was up to date and, if I do say so myself, well written! I taught from the rulebook as if it were a published game, and we got to playing in no time.

The basics of gameplay is that on your turn you activate one of the 6 characters in the game, and then you move them around, picking up plot tokens as you go. Your hand of mission cards informs which character you might want to use and which tokens you might want them to get. There is some route optimization, as over time the various missions get either easier or more difficult while characters, guards and tokens move around the board. You score points by completing missions, and you also progress storylines, and at the end of the game you score some bonus points for the storylines you have on your hidden goal card.

In our game some very interesting things happened. There was some blocking, there were missions being completed, there were duels fought... in fact, as Brian recognized that the Peace storyline was the one he did not share with either of us, he decided to fight a number of duels with guards in order to advance the Peach storyline and score bonus points that Ashley and I would not get. All in all it was a good, fun game. I ended up winning by merit of completing more missions than everyone else (I did 6). However, most of my missions were duels, so I only scored 4 points apiece off of them. Brian's 3 missions scored almost as many points as my 6, as he did several Special Deliveries (worth 6 points, as they have 2 required tokens) and a Standard delivery for 5. I believe Ashley and Brian finished within 1 point of one another, and I finished a handful of points ahead of them.

The best news is that both Brian and Ashley LOVED the game! It felt great not only to play again, but to have such a warm reception from the players! I definitely want to play this some more, including with Michael to see if he'd like it to be a Tasty Minstrel release!

Ground Floor
After Utopia and All For One had ended, Andrew and Ashley went home leaving Brian, David, Steve and I to play Ground Floor - David's game about Entrepreneurship. This 4 player game was a learning game for Brian, but Steve, David and I had all played before. Brian picks up games quickly, opting to "just do something and learn as you go" when playing a new game rather than trying to figure out all the ramifications of each play when not even familiar with the game (a strategy I'd like to start employing as well).

This game we used a slight tweak to the Economic Forecast deck to make it less predictable. In a Recession for example, there will be between 1 and 3 consumers... until now, once the first recession goes by and it has say 1 consumer, then the next time a Recession comes up we all KNOW that at least 2 products will sell. This was disappointing because the game is much better if you cannot be sure whether it'll be 1, 2, or 3 consumers during a Recession. To fix this, we created a double deck - 2 copies of each card. To set up the Forecast deck we shuffled the 6 Recession cards (for example) and used only 3 - now each one has a 1, a 2, or a 3 on it, but just because 1 comes up doesn't mean it won't come up again next time. A MUCH better mechanism, for just a LITTLE BIT of setup cost at the beginning of the game. In addition, we moved the top card down to the 'current' pile but left it face down (which informs you as to the range of customers but not the actual number), so that the FOLLOWING card is now visible, letting players plan ahead a little more. This tweak was well liked and is a keeper.

Steve began the game just loaded with money and information - I wasn't sure where it was all coming from! What I realized was that he had opted not to purchase any Small TIs or upgrade any of his Ground Floor rooms. Instead he saved all his money and info so that in round 4 when the better floors become available he could get 2 of them in one shot. He opted for "the big combo" as we've come to call it - Assembly Line (which lets you get 3 cheap supply each turn) and Research Lab (which lets you trade a Supply in for $3 and i3 3 times a turn) - so for 6 of his time units Steve could make $9 and i9, without having to compete with us for it. As a result however, we had less competition for Consumers and Consultants and maybe the rest of us were able to make more money and info that way than we would have otherwise.

I chose to purchase TIs that increased my income each turn, so in the end I was collecting $8 and i8 without spending any time units at all. I also opted for a late game Warehouse (the turn before the Small TIs go away) so that I could store up some supplies and score well off the Floor that rewards 1vp per supply. In the end I scored 6 bonus points off of that floor, which is pretty huge - on par with 2 Bonus Floors really, and for less money investment - but I DID have to spend time filling my storage space with Supplies, and I ran the risk of someone else buying that bonus floor (though it would have been pretty poor for anyone else).

In the end I scored 51 points, enough to beat Steve's 44 - he had somehow run out of gas despite all his riches midgame. In the last round he was unable to maximize his two Bonus Floors (2vp/popularity level, 1vp per remodeled room) and he had to choose between the two. Brian did fairly well in his first game, finishing with 38 points - no Bonus Floors at all, but I think in a future game now that he knows what's going on he'll likely do much better. David had a rough early game, and as such finished last. I'm not really sure what happened with him, but I wonder if it ad to do with his early game Emergency Meeting purchase - a TI which helps guarantee you Info from the Consulting Firm. It is a nifty ability, but I'm not sure it's as good as something that nets you info.

After the game we discussed a few of the buildings and I think I've finally gotten David to agree that a couple of them (Store Front, Office Admin, etc) are simply not useful and should be cut! Even better, we looked at some floors that seem like they'd be better in the early game (help getting employees) and made them into Small TIs so they're available when you need them. Finally, we strengthened a couple Floors and TIs that seemed too weak, like the Internship, which gives you 1 additional time unit per round (1/3 of an employee) - it seems good, but unless that 1 time unit can get you i3, then it's simply not comparable to the other options. We bumped it up to 2 time units (2/3 of an employee), and now I think it'll be really comparable, as it's almost as valuable but much more versatile.

A great game, and it only took about 2:15 minutes! I'd still like to see it go a little quicker (under 2 hours) - not sure whether that's feasible or not.

All in all a great night for prototypes!

Eminent Domain - Rules V0.2

EMINENT DOMAIN
by Seth Jaffee
A civilization building game for 2-4 players

Overview:
Survey the galaxy to expand your civilization... Will you colonize nearby planets, or take them over by force? Harvest resources for trade, and do research to improve your technology. Build the best civilization and win the game!

Components:
114 Role cards
31 Planet cards (including 4 Starting Planet cards)
36 Technology cards
40 Resource discs (10 ea. in 4 colors)
30 Black Army discs
30 White VP discs

Setup:
Separate the Role cards into piles by type and place them in the indicated locations on the board.

Give each player 1 of the starting planets (put unused starting planets back in the box). Shuffle the Planet deck and each

Technology deck and place them in the indicated locations on the board.

Each player takes 2 of each action card EXCEPT Warfare and shuffles them together to form their starting deck. To start the game, each player draws 5 cards from their deck into their hand.

Determine who will be the start player. That player begins the game by taking the first turn.

You are now ready to begin!

Player Turns:
A player's turn consists of the following 3 steps, in order:

• 1. Play Action Card.
  The active player may choose a card in their hand which has an Action: effect and play it. The card's action is resolved immediately.
  
  
• 2. Select Role.
  The active player MUST select a Role for the turn by taking a Role card from the board and laying it face up in front of him. The Role card indicates one of the basic actions of the game. The player may add additional cards bearing the same icon as the Role selected in order to boost the action. After the active player resolves the action, each other player in turn order (clockwise from the active player) may choose to either Follow the action, playing cards from their hand bearing the appropriate Icon as indicated by the Role card, or simply draw 1 card from their deck instead.
  
  
• 3. Cleanup.
  The active player places all cards they've played this turn (including the newly selected Role card) into his discard pile. He may discard any number of cards from his hand, and then he draws cards from his deck to refill his hand to the hand limit (base hand limit is 5). If the deck runs out of cards, the discards are shuffled to create a new deck.

GAME END:
The game ends at the end of a turn in which one of the following has happened:

• Any of the Role card piles are exhausted
  
• The VP supply is exhausted

At that time players count the victory points on the Technology cards in their decks, on their face up Planets, and collected via Trade. The player with the most points is the winner! In the case of a tie, the tied player with the most armies plus resources wins.

The Actions:

Survey

ACTION: Draw 2 cards.

ROLE: For each Survey icon played (including the Role card), take a card off the top of the Planet deck. Looking only at the BACKS of the cards, choose one to place face down in front of you.

FOLLOW: Pay X Survey icons to take X-2 cards off the top of the Planet deck. Looking only at the BACKS of the cards, choose one to place face down in front of you.

Colonize

ACTION: Turn up a Surveyed planet in front of you which has the requisite number of Colonize icons under it, OR place this card under a face down planet in front of you.

ROLE: Place any Colonize icons played (including the Role card) under a face down planet in front of you.

FOLLOW: Place any Colonize icons played under a face down planet in front of you.

Research

ACTION: Remove 1 card in your hand from the game.

ROLE: For each Research icon played (including the Role card), draw 1 card from a Technology deck corresponding to one of your colonized (face up) planets. Put 1 in your hand and the rest on the bottom of the deck.

FOLLOW: Pay X Research icons to look at X-2 cards from a Technology deck corresponding to one of your colonized (face up) planets. Put 1 in your hand and the rest on the bottom of the deck.

Harvest

ACTION: Produce 1 resource on one of your colonized (face up) planets.

ROLE: For each Harvest icon played (including the Role card), produce 1 resource on one of your colonized (face up) planets.

FOLLOW: For each Harvest icon played, produce 1 resource on one of your colonized (face up) planets.

Trade

ACTION: Discard 1 resource from your colonized (face up) planets and collect 1 VP from the supply.
[Considering making the action simply "collect 1vp from supply" - but that might be too crazy]

ROLE: For each Trade icon played (including the Role card), discard 1 resource from your colonized (face up) planets and collect 1 VP from the supply.

FOLLOW: For each Trade icon played, discard 1 resource from your colonized (face up) planets and collect 1 VP from the supply.

Warfare

ACTION: Discard the listed number of Armies to turn up 1 Surveyed planet in front of you, OR Collect 1 Army

ROLE: For each Warfare icon played (including the Role card), collect 1 Army.

FOLLOW: For each Warfare icon played, collect 1 Army.

Eminent Domain - Rules

EMINENT DOMAIN
by Seth Jaffee
A civilization building game for 2-4 players

Overview:
Survey the galaxy to expand your civilization... Will you colonize nearby planets, or take them over by force? Harvest resources for trade, and do research to improve your technology. Build the best civilization and win the game!

Components:
114 Role cards
31 Planet cards (including 4 Starting Planet cards)
36 Technology cards
40 Resource discs (10 ea. in 4 colors)
30 Black Army discs
30 White VP discs

Setup:
Separate the Role cards into piles by type and place them in the indicated locations on the board.

Give each player 1 of the starting planets (put unused starting planets back in the box). Shuffle the Planet deck and each Technology deck and place them in the indicated locations on the board.

Each player takes 2 of each action card EXCEPT Warfare and shuffles them together to form their starting deck. To start the game, each player draws 5 cards from their deck into their hand.

Determine who will be the start player. That player begins the game by taking the first turn.

You are ready to begin!

Player Turns:
A player's turn consists of the following 3 steps, in order:

• 1. Play Action Card.
  The active player may choose a card in their hand which has an Action effect and play it. The card's action is resolved immediately.
  
  
• 2. Select Role.
  The active player MUST select a Role for the turn by taking a Role card from the board and laying it face up in front of him. The Role card indicates one of the basic actions of the game. The player may add additional cards bearing the same icon as the Role selected in order to boost the action. After the active player resolves the action, each other player in turn order (clockwise from the active player) may choose to either Follow the action, playing cards from their hand bearing the appropriate Icon as indicated by the Role card, or simply draw 1 card from their deck instead.
  
  
• 3. Cleanup.
  The active player places all cards they've played this turn (including the newly selected Role card) into his discard pile. He may discard 1 card from his hand, and then he draws cards from his deck to refill his hand. If the deck runs out of cards, the discards are shuffled to create a new deck.

Game end:
The game ends at the end of a turn in which one of the following has happened:

• Any of the Role card piles are exhausted
  
• The VP supply is exhausted

At that time players count the victory points on the Technology cards in their decks, on their face up Planets, and collected via Trade. The player with the most points is the winner! In the case of a tie, the tied player with the most armies plus resources wins.

The Actions:

Survey

ACTION: For each Survey icon played (including the Role card), take a card off the top of the Planet deck. Looking ONLY at the BACKS of the cards, choose one to place face down in front of you.

FOLLOW: Pay X Survey icons to take X-2 cards off the top of the Planet deck. Looking only at the backs of the cards,choose one to place face down in front of you.

Colonize

ACTION: Turn up a Surveyed planet in front of you which has the requisite number of Colonize icons under it, OR place any Colonize icons played (including the Role card) under a face down planet in front of you.

FOLLOW: Place any Colonize icons played under a face down planet in front of you.

Research

ACTION: For each Research icon played (including the Role card), draw 1 card from a Technology deck corresponding to one of your colonized (face up) planets. Put 1 in your discard pile and the rest on the bottom of the deck.

FOLLOW: Pay X Research icons to look at X-2 cards from a Technology deck corresponding to one of your colonized (face up) planets. Put 1 in your discard pile and the rest on the bottom of the deck.

Harvest

ACTION: For each Harvest icon played (including the Role card), produce 1 resource on one of your colonized (face up) planets.

FOLLOW: For each Harvest icon played, produce 1 resource on one of your colonized (face up) planets.

Trade

ACTION: For each Trade icon played (including the Role card), discard 1 resource from your colonized (face up) planets and collect 1 VP from the supply.

FOLLOW: For each Trade icon played, discard 1 resource from your colonized (face up) planets and collect 1 VP from the supply.

Warfare

ACTION: Discard the listed number of Armies to turn up 1 Surveyed planet in front of you, OR for each Warfare icon played (including the Role card), collect 1 Army.

FOLLOW: For each Warfare icon played, collect 1 Army.