Dice Settlers Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Game Overview
• Game Setup
  • Player Setup
  • Map Setup
  • Supply Setup
  • Technology Setup
• Playing the Game
  • Spending Icons
  • Roll Phase
  • Action Phase
    • Main Actions
  • Free Actions
  • Clean-up Phase
• Final Scoring
• Diceoneer - Solo Mode
  • Additional Components for Solo Mode
  • Setup
  • Roll Phase
  • Action Phase
  • Resolving Actions
  • Clean-up Phase
  • End of Game
  • Adjusting Game Difficulty
  • Gold Rush Variant
• Credits
• Appendix
  • Explosive Technologies - Mini-expansion
  • Pre-made Technology Sets
  • Tiles List

Components

51 Custom dice:

• 12 white dice

• 9 green dice

• 9 yellow dice

• 7 orange dice

• 7 brown dice

• 7 grey dice

• 40 hexagonal Map tiles (including 7 starting ones with different backs) — Plains, Forest, Mountains, Desert, Hills, and Backs

• 48 Resource tokens (12 Gold, 12 Iron, 12 Wood, and 12 Food)

• 40+ Victory Point (VP) tokens, with values of 1 VP, 5 VP, and 10 VP

• 80 tents (20 per player colour)

• 20 houses (5 per player colour)

• 36 Player markers (9 per player colour)

• 1 Scoring pad

• 4 Player boards with 4 dice trackers

• 4 Cloth bags

• 1 First Player tile

• 55 Technology cards

Component Limitations

Houses and dice are limited: when they run out no more may be gained.

Resource tokens, Victory Points, and tents are unlimited: if you run out, please substitute something else.

Game Overview

In a game of Dice Settlers, a board will be formed from the Map tiles. Players will then use their tents and houses to compete for control of these tiles, which are worth points at the end of the game and/or give bonus abilities to players who are present.

The dice represent various people who are able to work for you, using their skills to explore, trade, research, and expand. Your dice are drawn from your bag, rolled, used, and then returned to your bag when your bag is empty.

Tents are used to mark your presence on the map. Whoever has the most tents on a tile has control of that tile. Tents can be upgraded to houses, which mark permanent control of a tile.

Technology cards are both a source of points and a way to gain special abilities which will help you throughout the game.

There are a number of routes to victory in each game. Find the one that works for you!

Game Setup

Player Setup

Each player does the following:

1. Chooses a colour and takes a Player board, a dice tracker, a cloth bag, and all Player markers in their player colour.
2. Takes 6 tents in their chosen colour to form their personal supply. All other tents and houses are placed nearby in a general supply.
3. Places 3 white dice, 1 green die, and 1 yellow die inside their cloth bag. Remove any unused white dice from the game.
4. Takes one tent of their colour from the general supply and places it on their dice tracker on their Player board, on the spot marked with the number 3.

Randomly choose a starting player. Alternatively, the starting player is the one who has built a house most recently. Give that player the First Player tile.

Map Setup

1. Depending on the number of players, return some Map tiles to the box: they will not be used for the rest of the game:

   Players	Action
   4-player game	Use all tiles
   3-player game	Return tiles 35-40
   2-player game	Return tiles 27-40

2. From the remaining tiles, separate out the starting tiles (the ones with the different back), shuffle them face down and deal 3 face up to the starting player. They choose one of them as their starting tile, passing the remaining 2 to the player on their left. That player takes the 2 tiles together with another random starting tile, chooses one and passes the rest to the player on their left. Repeat this process until every player has a starting tile. Put the remaining starting tiles back into the game box, they will not be used in this game. Note that every player gets to choose their starting tile from a choice of three.

3. Starting with the first player and going clockwise, each player places their starting tile onto the table to create the starting board. Each time a new tile is added, it must be placed in such a way that it shares a side with as many other tiles as possible, the orientation does not matter. The final layout should look like a compact cluster of hexagonal tiles, one per player (2, 3, or 4 players).

4. Each player places one tent of their colour from their personal supply on their chosen tile. If the tile provides a bonus to the player who adds it to the board, they receive that bonus now.

5. Shuffle all other (non-starting) Map tiles together and create a face down stack.

Supply Setup

1. Place VP tokens with a combined value of 30/39/48 VP in a 2/3/4-player game in the general supply. The remaining VP tokens are set aside into a reserve.
2. Add all resource tokens to the general supply.
3. Separate the remaining dice by colour. In a 2/3/4-player game, place back into the game box 2/1/0 dice of each colour, these dice will not be used for the rest of the game. Add the remaining dice to the general supply.
4. The general supply should now contain: dice, VP tokens, tents, houses, and all resource tokens.

Technology Setup

For your first game, it is recommended to use a fixed set of Technology cards (the Great Wide Somewhere set: Stability, Scouts, Large Coaches, Forestry, Gold Rush, General Education, Mobile Workforce, Prosperity, Builder). Place these cards face up nearby to form a Technology tableau. Put the remaining Technology cards back into the game box, they will not be needed in this game.

For future games, you can choose one of the other premade sets, or instead choose a random selection of cards: Separate out the Technology cards into different decks according to their type. This is indicated by the artwork on the back and the colour of the seal in the bottom of the front and back of the card.

Shuffle each deck and then draw at random a number of cards equal to the type of seal, putting the remaining cards back in the box. The seal types indicate: 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2 cards to draw per deck.

Note: The 'Chronicles' Technology is marked as a "4 player only" Technology. If randomly drawn during a 1-3 player game, return it to the box and draw another one.

Playing the Game

The game is divided into rounds, and each round is further divided into 3 phases:

1. Roll phase
2. Action phase
3. Clean-up phase

At the end of each round, check if any of the game end conditions have been triggered:

• At least one player has placed all 5 of their houses on the map.
• The general supply has no more VP tokens in it.
• The stack of Map tiles has run out.
• The general supply only has dice of 2 or fewer colours remaining.

If any end game conditions have been met, the game continues for one more round. After the next Clean-up phase, proceed to the final scoring.

Spending Icons

To do most things in the game, you will need to spend icons. This can be done in a number of ways. These are explained in full later in the rulebook.

• Moving a die showing the appropriate icon from your active dice area to your spent dice area.
• Activating a technology that generates that icon (flipping over your Player marker).
• Some tiles give you icons if you have control of them.

Example: You are about to perform an action that requires you to spend 3 Recruit icons. You only have one active die showing this icon, but you are also in control of a tile which gives an extra Recruit icon to the player who controls that tile. You also have the technology Forestry which enables you to use Settle icons as Recruit icons and you have a Settle icon.

Roll Phase

This phase can be performed simultaneously by all players, unless a player specifically requires that it is performed in order, in which case, the first player starts and then all other players follow in clockwise order.

Each player perform the following steps, in order:

1. Determine Dice quota: Adjust your marker on your Dice tracker to reflect your current Dice quota. The base Dice quota is 3, but it is increased by certain technologies and presence on specific tiles, to a maximum of 9.

Example: John, playing with blue, has a marker on the Stable Government Technology card which increases his Dice quota by 2, and has control of two Map tiles, each of which increases his Dice quota by 1. Therefore, John's Dice quota is 7: base value of 3, plus 2 from the technology, plus 2 from the Map tiles.

Note: The Dice quota is only relevant at this point in the round sequence. Therefore it is not necessary to immediately adjust your Dice quota if you lose presence on a Map tile that increases your Dice quota, just check it at the start of this phase.

Presence and Control

Some of the Map tiles give you bonuses if you have presence or control of that tile.

Presence: You have a tent or house on the tile.

Control: Either you have a house on the tile, or if nobody has a house on the tile, you have the most or joint most tents on the tile.

2. Draw dice: Take a number of dice out of your bag at random equal to your Dice quota. If there are not enough dice in your bag to draw as many as you need, immediately place all dice from your spent dice area back in your bag and keep drawing until you have drawn the correct number of dice, or until there are no more dice in the bag.

Note: This is the only time when dice can return into your bag from the spent dice area.

Roll the dice you drew and place them in your active dice area above your Player board. These, and any die already in that area, are now your active dice.

Note: It may happen that your Dice quota is higher than the total number of dice you possess. In this case, you simply get as many dice as you can.

Looking in your bag

You may look in your own bag at any time to see what dice you have in there. Just make sure that you shake the bag afterwards to mix up the dice in it before you draw any out. Players may not look in the bags of other players.

3. Reroll and draw more dice: During this step, you have two actions available to you. You may perform either or both of these actions multiple times, in any chosen order, as long as you still have the appropriate icons available.

• You may spend a Pioneer icon to either: a) Choose one of your active dice and set it to any other face, or b) Choose up to 3 of your active dice and re-roll them. Place the re-rolled dice back in your active dice area.
• You may spend a Resource icon (Gold, Iron, Wood, or Food) to either: a) Choose one of your active dice and set it to any other face, or b) Draw 2 more dice at random out of your bag, roll them, and place them together with the rest of your active dice.

Remember, that you can only refill your bag – if empty – in step 2. If you run out of dice in the bag while performing this action, you CANNOT put your dice from the spent dice area back in the bag – this could create an infinite loop and we don't want that, do we?

Example: Jane has 7 dice in total: 1 in her active dice area, 3 in her spent dice area, and 3 in her bag. She has a Dice quota of 4. First, she draws the 3 dice of out of her bag, but then she needs to draw 1 more and her bag is empty, so she places her 3 Spent dice back into her bag, mixes them up and draws one. At this point, she has drawn 4 dice, the amount indicated by her Dice quota.

She rolls her 4 dice and gets the following results: Food, Pioneer, Trade, and Settle.

She places the rolled dice in the active dice section of the Player board. Jane decides to spend the Food die to draw out of her bag 2 more dice. She rolls them and the results are Food and Settle.

She then spends her Pioneer die to reroll the dice depicting Trade and Food. The new results are Settle and Recruit. Her final active dice are: Settle, Settle, Settle, and Recruit.

After all players are finished drawing more dice and rolling, the Roll phase is over. The two actions that were possible in this phase (drawing more dice and re-rolling) may not be performed at any other time during the round.

Action Phase

Starting with the first player and going clockwise, each player must take a turn to perform one main action, if able. In the rare case that a player cannot perform an action, they skip their turn. Then, following the same order (from the first to the last player in clockwise order), players may take a second turn to perform a different main action. After that, the Action phase is over.

While resolving one action, it is possible that you can gain an extra action. If you do, this additional action is taken during this turn immediately after resolving your current action.

IMPORTANT: Every action you take within the same round must be a different action than any other action you take. Actions taken by the other players have no impact on your choice of actions.

Example: If you choose to Explore as your first action, and during Explore, you gain an additional action which you take immediately. You cannot choose Explore again, so you choose to take the Settle action. On your second turn, you may choose another action, but you cannot choose Explore or Settle.

Also during your turn you may perform one or more Free actions, before and/or after your Main action. Free actions are described on page 14.

Useful Pioneers

At any time during your turn, you may use 2 Pioneer icons as if they were any one other icon (except Gold).

Main Actions

Taking an action has a cost – spending a number of icons of a specific type. The effects of the different actions are listed here:

Recruit

Recruiting lets you add dice to your workforce, giving you more and, sometimes, better choices.

To Recruit, you must spend 1/3/6 Recruit icons to gain 1/2/3 new dice from the general supply. You may only Recruit dice of a certain colour if you have presence on at least one tile of the corresponding colour (Plains = Yellow dice, Forest = Green dice, Mountains = Grey dice, Desert = Orange dice, Hills = Brown dice).

Explore

Exploring allows you to add a new tile to the map, under your control.

To explore, you must spend one or more Explore icons. Draw tiles from the pile of Map tiles equal to the number of icons spent, choose one of them to add to the map. Place the rest of the tiles in the box.

Add the chosen tile to the map, so that it meets the following requirements:

• It is adjacent to a tile where you are already present (you have a tent or a house). If you have no presence on the map, this requirement does not apply to you.
• It is adjacent to at least two other tiles, if possible.

Then add a tent of your colour from the general supply to that tile. If the tile has an ability that triggers when you place the tile, resolve that ability now.

All other players with presence on any neighbouring tiles, may join you, by adding 1 tent from their personal supply on the newly placed tile.

Finally, if any other player used the option above, you may also add another tent from your personal supply on this tile, retaining the control of the tile.

If you are the one who explores the land, and you have a spare tent in your supply, you're guaranteed to start in control of the tile. But exploring close to your opponents gives them options too!

Settle

Settling allows you to strengthen your presence on the map and take control of Map tiles needed to implement your strategy.

To settle, you must spend at least one Settle icon. Each dice spent can be used for one of the following purposes:

• Add a tent of your colour from the general supply to your personal supply.
• Place a tent from your personal supply on a tile where you already have presence.
• Place a tent from your personal supply on a tile adjacent to another tile where you have presence.
• Remove any number of your tents from Map tiles back to your personal supply. Houses cannot be removed.

Note: If you use multiple settle icons, you place tents one after another, so you can gain presence on one tile, and then use another icon to gain presence to a tile adjacent to that one, and so on.

Using the abilities on tiles

Some tiles provide players with bonus abilities based on their icon. These abilities are all described in the appendix at the back of this rulebook.

• If you have presence on this tile, you may use its ability.
• If you control this tile, you may use its ability.
• You may remove a tent (not a house) in your colour from this tile to gain the benefit of the factory.

When you place a tile with any other icon onto the board, immediately use its ability (one use only).

Note: Any abilities that give you extra icons when performing an action trigger at the start of that action.

Raid

Raiding allows you to replace tents belonging to other players with your own.

To Raid, you must spend one or more Raid icons, and then choose a tile where you have presence.

For each spent Raid icon, remove an opponent's tent from the chosen tile and replace it with one of your own tents from your personal supply. Return the removed tents to its owner's personal supply. If you do not have any tents in your personal supply to replace an opponent's tent, you cannot Raid that tent.

Harvest

Harvesting allows you to gain resource tokens, which can be used to research and trade.

To harvest, you must spend one or more Resource icons (these icons can be different). For each icon spent, take the corresponding resource token from the general supply and add it to your personal supply.

Example: You choose this action and spend the following 3 dice, each showing a Resource icon. You gain 2 Wood resource tokens and 1 Gold resource token.

Gaining VP

Whenever you gain VP, take the appropriate value in VP tokens from the general supply. When the general supply is empty, take them from the reserve instead.

Note: The general supply running out of VP tokens is one of the triggers for the end of the game.

Trade

Trading allows you to gain Victory Points in exchange for resources or dice.

To trade, you must spend one or more Trade icons. Each icon spent can be used for one of the following purposes:

• Return a set of 3 identical resource tokens from your personal supply to the general supply to gain 6 VP.
• Return a set of 3 different resource tokens from your personal supply to the general supply to gain 5 VP.
• Return any 2 resource tokens (same or different) from your personal supply to the general supply to gain 2 VP.
• Remove one die from either, your spent dice area, or your active dice area back to the game box to gain 3 VP. The dice are not returned to the general supply, they are removed from the game.

Note: When spending resources during the Trade action, you may spend Gold as any other resource. For example, a Wood and two Gold can be spent as 3 Wood.

Trading resources with foreign lands is good. You can even send your workers away to work there and they'll gladly send their earnings back to their home!

Research

Researching allows you to place markers on Technology cards and thus gain specific ongoing benefits, Victory Points, or special scoring rules.

To research, choose one technology you want to research that you meet the terrain requirements for and can pay the cost of:

Terrain requirements: For each terrain depicted at the top of the Technology card, you must have presence on at least one Map tile of that terrain.

Cost: You must spend as many Research icons as depicted in the top-left of the Technology card and the resource tokens (not icons on dice) depicted in the top-right of the Technology card.

When spending resources during the Research action, you may spend Gold as any other resource.

Once you have paid the cost, place one of your Player markers face up on that card. You can now benefit from the effect of that card.

Note: Any number of players can have markers on the same technology.

Using Technologies

Once you have researched a technology and have a marker on it, you can use that technology for the rest of the game. Most technologies give you a permanent ongoing effect which can be used as many times as you want. Other technologies (indicated by "1x") can only be used once per round, flip your Player marker to indicate that you have used it.

Example: To research Drilled Troops, you must have 2 Research icons to spend, have presence on at least one forest and at least one mountain tile, and have one Iron (or Gold) resource to spend. If researched, place one of your player tokens on the card, which you can flip once per turn to generate an extra Raid icon.

A Technology card is laid out with, from top to bottom: the cost in Research icons (top-left), the cost in resources (top-right), the terrain requirements, the name of the technology, the effect, and at the bottom the VP value and the seal (which indicates the card's deck/type).

Free Actions

On your turn, in addition to your main action, you may perform any number of Free Actions (before and/or after your main action).

The available Free Actions are:

1. Factory: You may remove a tent (not a house) in your colour from a Map tile with the Factory icon to gain the benefit of that factory. The tent is returned to your personal supply. You may use each factory at most once per round (use the Player markers to mark which ones you've used during the round).

2. Govern: Choose a Map tile where you have 3 more tents than any other player (e.g. you have 5 tents, and no other player has more than 2 tents) and does not contain a house of any player. Remove 3 of your tents and place them back to the general supply to place a house in your colour onto that tile. From that moment onward, you control the tile, regardless of the number of tents on that tile belonging to other players. Also, note that houses may never be moved or removed from the map.

Clean-up Phase

In this phase, each player may keep up to one of the dice in their active dice area and must then move the rest to their spent dice area. Any die kept in the active dice area will not be rolled again during the next round.

Flip all Player markers that have been used back to their active side and remove any Player markers from tiles.

The First Player tile is passed to the player to the left of the current first player.

Final Scoring

Use the scoring pad to tally up Victory Points.

At the end of the game, players will score points for the following:

• Map tiles: Most tiles have two numbers depicted on them. For each of these tiles, the player or players in control of the tile gain the higher value. The lower number of points is awarded to the player or players who do not have control, but otherwise have the most tents. In the case of a tie, all tied players gain the Victory Points.

Examples:

• On a tile showing values 5/2 with Black holding a house and Blue holding two tents: Black scores 5 points, Blue scores 2 points.

• On a tile showing values 7/3 with Blue holding a lone tent and Black and Red holding one tent each (tied for second): Blue scores 7 points, Black and Red both score 3 points.

• On a tile showing values 4/1 with Red and Black tied with the most tents and Blue holding one tent: Red and Black both score 4 points, Blue scores 1 point.

• Technologies: Most technologies have a VP value printed on them. Score each card separately. All players with a marker on a card gain the VP value. Some Technology cards have a special scoring rule – simply follow that rule.

  Example: The Industrial Revolution Technology card reads: "At the end of the game, score 2 VP for each tile you control that has a Factory."

• Each player scores 3 VP for every two dice they own (regardless if the dice are in the bag, in the used or active pile). For example, if you have 9 dice, you get 12 VP.

• Each player gains 1/4/9/16/25 VP for 1/2/3/4/5 houses placed on the map.

• Finally, players add to the total the amount of VP they collected throughout the game.

The player with most VP is the winner. In the case of a tie, all tied players win!

Diceoneer - Solo Mode

In the solo game, you will be playing against an automated opponent, called the Diceoneer or the bot. In the following rules needed to perform Diceoneer's Actions, "you" refers to the lone human player.

Additional Components for Solo Mode

• 1 Action hex (as shown below)
• 1 six-sided die (faces showing 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4)
• 1 Action marker
• 1 Queue tile

The sides of the Action hex show each of the 6 available Main actions the bot will use. Note that the Harvest Main action is not listed; that is handled in a different way. You will be placing dice and resources around this hex for the bot, so where the rules say "place X next to Explore" that means you should put X next to the hex side labelled Explore.

The middle of the tile shows "Stored Resources", place any resource token the bot generates there.

Setup

1. Set up as a normal 2-player game, except that the bot doesn't need a bag or a dice tracker card.
2. The bot selects a random starting hex after you. The bot does not receive the benefit printed on its starting tile.
3. Give the bot the Queue tile, and place its dice in a line on that card, in a random order. This line of dice will be referred to as "the queue", and has a 'front' and a 'back'.
4. Place the Action marker next to the Recruit side of the Action hex, and place a Gold resource token next to Explore.

Roll Phase

1. Resolve your own Roll phase normally.
2. Count the number of dice in the bot's queue: a) If 1-4, take all the dice from the queue; b) If 5-8, take 4 dice from the front of the queue; c) If 9-10, take 5 dice from the front of the queue; d) If 11+, take 6 dice from the front of the queue.

Note, however: The bot never takes more dice from the queue than the player's dice quota + 1.

3. Shift any dice remaining on the queue card along, so they are then positioned at the front of the queue.
4. Roll the dice, then assign around the hex as follows: a) For each die showing an action's icon, place the die at the matching action. b) For each die showing a Pioneer icon, place that die at the action with the least number of dice + resources (in case of a tie, place the dice at the side nearest clockwise from the Action marker, with the side with the Action marker is currently at being the last). c) For dice showing a Resource icon, the bot takes the matching resources from the general supply and returns those dice in a random order to the back of the queue. Then:
   • If the bot has no stored goods at present, place those resources in the centre of the Action hex.
   • Otherwise (if it has at least 1 stored resource already), place the resource tokens one by one next to sides of the Action hex that do not currently have a resource token next to them using the following priority rules:
     • Start with sides with the fewest dice next to them.
     • Then go clockwise starting with the side one space clockwise from Action marker.

Any left-over resources (due to all action spots having resources next to them) become produced and thus are stored in the centre of the hex.

Example: The Diceoneer rolls 6 dice, rolling Pioneer, Wood, Research, Settle, and two Gold. Settle and Research gets placed next to the corresponding side of the Action hex. The Pioneer dice gets placed next to one of the sides with the least (in this case, zero) dice, and Explore is the closest one clockwise from the Action marker so it's placed there. The two Gold and the Wood get turned into resource tokens (and the dice are returned to the back of the queue). Since the bot already has at least one stored resource token (a Metal), the tokens just gained are placed to the sides with no resources and least dice. The first two are placed next to Raid and Trade as those sides have no dice. The third resource gets placed next to Explore as it has the next fewest dice and is the first side clockwise from the Action marker.

Action Phase

This phase is carried out as normal with the first player alternating as usual (you start as the first player). You must perform one main action, and optionally a second main action. The bot always performs 2 actions in a round. In the unlikely event that the bot has no dice/resources remaining around the Action hex when it tries to take its second action, it simply does nothing for that action.

If you perform the Explore action, the bot always joins you on the tile if it has a tent available.

On the bot's turn, roll the six-sided die and move the Action marker a number of 'steps' clockwise around the Action hex according to the value rolled. Each die or resource token counts as a 'step' (i.e. skipping over Action spaces around the hex with no dice or resources – these are not considered 'steps'). Any dice/resources on the space where the Action marker starts at before moving it are considered behind the Action marker (so start counting from the next Action space with dice/resources).

Example: If the Action hex looked like this, a roll of 1 or 2 would leave the Action marker on the Explore action. A roll of 3 would land on the Gold resource placed at the Research action. A roll of 4 would skip Raid (as there are no dice or resources there) and land on the Trade action.

Whichever action the marker ends up at is the action the bot will perform:

1. Count the number of dice and resources there. This is the strength of the action.
2. Place the dice on that action at the back of the bot's dice queue.
3. Place the resources on that action back into the general supply.
4. Resolve the action (see below), using the strength noted above.

Resolving Actions

Designer's note about priorities: You don't really have to closely check every single priority all the time while playing after your first play or two. The bot clearly aims to take the "most logical move, most eagerly", using short term decisions only. In most situations you can determine at a glance where the bot "should" make a move, the priorities are listed at the actions (particularly Settle and Raid) to determine what the bot officially considers "better".

Recruit

• If strength is <3: recruit 1 die.
• If strength = 3: recruit 2 dice.
• If strength is >3: recruit 2 dice, and gain 1 VP per strength above 3.
• Pick dice to Recruit using these priorities:
  • A colour the bot has access to but has the least of (in its queue or around the Action hex);
  • If multiple options: The rarest colour available in the supply
  • If tied: Your choice.

Acquired dice are added to the back of the bot's dice queue.

Example: The bot has 3 white, 3 yellow, and 1 green dice. It has presence on green and grey tiles. The first time it can Recruit, it will get a grey die. The next dice it recruits (assuming it hasn't gained additional presence on other tile colours) it will pick either grey or green, whichever has fewer dice left in the general supply (and if tied, your choice).

Explore

The bot only ever uses 1 strength when Exploring. Score 1 VP for any remaining strength above 1. Take the top tile of the Map tile stack and place it where you do not have a presence on an adjacent tile (if possible), and as far away from tiles with your own tents as possible. If there are multiple placement options available, you choose where the tile should go.

• Place 1 of the bot's tents from the general supply onto the newly placed tile.
• The bot ignores all effects of the tile, including exploration bonuses.
• You may choose to place a tent on the new tile as normal, if you have one. If you do, the bot always maintains control by placing an additional tent from its personal supply, if able.

Settle

While it has tents to place and strength to use, the bot places 1 tent per strength onto the map from its supply, one at a time, using the following priorities (but obeying usual rules for settling: must be on a tile it already has presence on, or one neighbouring such a tile):

• On a tile of a colour it currently has no existing presence on;

• On a tile it has no presence on already (except if the tile gives 0VP for 2nd place and you have built a house on it already);

• On a tile where it is the least number of tents away from building a house;

• On a tile where it would stop you from being the sole controlling player;

• On a tile where it would stop you from being shared controlling player;

• On a tile that provides the most VPs first 1st place;

• If still tied: your choice.

• If the bot ever gets 3 more tents than you on any Map tile without an existing house on, it immediately converts 3 of its tents on that tile into a house (as a free action).

• If it has 0 tents left in its personal supply, but has some remaining strength:

  • 1 strength left: it takes 3 tents from the general supply;
  • 2+ strength left: it takes 5 tents from the general supply (with all its remaining strength).

Either way, it then places 1 of the newly acquired tents on a tile (using the above priorities, but requiring no strength to do this).

In the unlikely event the bot has less tents left in the general supply than it needs to take, the bot scores 1 VP for each remaining strength.

Example 1: The bot currently has 1 tent in its supply (and plenty left in the general supply), and has a Settle action of 2 strength. The first point of strength places its last tent on the map (using the above priorities), then it gathers 3 tents from the general supply to its own, and immediately places one of them (leaving it with 2). If it had at least one more strength, it would have gathered 5 tents instead.

Example 2: The bot has 2 tents in its supply (and 2 tents left in the general supply) and has a Settle action of 5 strength. The first two points of strength place its last tents on the map (using the above priorities), the rest of the points of strength attempts to gather 5 tents but gathers only 2, so the bot takes 3 VP for the leftover strength.

Raid

• If you have researched a technology that ignores Raid icons, reduce the bot's strength by that amount. If the bot's strength is now 0, it receives 1VP instead of raiding;
• If it has at least 1 strength remaining, select the Map tile where the most strength can be spent (tents can be swapped) as one action. If multiple tiles are tied, resolve ties using the following priorities:
  • On a tile where it would stop you from being the sole controlling player;
  • On a tile where it would stop you from being shared controlling player;
  • On a tile where it is the least tents away from building a house;
  • On a tile that provides the most VPs for 1st place;
  • If still tied: your choice.
• For each strength:
  • Remove one of your tents;
  • Add one of the bot's tents to the tile, from its personal supply, if it has any left;
  • If it runs out of tents to place, or has none to start with, it stops raiding and scores 1 VP if it has any remaining strength.
• If the bot ever gets 3 more tents than you on any Map tile without an existing house on, it immediately converts 3 of its tents on that tile into a house (as a free action). It will continue raiding any remaining tents you have on the tile after doing this, if it still has strength and tents left to use.

Trade

For each strength, the bot discards up to 3 stored resources, gaining 2 VP for each resource. For each point of strength remaining when it has no stored resources left, the bot scores 1 VP.

Research

• Select the Technology card with the highest VP the bot can currently research. If tied, pick the topmost/leftmost technology on display it hasn't yet researched;
• Terrain requirements apply to the bot as usual, and it needs to be able to pay resources from its stored resources;
• For each excess point of strength not required to research the selected card, the bot scores 1 VP.

Note: The bot never benefits from abilities of Technology cards.

Clean-up Phase

Perform your Clean-up phase as usual. The bot doesn't do anything during this phase (leave all its dice where they are, ready for the next round).

Then, you may choose to remove one of the bot's tents from one Factory tile where the bot has 2 or more tents and more tents than you. Return the tent to the bot's personal supply, but the bot does not gain the Factory's effect.

End of Game

Score as per the normal game, but the bot gains these extra points:

• 1VP for each technology it researched in addition to VP already scored from those technologies;
• 1VP for each resource it has left (both stored ones, and ones still on sides of the Action hex).

Adjusting Game Difficulty

Easy Mode – choose any/all of the following changes:

• The bot's cap on dice rolls is equal to your dice quota (instead of +1).
• The bot scores no extra VP for strength that couldn't be used as part of the action.
• The bot scores 1VP per traded resource instead of 2.
• The bot scores no additional VP for researched technology or remaining resources at the end of the game.

Hard Mode – choose any/all of the following changes:

• Increase the bot's starting tent count to 8.
• The bot's cap on dice rolls is equal to your dice quota +2 (instead of +1).
• The bot scores 2VP for any strength that couldn't be used as part of the action.
• The bot scores 3VP per traded resource.
• The bot scores 2VP per each researched technology at the end of the game.

Gold Rush Variant

For added challenge, you may play with this very tough option:

• The bot doesn't discard resources it uses for actions – they become stored instead;
• Whenever the bot stores a resource, swap it for a Gold resource token instead (essentially every resource the bot has is wildcard for Research).

You can still use the above Game Difficulty tweaks alongside the Gold Rush variant.

Credits

Game Design: Dávid Turczi Game Development: Andrei Novac, Błażej Kubacki, Paul Grogan Artwork: Mihajlo "The Mico" Dimitrievski Graphic Design: Agnieszka Kopera Rulebook editing: Paul Grogan (Gaming Rules!) Rules layout and graphics: Michał Defański, Agnieszka Kopera

Special thanks for solo playtesting to Nick Shaw.

The designer and NSKN Games would like to thank for playtesting, advice, and feedback: Paul Grogan, Brett Gilbert, Charlie Paull, David, Adam and Jacob Mortimer, David Dawkins, David Wetherall, Konrad Borowiecki, Katalin and Tamás Rábel, Mark Harris, Charlotte Levy, Ben Hodgson, Endre Galaczi, Kata Kelemen, Zoltan Kozma, Albert Ma, Paul Bremner, Mark Morgan, René Brach, Markus Hicks, Kai Ninnemann, Kai Schmidt, Sylvia Schmidt, Jan Warnecke.

© 2018 NSKN Games. All rights reserved. For more information about Dice Settlers please visit www.nskn.net

Missing or damaged components: Although we take a lot of care to make sure that your game is complete, manufacturing mistakes can still leave you with a missing or damaged component. If that happens, please contact us to receive replacements swiftly, and with our sincere apologies.

These two tiles are a promo item for Teotihuacan: City of Gods, a fascinating deep strategy game of worker dice placement, set in a pre-Columbian America. Visit www.nskn.net to find out more!

Appendix

Explosive Technologies - Mini-expansion

Components:

• 7 Technology cards, with a seal marking them as Explosive Technologies

Changes in setup:

During setup, shuffle the 7 Explosive Technology cards, and randomly add one of them to the Technology tableau, which is thus increased to 10 cards.

Changes in gameplay:

An Explosive Technology is acquired using the Research action exactly like other technologies, and it is worth VP at the end of the game if a player still has a player marker on it (and counts toward the number of Technologies for the University).

If you have a Player marker on an Explosive Technology, you can remove that marker during your turn to use the ability of the Technology — this is referred to as "exploding" it.

Once your marker has been removed (and only then), you can research that Technology again (i.e. you cannot research the Technology twice before exploding it first).

Pre-made Technology Sets

Great Wide Somewhere: Stability, Large Coaches, Scouts, Forestry, Gold Rush, General Education, Mobile Workforce, Builder, Prosperity

Warriors & Traders: Stability, Stockades, Quartermasters, Land Grab, Adaptability, Basic Engineering, Production Boom, Manifest Destiny, Foreign Trade

Expand, Expand, Expand: Wanderlust, Improved Tools, Martial Training, Resourcefulness, Stable Government, Trailblazers, Industrial Revolution, University, Cartographer

Peace in Our Time: Wanderlust, City Walls, Mapmaking, Versatile Explorers, Frequent Hire, Missionaries, Shift Work, Foreign Trade, Constitution

Tiles List

No.	Type	Colour	VP	Ability Type	Ability
1	Starter	Plains	None	Placement	Gain 1 Food resource token and 1 yellow die.
2	Starter	Plains	None	Control	Increase Dice Quota by 1.
3	Starter	Forest	None	Placement	Gain 1 Wood resource token and 1 green die.
4	Starter	Forest	None	Control	Increase Dice Quota by 1.
5	Starter	Mountains	None	Placement	Gain 1 Iron resource token and 1 grey die.
6	Starter	Mountains	None	Control	Increase Dice Quota by 1.
7	Starter	Desert	None	Placement	Place a House on this tile instead of a Tent.
8	2-4p	Desert	4/0	Placement	Gain a die of any colour you already have access to (including orange).
9	2-4p	Desert	5/0	Factory	Gain 2 Tents from the general supply to your personal supply.
10	2-4p	Hills	1/0	Control	When you perform the Trade action, gain 1 additional Trade icon.
11	2-4p	Hills	4/3	Factory	Gain 1 brown die.
12	2-4p	Desert	1/0	Control	Increase Dice Quota by 1.
13	2-4p	Hills	4/1	Factory	Gain 1 Gold resource token.
14	2-4p	Hills	6/0	None	-
15	2-4p	Forest	3/1	Placement	Perform an extra action this turn.
16	2-4p	Forest	6/2	Factory	Gain 1 Wood resource token.
17	2-4p	Forest	None	Control	Increase Dice Quota by 1.
18	2-4p	Forest	7/3	None	-
19	2-4p	Mountains	3/1	Placement	Perform an extra action this turn.
20	2-4p	Mountains	9/5	None	-
21	2-4p	Mountains	None	Control	Increase Dice Quota by 1.
22	2-4p	Mountains	8/4	Factory	Gain 1 Iron resource token.
23	2-4p	Plains	2/1	Control	Increase Dice Quota by 1.
24	2-4p	Plains	6/3	None	-
25	2-4p	Plains	5/2	Factory	Gain 1 Food resource token.
26	2-4p	Plains	3/1	Placement	Perform an extra action this turn.
27	3-4p	Desert	1/0	Control	When you perform the Recruit action, gain 1 additional Recruit icon.
28	3-4p	Hills	1/0	Control	When you perform the Settle action, gain 1 additional Settle icon.
29	3-4p	Forest	1/0	Placement	Receive 1 Wood resource token.
30	3-4p	Forest	4/2	Factory	Activate to perform an extra action this turn.
31	3-4p	Mountains	3/0	Placement	Receive 1 Iron resource token.
32	3-4p	Mountains	4/2	Factory	Gain 1 Gold resource token.
33	3-4p	Plains	4/2	Factory	Remove exactly 3 of your Tents from a tile that has no house on it (return them to general supply) and place one of your houses on that tile.
34	3-4p	Plains	3/0	Placement	Receive 1 Food resource token.
35	4p	Desert	1/0	Control	Increase Dice Quota by 1.
36	4p	Desert	7/0	None	-
37	4p	Hills	4/2	Factory	Gain 2 VP from the reserve.
38	4p	Forest	5/1	Presence	Increase Dice Quota by 1.
39	4p	Mountains	7/3	Presence	Increase Dice Quota by 1.
40	4p	Plains	4/1	Presence	Increase Dice Quota by 1.