Dominant Species Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Object
• Key Terms
• Components
• Setup
• Sequence of Play
  • Planning Phase
  • Execution Phase
  • Reset Phase
• The Cards
• Endgame
• Optional Rules

Object

Accumulate the most victory points (VPs) by the time the game ends. Points come mainly from scoring tiles during the Domination action, from Dominance cards, and from occupying tundra.

Key Terms

• Animal — one of the six classes (mammal, reptile, bird, amphibian, arachnid, insect), each with its own color of wooden pieces and an animal display.
• Food chain — a fixed ranking, best to worst: mammal, reptile, bird, amphibian, arachnid, insect. Used to break ties.
• Species — the small cubes an animal places on tiles of "earth." Held in a gene pool before placement; species removed from earth for any reason other than Glaciation go back to the box permanently (not the gene pool).
• Elements — round disks of six resource types (grass, grub, meat, seed, sun, water). On an animal display they show need; on a tile corner they show supply. Not in play, they sit in the draw bag.
• Matching — on a given tile, count how many of the tile's element disks are of a type your animal needs (summed across all your element types). More matches than any other animal present = you have dominance.
• Endangered — species on a tile where its animal matches zero elements. Endangered species can never claim dominance and are the first to die in Extinction.
• Dominance — having at least one species on a tile and matching more elements there than any other single animal present; marked with a wooden cone. A tie means no one dominates. Players must verbally/physically claim dominance changes; they are not automatic.

Components

One board; six animal displays; 27 cards (1 Survival, 26 Dominance); 31 large and 12 small hex tiles for "earth"; 330 species cubes; 60 action-pawn cylinders; 60 domination cones; 120 element disks; 6 initiative markers; and a cloth draw bag.

Setup

1. Place the board in the center. Each player takes an animal display (chosen or random); unused displays go back in the box.
2. In reverse initiative order (insects first), place initiative markers into the Initiative track boxes.
3. Tiles: place one large tile of each of the seven non-tundra terrain types in the center hex positions, then a tundra tile atop the sea tile. Stack the eleven remaining tundra tiles on the "Glaciation Tiles" space. Shuffle the other 24 large tiles face down into three face-down stacks of 8 on the "Wanderlust Tiles" spaces; flip the top tile of each stack face up.
4. Cards: set the Survival card aside. Remove the Ice Age card, shuffle the other 25 Dominance cards, place them atop the face-down Ice Age card to form the draw pile, then deal 5 face up to the "Available Dominance Cards" area.
5. Elements: place two of each element type on the board's marked corners. Put the rest in the draw bag, then draw 4 random elements onto each of the Adaptation, Abundance, and Wanderlust "leaf" squares (12 total).
6. Species: each player takes their color's 10 cones plus a count of cylinders (action pawns) and cubes that scales with player count—3 cylinders/35 cubes at 6 players, up to 7 cylinders/55 cubes at 2 players. Set one cube on the "0" VP space. Place starting species on each animal's home tiles as listed on the board (e.g. mammals: 2 mountain, 1 desert, 1 forest). Each animal begins dominating its central home tile.

The game begins with the Planning Phase of turn one, led by the animal furthest left on the Initiative track.

Sequence of Play

Each turn has three phases: Planning, Execution, then Reset.

Planning Phase

In left-to-right initiative order, players take turns placing one available action pawn (AP) into any vacant "eyeball" space of the action display. Each eyeball holds at most one AP—first come, first served. Continue in initiative order, skipping animals that have run out of APs, until all APs are placed.

Execution Phase

APs are removed and resolved one at a time, in top-to-bottom, left-to-right order, section by section. Actions are voluntary—a player may forfeit any action. Most empty sections are skipped, but Regression, Wasteland, Speciation, and Competition always resolve (the latter two because insects/arachnids get a "free" action there). The twelve action sections resolve in this order:

1. Initiative — the acting animal swaps its initiative marker with the one directly to its left (moving forward one space), then places the just-removed AP into any vacant eyeball—effectively making the last placement of the turn.

2. Adaptation — one at a time, the acting player takes one element from the Adaptation section and adds it to an empty slot on their animal display. No animal may exceed six elements total; duplicates are allowed.

3. Regression — for each element type sitting in the Regression Box, every animal removes one matching element from its display. An AP placed here (reptiles always have one free) protects one such element. Default (printed) elements can never be removed.

4. Abundance — the acting player takes one element from the Abundance section and places it on any vacant tile corner of earth (including edge corners).

5. Wasteland — an AP here lets the player return one element from the Wasteland Box to the bag. Then, regardless, all elements on tundra tiles matching any type still in the Wasteland Box are removed to the bag.

6. Depletion — the acting player removes one element from earth that matches a type in the Depletion Box, returning it to the bag.

7. Glaciation — the acting player picks a non-tundra tile adjacent to at least one tundra tile, sets aside its species, and covers it with a new tundra tile (permanently tundra). Remove elements surrounded by exactly three tundra tiles. Gain bonus VPs for tundra tiles adjacent to the new tile. Return one set-aside species of each animal to the tile; the rest go back to their gene pools (not the box).

8. Speciation — the acting player picks an element on earth matching the space their AP came from, then places new species from their gene pool onto the adjacent tiles (up to 4 on sea/wetland, 3 on savannah/jungle/forest, 2 on desert/mountain, 1 on tundra). After all Speciation APs, the insect player always places one free species on any tile.

9. Wanderlust — the acting player takes a face-up large tile and places it in a vacant hex adjacent to existing earth, may add one Wanderlust element to it, and gains bonus VPs for adjacent tiles. Then, in food chain order, every player may move their species from adjacent tiles onto the new tile.

10. Migration — the acting player moves up to X of their species (X from the AP's space) each onto an adjacent tile. Birds may move up to two tiles (not over blank hexes).

11. Competition — the acting player picks up to one tile of each of the three terrain types on the AP's space, each holding one of their species and at least one opposing species, and eliminates one opposing species on each (to the box). Arachnids always compete first on one tile of any terrain.

12. Domination — the acting player scores one not-yet-scored tile: first place goes to the animal with the most species there (VPs per the Tile Scoring table), second and third/fourth places to the next animals present on richer terrains. Ties in species count break in food chain order. Finally, if a dominant animal is on that tile, that player picks and resolves one face-up Dominance card, then removes it from play.

Reset Phase

Extinction: eliminate all endangered species (to the box). The mammal player may save one of their own endangered species each turn.

Survival: give the Survival card to the animal with the most species on tundra (no one, if tied); that player scores bonus VPs for the number of tundra tiles they occupy.

Reseed (skip on the final turn): refill the Available Dominance Cards face up; slide leftover Glaciation APs left; clear Regression/Depletion/Wanderlust elements to the bag; cascade the element rows down (Wasteland→Depletion, Abundance→Wasteland, Adaptation→Regression); draw 4 new random elements into each of Adaptation, Abundance, and Wanderlust; flip the top tile of each large stack face up. Then begin the next Planning Phase.

The Cards

• Survival card — awarded during each Reset to the animal alone atop the tundra species count; scores bonus VPs for tundra tiles occupied.
• Dominance cards (26) — one-time rewards claimed by the dominant animal when a tile is scored. Each grants a one-shot effect (drawing elements, extra action pawns, moving or eliminating species, scoring VPs, etc.), then is removed from play. The Ice Age card triggers the end of the game.

Endgame

When the Ice Age card is drawn, the game ends at the conclusion of that turn: finish remaining Domination actions, perform Extinction, and score the Survival card, but skip Reseed. Then remove all domination markers and score every tile one final time (VPs only—no Dominance cards). The controller of the animal with the highest VP total wins; ties are broken in favor of the animal higher on the food chain.

Optional Rules

• 2–3 players: assign all six animals, so each player controls two (3-player) or three (2-player) animals, each with its own pieces and VP total. A player's own animals count as "opposing" to each other. At game end, a player's final score is their lowest-scoring animal—so balance matters.
• Random earth setup: shuffle and place seven random large tiles to start, seed twelve random elements, then place starting species by matching each animal's key element, adjusting starting VPs so the animal with the most starting species begins at 0.