Dominations: Rise and Fall Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Glory and Decline
  • Principles
  • Rules
    • Setup
    • Acquiring Glory cards
    • Playing Glory cards
    • The Effect of Decline at the End of an Age
  • Glossary
    • Civil War
    • Colonisation
    • Archivist
    • Public Treasury
    • Felony
• Corruption
  • Principles
  • Setup
  • Corruption Mastery cards
    • Corruptio
  • The Corruption Track
  • Domination Tiles
  • The Domination Phase
  • The Court of Miracles
• Tablets of the Law
  • Principle
  • Setup
  • Rules
    • The Bonuses
    • Vestigium Tokens
  • End of the Game
• Solo Mode
  • Setup
  • Turn Order
  • The Turn
    • The Player's Turn
    • The AI's Turn
      • Anatomy of an Action card
    • Grow Phase
      • Placing a Land Tile
      • Producing Knowledge
    • Build Phase
      • Building a New City
      • Building a City Level

Components

Components list as printed on the rulebook's Components page. Counts are as printed.

Glory & Decline

• 105 Glory cards
• 4 Decline markers

Corruption

• 1 Corruption board
• 80 Mastery cards with card holder
• 4 Corruption markers
• 20 Domination tiles
• 4 Monument level cards
• 1 Monument card (The Court of Miracles)
• 1 Monument standee

Tablets of the Law

• 4 Tablets of the Law boards
• 20 Vestigium tokens

Solo Mode

• 30 Empire of Mu Action cards
• 30 Shangri-La Action cards
• 30 Old Ones Action cards
• 3 Civilization cards

Glory and Decline

Principles

With this expansion, you will draw a Glory card each time you build a City or a Monument. You can play these cards during your turn to obtain their effect. You can also have several copies of the same card in your hand, and if you play them all at once, their effect will be amplified!

However, all this glory comes at a price! Playing a Glory card costs Decline points. Each card played will advance your Decline marker along the Influence track, and at the end of the Age, your Decline score is deducted from your Influence score.

This can cause you to lose a lot of points if you play too many, so you'll have to choose whether the effect is worth the loss of points within your strategy.

Rules

Setup

During step 3 of Setup in the core rulebook: Shuffle the Glory cards, and place the deck face down on the table. Place the Decline markers in each player's colour next to the Scoreboard.

Acquiring Glory cards

Each time a player builds a City or a Monument level they draw as many Glory cards as the level of the City or Monument level they just built. They then add them to their hand, up to their maximum hand limit.

Your Hand: Each player may have up to 5 Glory cards in their hand at any time. If they exceed this limit, they must immediately discard Glory cards to reach 5.

Example: Laurent builds a new City. He takes a Glory card and adds it to his hand. Joëlle then builds the 4th Level of a Monument. She takes 4 Glory cards, but as she already has 3 in her hand, she can only keep 2. She discards the two others.

The Discard: Discarded cards are placed next to the pack of Glory cards, face up. Players may look at the discarded cards at any time. If the pack of Glory cards runs out, the discard is shuffled and turned face down to make a new deck.

Playing Glory cards

Glory cards can only be played by the active player. You may only perform one Glory card action (whether you play just one card or several of the same type at once) per turn.

To play a Glory card, the player chooses a card from their hand and acquires the effect as described on the card.

However, each card has several power levels, and if a player possesses several identical cards, they may play them simultaneously to gain an improved effect!

Of course, all of this power comes at a price: Decline. Each effect written on a Glory card has a Decline cost. When you play the effect of a Glory card, you must advance your Decline marker next to the Influence track by as many spaces as the Decline cost indicated.

This Decline cost only concerns the effect played, not each Glory card used.

Example: On his turn, Jérémie plays a City Militia card to gain 2 Influence. He then moves his Decline marker forward one space. During his next turn, Jérémie has 3 Urban Militia cards in his hand. He plays them simultaneously to gain 8 Influence. He moves his Decline marker forward 4 spaces.

Once a Glory card has been used, it is placed in the discard.

The Effect of Decline at the End of an Age

At the end of each Age, when resolving the Victory points gained by Influence, you must also resolve each player's Decline score.

Each player gains as many Victory points as their Influence score minus their Decline score. This can reach a negative value, causing a player to lose points! Such is the price of power…

Example: At the end of the Age, Matthieu has 29 Influence points. However, he played several Glory cards during the Age, reaching 22 Decline points! As a result, he will only score 7 Victory points (29-22=7) for this Age.

• As with Influence, a player's Decline score is not reset to 0 at the start of a new Age. They continue to accumulate during the game.
• Decline points do not affect a player's capacity to assimilate Mastery cards based on their Influence score.
• Decline points do not affect a player's capacity to achieve an Influence Objective.

Apart from the rules described here, the rest of the game is played as per the normal rules.

Glossary

Civil War

• Converting a City: When you convert another player's City, that player removes their City token from the Land tile it was on. You then replace that City with one of your own. This City must be of the same level as the one removed and placed on the same Land tile. If you do not have enough City tokens to perform this action, then you cannot do it.

When replacing an adversary's City with one of your own, you gain Influence as per the normal rules for City building, and the affected player loses as many Influence points as you gain.

Colonisation

• Taking Land tiles: These tiles are taken from the Tile holders.

Archivist

• Moving a Mastery card: When you move a Mastery card, this card can be placed anywhere in your Civilization Tree as per the normal rules for Mastery card placement. You may not move a card if its absence leaves a gap in your Civilization Tree. If this action allows you to move more than one Mastery card, your cards are moved simultaneously, and the integrity of your Civilization Tree is checked at the end of the action.
• Replacing a Mastery card: You may replace a Mastery card with another of the same name from those remaining in order to obtain a different Nodus configuration. When the card is replaced, it can also be moved as per the rules stated above. If an advanced card is replaced, its replacement is also placed into your Civilization Tree on its advanced side.

Replacing or Moving a card does not reactivate its effect, nor does it gain additional Victory points when placed. Any new Nodus formed do not activate any effects either.

Public Treasury

This card is a "joker" which copies the characteristics of another Glory card when they are played together, allowing you to access that Glory card's more powerful effect. You may play as many Public Treasury cards at once as you like, but they must accompany at least one Glory card. When you use Public Treasury cards, you gain as many Decline points as the level of the effect of the Glory card, plus 3 additional Decline per Public Treasury card used.

Felony

When you take a Glory card back from the discard pile, it is added to your hand. Playing a Felony card counts as your Glory card action for this turn. You may only play one Felony card at a time, which will increase your Decline by 1.

Corruption

Principles

This expansion introduces the notion of Corruption to the game, represented by the Corruption track and a new series of Mastery cards. You will advance along the Corruption track each time you create a black Nodus, or "Corruptio". The players furthest along the Corruption track gain an advantage when the Domination tiles are distributed. These new tiles replace the Domination cards at the end of each Age!

Setup

During step 2 of setup in the core rulebook: Place the Mastery cards from this expansion into their card holder, then place the card holder next to the others. Then, search for the following Mastery cards from the core box: Politics (Art-blue) and Sanctuary (Religion-purple) and replace them with the Mastery cards of the same name from this expansion, which have the Corruption icon in their top right-hand corner. Don't forget to remove them at the end of the game!

During step 3 of setup in the core rulebook: Place the Corruption board next to the Scoreboard. Each player places their Corruption token on the first space of the Corruption board. Then, mix the 20 Domination tiles face down, and randomly draw one from each Domain, slotting it into its space on the Corruption board.

Ignore step 4 of setup in the core rulebook: This expansion does not use the Domination cards.

During step 5 of setup in the core rulebook: Add the "Court of Miracles" Monument card to the other Monument cards. If chosen by a player, this Monument is added to the game in the same way as regular Monuments.

Corruption Mastery cards

All these new Mastery cards have the Corruption icon on them, as well as their own card-holder. There are three levels of Mastery card per Domain, one per level (3, 6 and 9).

These cards follow all of the normal rules for Mastery cards.

Corruptio

When playing with this expansion, the rules concerning Corruptio from the core rulebook are modified.

These black Nodus now follow the same rules as all other Nodus and can be connected to other Corruptio, as well as Vestigium (the white neutral Nodus).

The Corruption Track

Players will be advancing along the Corruption track during the game.

A player moves along the Corruption track when:

• They create a Corruptio (Black) Nodus in their Civilization Tree (1 point per Nodus created)
• OR
• They gain Corruption points from the effect of a card.

Players' Corruption scores are not reset to 0 at the start of a new Age.

Domination Tiles

These tiles replace the Domination cards. However, instead of simply affecting a player, these tiles affect an entire Knowledge Domain. Their effects are permanent. During the Domination phase, they can be moved from one Domain to another by players.

During setup, a Domination tile is drawn randomly for each Domain. The effect of the tile is applied to the Domain it is attached to (and only that Domain). For example, if a tile affects the cost of building Cities or Monuments, then its effect will only apply to Cities and Monument levels of its allotted Knowledge Domain. In the same way, Domination tiles that affect Mastery cards will only apply their effects to Mastery cards of the Domain they are placed on.

Source note: the printed text reads "the Doman they are placed on"; "Domain" is corrected here.

However, no matter which Domain they're placed on, Domination tile effects will affect all players at the table!

In this example, Religion Cities would cost +2 to build due to the effect of the tile.

If the effect of a tile allows you to perform an action, you may repeat the action more than once during your turn.

If the tile shows a Campfire icon, it modifies the exchange rate shown on your Campfire card for this Domain. However, if you possess a Mastery card (such as Promissory Notes) or another effect which gives a better rate of exchange, then it takes priority.

If a tile has an "At the end of the Age" effect, then that effect is activated at the end of the Age in the same way as it would be for Mastery cards.

One of the tiles allows you to define Initiative order for the next Age, in the same way as the Governor card. This tile takes effect at the beginning of the Domination phase, before the redistribution of the Domination tiles (see below), or reducing Knowledge levels to zero. If this tile is not in play, then there will be no way to modify Initiative order during play.

The Domination Phase

The Domination tiles drawn during setup stay in play for the entire duration of the game. However, they won't necessarily stay attributed to the same Domains, as they can be moved by players at the end of each Age.

During the Domination phase, remove all of the Domination tiles from the Corruption board, putting them in front of it. Starting with the player with the highest Corruption score, then the second highest and so on, each player takes a Domination tile of their choice and places it into an available Domain slot on the Corruption board.

Players are hence free to attribute advantageous tiles to Domains they're interested in, or use those with more negative effects to hinder their opponents.

Once all players have chosen a tile, the cycle begins anew until all the tiles have been placed. Depending on how many players there are, some players may place more tiles than others.

The Court of Miracles

This Monument follows all of the usual rules for Monuments, with the following exceptions:

• Building conditions: The Court of Miracles must be placed adjacent to at least one City belonging to a player with at least 4 Corruption points.
• Cost of the 1st and 3rd levels: The cost to build the 1st and 3rd levels of The Court of Miracles is not Knowledge, but a certain level of Corruption. If you have enough Corruption (4 or 6 for the 3rd level) then you may build the relevant Monument level without spending any resources. Building the Monument level still uses your Build action for your turn.
• Corruptio on the Monument base: When a player connects a Land tile to a Corruptio on The Court of Miracles base, they gain 1 Corruption. This Corruptio does not generate any resources and its effect cannot be duplicated with Vestigium.

Tablets of the Law

Principle

The Tablets of the Law expansion offers you a new challenge when building your Civilization Tree! You will now have to build your Civilization Tree within a fixed space on your Tablet of the Law board, but you will gain significant bonuses as you do so.

Setup

Each Tablet of the Law has two sides. The first is the same for all players. The other side is asymmetrical and completely unique! Each player may choose which side they wish to play on before the game begins.

Replace step 8 of setup in the core game by the following: Each player takes a Tablet of the Law board at random and places it in front of them. They then place their Campfire card on a space of their choice on their Tablet of the Law. If there is a bonus on that space, then the player immediately gains that bonus. Then, finish the game setup as per the normal rules.

Rules

Each time you gain a new Mastery card during play, place it into your Civilization Tree as per the normal rules. However, the card must be placed in one of the available spaces of your Tablet of the Law.

Each time one of your Mastery cards covers a Bonus on your board, you immediately gain that Bonus.

The Bonuses

• 3/10: Gain 3 or 10 Knowledge of the Domain of your choice.
• 6/10: Gain 6 or 10 Victory points.
• 1/2/3: Gain 1, 2 or 3 Influence points.
• Build a City icon: Build a City on the Camp space of your choice without paying its cost.
• Improve a Mastery card icon: Improve a Mastery card of your choice in your Civilization Tree. It can be a Mastery card that you have just placed.
• Vestigium icon: Gain a Vestigium token.

The icons for the Build a City, Improve a Mastery card and Vestigium bonuses are shown only as pictograms on the board; the rulebook describes them as listed above.

Vestigium Tokens

These tokens can be used in two ways:

• On your turn, when placing a new Mastery card into your Civilization Tree, you may use a Vestigium token to connect your card to a non-matching Nodus by placing it on top of the Nodus.
• You can also choose to keep your Vestigium tokens until the end of the game. Each unused token is worth 5 Victory points during final scoring.

End of the Game

The rest of the game is played as per the usual rules. Don't forget: each remaining Vestigium token is worth 5 points during final scoring.

Note: At the end of the game, Vestigium tokens can count towards your Nodus Objectives. Simply state which Domain the token represents.

Solo Mode

You are faced with a legendary civilisation, a powerful adversary managed by an AI. You will find a description of its mechanics in the following pages. You are of course welcome to use it with 2 or 3 players to spice up your games.

Setup

Set up the game as described on page 4 of the rulebook of the base game.

Then, set up the AI:

• Choose or randomly select one of the Objective cards (The Empire of Mu, Shangri-La the Eternal or The Old Ones).

• Take one Player board along with the necessary Knowledge sliders (1 of each Domain colour and 6 Reserve Limit sliders), as well as the player tokens in the colour to be used by the AI. Place the Knowledge sliders at the bottom of the board, under 0. Place the Reserve Limit sliders on the first level of each Domain (above the 5.) Place the whole set next to the AI's Objective card.

• Place a Campfire card next to the Player Board.

• Sort the Action cards of the chosen Civilisation into a deck for each Age. Shuffle each deck and draw the following cards at random, face down:

  • 5 Age III cards,
  • 5 Age II cards,
  • 5 Age I cards.

  The player forms a single draw pile with the Age III cards under the Age II cards and the Age I cards on top of the deck, still face down.

• The remaining Age cards will not be used. They may be placed back into the game box.

• The Objective card also indicates which Monument the AI will add to the game. Do not pick its Monument at random.

• The AI's Victory point counters and Influence counters are set next to the Score Board.

NOTE: The AI is not given a hand of Land tiles.

Turn Order

When you are playing solo against the AI: it always plays last. The Governor role does not affect the Initiative track. However, it awards 6 Victory points instead of 0.

When you're playing with 2 or 3 players in addition to the AI, it always starts the game last on the Initiative track. If it acquires the Governor role, it will place itself last on the track and the position of the players will be selected at random. Another player can move the AI's Initiative counter (and thus choose not to have the AI play last) if they receive the Governor card.

The Turn

The Player's Turn

For the player(s), the game phases are similar to those of a normal game except during the Grow phase.

During their turn, when the player places their Land tile, the resource that is excluded from the newly-created connection (that is to say: the corner of the triangular tile that does not generate Knowledge) is added to the AI's Knowledge reserve. If the player completes a LOCUS the 2 resources of the tile that do not belong to the newly-created Locus are added to the AI's Knowledge. The AI's Cities are activated and produce Knowledge in the normal way.

The AI's Turn

During the AI's turn, the player draws the first card of the Action cards deck.

Anatomy of an Action card

The Action card layout is printed bilingually in the rulebook (English and French). The English text is transcribed here; the French parallel text is omitted as a duplicate.

The first line indicates that the AI draws a tile for its Grow phase. It also indicates the Domain priorities for the construction of Cities as well as for the creation of Nodus in the next phases.

The second line concerns the Build phase. There are three possible icons:

• Build a City
• Upgrade a City
• Build a level of the indicated Monument if possible. The Old Ones can also have a second action to perform on some of their Action cards.

The third line indicates which Mastery card is added for free to the AI's Civilisation Tree.

Grow Phase

Placing a Land Tile

If the AI has already built their Monument, then they will always place a Land tile directly adjacent to that Monument if there is a space available. If several spaces are available, it will always choose the one closest to the Cradle of Humanity.

If the AI has not yet built its Monument, then it will prioritize completing a Locus if one is available. If several are available, it will always choose the one whose available space is closest to the Cradle of Humanity.

If none of the choices above are possible, then the AI will place its Land tile as close to the Cradle of Humanity as possible.

If several spaces around the Cradle of Humanity are available, the AI will place as close as possible to the top of the tile, then moving clockwise.

The direction/orientation of the Land tiles placed by the AI is of no consequence and can be chosen at random.

Producing Knowledge

The Camp space of the tile placed by the AI produces Knowledge of its Domain.

If the AI completes a Locus, it produces all of the Knowledge on the tile it just placed (the Camp and the resources).

Any activated Cities (belonging to the AI or other players) produce Knowledge as per the normal rules.

Any Knowledge produced is added to the AI's reserve.

Build Phase

The AI builds a City, a City Level or a Monument level for free following the Domain priority on its Action card.

Building a New City

The AI places one of its City tokens on a free Camp space according to the priorities of the Action card it drew this turn. If more than one Camp space of a given colour is available, it will always prioritize the one closest to the Cradle of Humanity.

Example: The AI builds a City on a Science Camp, if it is not possible it builds on a Government Camp and so on...

Building a City Level

The AI places one of its City tokens on top of one already on the board according to the priorities of the Action card it drew this turn. If more than one City of a given colour is available, it will prioritize the one closest to the Cradle of Humanity.

When building a new City or a City Level, the AI earns Influence points and increases its reserve limit according to the normal rules.

Building a Monument Level

A Monument is associated with each of the AI's possible Civilisations (it is indicated by an icon on the Objective card and the Action cards.) The AI will only build levels for the Monument it is associated with. The other players can, of course, build levels for this Monument too.

If the AI is to place the first level of a Monument, it must do so according to the normal constraints and must prioritize the position that would earn it the most points. Otherwise, it places it as close to the Cradle of Humanity as it can.

When building a new level of a Monument, the AI always earns the rewards indicated on the level card.

Note: When building the last level of the Mausoleum, the AI follows the rules for assimilating cards shown below in the "End of Age" section.

Monument level cards are integrated into the AI's Civilisation Tree. Refer to the "Develop Phase" section below for more information.

If the AI cannot perform an action (no free Camp space, no available Monument level, etc...), then the action is ignored and the AI does not build anything this turn.

Develop Phase

The AI draws the Mastery card shown on its Action card and incorporates it for free into its Civilisation Tree according to the normal rules.

The Action card indicates which Nodus the AI should prioritize. Thus, it will always take the card that allows it to complete the most of these Nodus out of all the Mastery cards available.

If the AI does not possess the prerequisites for a Level 9 Mastery then it cannot place it and the action is cancelled.

In some cases, two Mastery cards may be shown. The first is its initial choice but if this card is not available (already acquired and upgraded, cannot place the remaining cards within its Civilisation Tree, etc) then it will take the second option.

If the Mastery card shown is already in the AI's Civilisation Tree, then that Mastery card is automatically upgraded and flipped over to its advanced side. The AI immediately earns the Victory points and any effects associated with this upgrade.

The effects of the Masteries apply normally, always following the AI's priorities and Objectives.

End of Age

End of Age Effects

Any cards that the AI possesses with End of Age effects are activated and any Victory points, Knowledge, etc are gained as normal.

Resolving Influence

If the AI has the highest Influence at the end of the Age then it will assimilate a Mastery card from another player.

This is done as per the normal rules: The card is not taken directly from a player, it must have enough Influence to assimilate the card in question and, in the case of level 9 cards, the necessary prerequisites.

First of all, if it can, the AI will always attempt to assimilate a Mastery card that it possesses the base version of. This will allow it to upgrade that card to its advanced side as per the normal rules (Victory points, instant effects, etc).

Otherwise, if no player possesses such a card, refer to the first line of the AI's Action card from the previous turn. It will try to assimilate the highest value Mastery card that it can from one of the Domains shown, in order of priority.

If there are multiple cards available for either of these options, the AI will always take the card that contributes the most to its Objectives.

Determine Roles

The AI can be attributed roles just like a player. They do use that role's power but still gain the relevant Victory points.

End of Game

The final End of Age phase and End of Game phase is resolved as normal.

Objective Cards

The AI earns Victory points based on the number of Objectives it accomplishes, just like the players.

Each Objective card lists its requirements as icons. Counts are shown before each icon as "Nx" (N or more). Nodus colours are as shown on the card.

The Mu Empire

• 5x: Have 5 advanced Mastery cards in their Civilisation Tree.
• Control their monument.
• 5x: Have 5 level 9 Mastery cards (any Domain) in their Civilisation Tree.
• 7x green, 5x red, 3x orange: Have these Nodus (or more) in their Civilisation Tree.
• Have a City of each Domain (any level).

Shangri-La

• 4x: Have Mastery cards of these Domains and levels (or more) in their Civilisation tree: level 6 in the purple Domain, level 6 in the orange Domain, and level 6 in the yellow Domain.
• 3x: Have Mastery cards of these Domains and levels (or more): level 9 in the purple Domain and level 9 in the orange Domain.
• Control their Monument.
• 7x violet, 5x pale yellow, 3x orange: Have these Nodus (or more) in their Civilisation Tree.
• Have 30 Influence.

The card layout places the following objective in the right-hand column directly above "The Great Old Ones" heading. It is attributed here to Shangri-La, following the layout order.

• 3x: Have 3 Level 2 (or higher) cities and 1 level 3 city.

The Great Old Ones

• 5x: Have 5 advanced Mastery cards in their Civilisation Tree.
• Control their monument.
• 5x: Have 5 level 9 Mastery cards (any Domain) in their Civilisation Tree.
• 7x green, 5x light blue, 3x red: Have these Nodus (or more) in their Civilisation Tree.
• Have 35 Influence.

All that's left to do is total up the AI's points to see if you have overcome your adversary!

Ties

If you are ever faced with two equal choices and don't know how to break the tie, do what you think is the best choice for the AI. Otherwise, choose randomly.

A Note on the AI

We have done our best to automate the AI's actions as much as possible so that you don't have to worry too much about its choices. However, these automations will not always be the most optimal choice for it in terms of points.

If you wish, you can intervene more in the AI's choices, in order to make it even more efficient by prioritizing the achievement of its Objectives when executing its actions.

In any case, it will be a strong opponent during your games!