Four Forests Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Setup
• Gameplay
  • Cultivate
  • Harvest/Burn
  • Pollinate
  • Prune
  • Round End
  • Game End
• Scoring
  • Determine Creature Prestige
  • Rank the Creatures
  • Score your Forest
• Ranking Examples
  • Ranking Example 1
  • Ranking Example 2
  • Ranking Example 3

Components

• 11 Double-Sided Creature Cards
• 64 Plant Cards
• 4 Reference Cards
• 1 First Player Token
• 1 Scorepad
• 4 Prestige Tokens

Setup

1. Give each player a reference card.

2. Give the first player token to the person who most recently watered a plant.

3. Shuffle the creature cards (flipping some to the opposite face as you do so) and deal four of them into the center of the table, rotated the same orientation. Return the remaining creature cards to the game box.

Cards rotated to the same orientation.

If this is your first time playing Four Forests, it is suggested that rather than random creature cards, you play with the Elves, Giants, Tortles, and Gryphons. Flip each so the face with leaf icons next to the creature name is face up.

Leaf icons.

4. Shuffle the plant cards, and deal four of them face down to each player. You can look at the hand of cards dealt to you, but keep them secret from the other players. Set the remaining plant cards aside in a face down deck; you'll get new cards each round.

Gameplay

Four Forests is played over four rounds. Each round you will take four actions, in this order:

1. Cultivate
2. Harvest/Burn
3. Pollinate
4. Prune

For experienced players, the person with the first player token each round chooses what order these occur, choosing each action as they go. They are not obligated to declare the entire order at the beginning of the round.

Cultivate

Starting with the first player and proceeding clockwise, each player will reserve a plant card into their "forest". Place a card from your hand face up in front of you. This card should remain visible to all players for the remainder of the game. At the end of the game, the cards in your hand and cards in your habitat will score points.

Harvest/Burn

Starting with the first player and proceeding clockwise, each player will secretly cast a vote for one of the creatures in the middle. Place a card from your hand (face down) below one of the creature cards. The orientation of the card you place determines if your vote is "for" or "against" the creature. If the card you place matches the orientation of the creature card it is considered a "for" vote and increases that creature's prestige at the end of the game.

Caption: 3 "For" Votes, 1 "Against" Vote.

To make sure your opponents can't easily determine which orientation you are placing your vote card, consider rotating it to your desired orientation out of their view.

Once they are placed, you may not look at the front of any vote cards until scoring occurs at the end of the game (though you may count how many there are).

The prestige of each creature will affect how many points their preferred plants are worth at the end of the game.

Pollinate

Every player simultaneously selects a card from their hand and passes it to the player on their left. You may not look at the card passed to you until you have passed a card yourself. Take the card passed to you into your hand.

Prune

Every player simultaneously selects a card from their hand and discards it face down and out of play.

Round End

After all players have completed all four actions, pass the first player token clockwise and deal four new cards to each player to start the next round.

Dealing these four new cards will result in the number of cards you start with in your hand increasing each round. For the second round, you should start with 5 cards in hand, the third round 6, and the fourth round 7.

Game End

Repeat this process until four rounds have been completed. You should have four cards face up in your forest, and four cards in your hand. Place the four cards in your hand into your forest. Proceed to scoring.

Scoring

Throughout the game you've been collecting different plant cards that may appeal to the creatures in play. You've also been casting votes to increase or decrease the prestige of each of the creatures. Ideally, you've filled your forest with plants that the most prestigious creatures prefer!

Determine Creature Prestige

Flip over the plant cards below each creature card, being sure to maintain their orientation with respect to the creature card. Determine each creature's prestige by subtracting the quantity of "against" votes from the quantity of "for" votes each creature has (this number may wind up being negative).

The numbers on the plant cards are used for tie breakers but initially do not have any bearing on a creature's prestige, only the quantity of cards in any given orientation.

Caption: 3 "For" Votes with values 6, 6, and 7. 1 "Against" Vote with value of 8.

With 3 "For" vote cards and 1 "Against" card, the prestige for a creature with this collection of vote cards would be +2 (3 "For" - 1 "Against" = 2).

Rank the Creatures

Compare the prestige of each creature, then according to the table below, place the indicated prestige token above each creature card.

Prestige	Token
Most	4
Second Most	3
Third Most	2
Least	-1

If there is a tie for prestige, recalculate the prestige of each of the tied creatures by using the values printed on the plant cards used to vote ("for" votes being positive and "against" votes still counting negative).

The collection of cards shown above would give a creature a prestige score of +11 (6+6+7 = 19, 19-8 = 11).

When recalculating prestige due to a tie, the new prestige scores are only used to break the tie. Any creatures not involved with the tie maintain their original ranks.

If a tie between creatures still persists, the tied creatures share the next available lowest point value prestige token. It may help to move those creatures and their respective plant cards used for voting to be next to each other.

Score your Forest

For each creature, evaluate each of the eight cards in your forest. If a card meets the conditions set forth on the creature card, earn points equal to the number shown on the token above the creature card. Your final score for the game is the total of the points earned from each creature.

The player with the most points wins!

Ranking Examples

Ranking Example 1

Using the quantity of vote cards, Dragons have a prestige of 3. Both Trolls and Elves have a prestige of 1. Gryphons have a prestige of -2.

• Dragons receive the prestige token showing a 4.
• Recalculating the prestige of the tied creatures using the values shown on the vote cards, Trolls have 12 prestige and Elves have 9 prestige.
• Trolls receive the prestige token showing a 3.
• Elves receive the prestige token showing a 2.
• Gryphons receive the prestige token showing -1.

Ranking Example 2

Using the quantity of vote cards, Dragons have a prestige of 3. Trolls, Elves and Gryphons all have a prestige of 1.

• Dragons receive the prestige token showing a 4.
• Recalculating the prestige of the tied creatures using the values shown on the vote cards, Trolls and Elves have 12 prestige. Gryphons have 7.
• Trolls and Elves both use the prestige token showing a 2.
• Gryphons receive the prestige token showing -1.

Ranking Example 3

Using the quantity of vote cards, Dragons, Trolls, and Elves all have a prestige of 3. Gryphons have a prestige of -2.

• Recalculating the prestige of the tied creatures using the values shown on the vote cards, Dragons, Trolls and Elves have 12 prestige.
• Dragons, Trolls and Elves all use the prestige token showing a 2.
• Gryphons receive the prestige token showing -1.