Gods Love Dinosaurs Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Goal
• Components
• Game Setup
• Overview
• Taking a Tile
• Activating Animals
• A. Prey Activation
  • Wild Hexes
• B. Predator Activation
  • Starving Predator
• Dinosaur Activation
  • Starving Dinosaur
  • 1. Dinosaurs Hatch
  • 2. Dinosaurs Hunt
  • Golden Eggs
  • 3. Move Dinosaur Marker
  • 4. Refill Animal Columns
• Game End
  • Tiebreaker
• Frequently Overlooked Rules
  • General Gameplay
  • Animals

Goal

As a god, you've been tasked with designing an ecosystem with a sustainable food chain of predator and prey animals. But you just love dinosaurs, so all you really want to do is to make as many of them as possible!

Each turn, you'll add 1 tile to your ecosystem, which will add new animals and give them room to grow. Every so often, your dinosaurs will tromp around your ecosystem eating all the animals. The more they eat, the more eggs they lay – and the more points you score! Just be careful not to overeat, or there won't be enough food to keep your dinosaurs alive the next time.

Components

• 1 Animal Board
• 5 Starting Tiles
• 84 Ecosystem Tiles
• 5 Nest Tiles
• 1 Volcano Standee
• 20 Dinosaurs
• 35 Rats
• 25 Frogs
• 30 Rabbits
• 25 Tigers
• 25 Eagles
• 30 Regular Eggs
• 15 Golden Eggs

Game Setup

1. Prepare ecosystem tile stack:

   • A. Separate out the ecosystem tiles that match your player count. Return all tiles that do not match your player count to the box.
   • B. Sort the tiles into 4 stacks based on the letter on the back. Shuffle each stack independently and place them in the central play area.

2. Prepare animals:

   • A. Place the animal board in the center of the table.
   • B. Place the eggs and dinosaurs beside the board.
   • C. Separate the remaining animal pieces by type, and place them under the matching animal column on the board.
   • D. Reveal ecosystem tiles from the "A" stack and place 1 tile face-up in each empty slot on the animal board. (If you have 2 or 3 players, leave the 3rd slot in each column empty.)
   • E. Place 1 dinosaur at the bottom of the frog column. This is known as the dinosaur marker.

3. Prepare player areas:

   • A. Each player takes a starting tile and a nest tile. Place your starting tile face-up in front of you to start your ecosystem. Place your nest tile nearby.
   • B. Place 1 frog, 1 rabbit, and 1 rat on the matching icons on your starting tile.
   • C. Place 1 dinosaur on the mountain hex in the center of your starting tile.
   • D. Take 3 regular eggs and place them in your nest.

4. Choose Start Player: The player with the sharpest teeth goes first!

Overview

Players take turns in clockwise order, starting with the first player.

On your turn, you choose 1 ecosystem tile from the animal board and add it to your ecosystem.

Then, if you took the last tile in an animal column, that animal activates (see right). When the animal column with the dinosaur marker activates, all dinosaurs ALSO activate.

After animals activate, your turn is over, and play passes to the next player. Players continue taking turns until all of the ecosystem tile stacks are empty, which immediately triggers the end of the game (see p. 10).

Taking a Tile

On your turn, you must take 1 ecosystem tile from the animal board. You may choose any face-up tile from any animal column.

Once you've chosen a tile, place it adjacent to another tile in your ecosystem. You may freely rotate the new tile, and you may place it anywhere in your ecosystem, as long as it touches at least 1 ecosystem hex (the terrain type does not matter).

If the tile you placed has an animal icon on it, take 1 matching animal piece from the supply and place it on the icon. The animal is now part of your ecosystem.

Activating Animals

After you place an ecosystem tile, if you took the last tile in an animal column, that animal activates. Follow these steps:

1. Volcano Marker You (the active player) take the Volcano token.

   TIP: The Volcano token reminds everyone who the active player is during an activation.

2. Activate Animals All players simultaneously activate all animals of the active type in their ecosystems. The animal's behavior depends on whether it is prey or predator:

   • A. Prey Activation — Prey animals expand to adjacent hexes (see "Prey Activation" on p. 5).
   • B. Predator Activation — Predator animals hunt prey in nearby hexes (see "Predator Activation" on p. 6).

   TIP: When learning the game, it is a good idea to have players activate one at a time, while other players watch. Once everyone feels comfortable with the rules, you may begin making moves simultaneously.

3. After players have activated their animals, if the dinosaur marker is in the active animal's column, dinosaurs activate. Follow the additional steps for dinosaur activation on p. 8.

A. Prey Activation

When a prey animal activates, each animal of that type in your ecosystem may expand into one empty adjacent hex of its favored terrain type (if there is one).

When a prey expands to a new hex, take a new prey piece of the active type from the supply and place it on the hex.

Prey Type / Favored Terrain

• Frog → Lake
• Rat → Forest
• Rabbit → Field

If a single prey is adjacent to multiple favored terrain hexes, you choose which one it expands to. If a prey has nowhere to expand, it does not expand.

If you activate multiple prey during an activation phase, you choose the order they expand in. Each active prey must expand to a different hex.

You may always choose not to expand a prey.

IMPORTANT! Only one animal piece can occupy each hex. If there is already an animal in an adjacent hex, then a prey cannot expand there.

EXAMPLE: RABBIT ACTIVATION — Clare's ecosystem currently has 2 rabbits. On her turn, she takes the last tile in the rabbit column. This causes all rabbits in all players' ecosystems to expand. Clare's rabbit population has plenty of room to grow. She places 2 new rabbit offspring in empty, adjacent plains hexes. Since each rabbit can only expand to one hex, the far right plains hex remains empty.

Wild Hexes

Wild hexes count as favored terrain for all 3 prey animal types. Frogs, rats, and rabbits can all expand to an adjacent Wild hex (as long as it is empty).

B. Predator Activation

When a predator animal activates, each animal of that type may move through your ecosystem and eat any prey it encounters.

The distance and direction that a predator may move depends on its type:

Tigers — Tigers move up to 2 hexes in any direction, and may change direction as they move.

Eagles — Eagles move up to 3 hexes in a straight line.

Each predator must end its hunt on a hex with a prey. The predator then eats the prey at its destination (remove it and return it to the supply).

If a predator passes through any other prey on its way to its destination, they are also eaten. Remove each prey on the predator's path and replace it with a new predator piece of the active type from the supply. These are offspring the predator was able to produce by eating more animals.

Starving Predator

If a predator does not eat at least 1 prey when it activates, it starves and is removed from your ecosystem.

This may happen because a predator is too far away to reach any prey, or there aren't enough prey in your ecosystem to feed every predator. You may also choose not to move a predator when it activates, and instead let it starve.

Predators may move through empty hexes, but may not move through other predators or dinosaurs.

You may choose not to move a predator its full distance (as long as it obeys the previous rules).

If you activate multiple predators during an activation phase, you choose the order they hunt in. Each predator must finish its hunt before the next one begins.

EXAMPLE: EAGLE ACTIVATION — On Clare's turn, she chooses to take the last tile in the eagle column. This triggers all eagles in all ecosystems to hunt prey. Clare doesn't have any eagles in her ecosystem, but her opponent Jimmy has 2 eagles.

Each eagle can each move up to 3 spaces in a straight line. Jimmy first moves the eagle on the plains hex, eating 2 rabbits and leaving 1 new offspring. (Note the eagle could have gone towards the frogs instead, but Jimmy doesn't want to wipe out his entire frog population.)

Unfortunately, Jimmy's other eagle isn't able to reach any prey, since it cannot move through the dinosaur in the middle hex. This means the eagle starves! He had hoped to have more time to expand his rats...

Dinosaur Activation

After an animal activates, if the dinosaur marker is in its column, follow these additional activation steps:

1. Dinosaurs Hatch — All players may choose to hatch 1 new dinosaur.
2. Dinosaurs Hunt — All players activate all dinosaurs in their ecosystem. Dinosaurs hunt prey and predators.
3. Move Dinosaur Marker — Move the dinosaur marker to the next animal column.
4. Refill Animal Columns — Refill empty animal columns with ecosystem tiles from the stack.

TIP: The active player will already have the Volcano token, since an animal has just activated.

Starving Dinosaur

If a dinosaur does not eat at least 1 animal (either prey or predator) and cannot end its hunt on a mountain, it starves and is removed from your ecosystem.

You may also choose not to move a dinosaur when it activates, and instead let it starve.

1. Dinosaurs Hatch

When dinosaurs activate, you may first choose to discard 1 of the eggs in your nest to hatch a new dinosaur. If you do, take a new dinosaur piece from the supply and place it on the mountain hex on your starting tile (with the nest icon).

If there is already a dinosaur in your central mountain hex, you may not hatch a new dinosaur (since there can be only one animal in each hex, and dinosaurs cannot eat each other).

2. Dinosaurs Hunt

After you decide whether to hatch a dinosaur, each of your dinosaurs may move through your ecosystem, eating any prey OR predators on its path.

• Dinosaurs may move up to 5 hexes in any direction, and may change direction as they move.
• Each dinosaur must end its hunt on an empty mountain hex.

Dinosaurs eat ANY animal on their path and at their destination (except other dinosaurs). All eaten animals are removed and returned to the supply.

For every predator a dinosaur eats, it lays 1 egg. Place all newly laid eggs in your nest (rather than on the map). Each egg may be hatched in a future dinosaur activation, or kept as 1 point at the end of the game (see "Game End" on p. 10).

Dinosaurs do not lay eggs when they eat prey. (However they must still eat every prey that they move through, and can eat prey to avoid starving; see below.)

Here the dinosaur eats 1 eagle, which gives 1 egg. It also ate 1 frog, but that does not give an egg.

Dinosaurs may move through empty hexes during movement, but may not move through other dinosaurs.

Here the dinosaur eats 1 eagle and 1 tiger, which gives 2 eggs.

Dinosaurs may use their movement to "backtrack" along their path, and may end on the mountain hex where they started.

Here the dinosaur ends on the same mountain as it started.

If you activate multiple dinosaurs, you choose the order they hunt in. Each dinosaur must finish its hunt before the next one begins.

EXAMPLE: DINOSAUR HATCHING & MOVEMENT — On Clare's turn, she activates the rabbit column, where the dinosaur marker is located. After all players have expanded their rabbits, they activate their dinosaurs.

Clare has 1 dinosaur in her ecosystem, which she moved out of her starting mountain hex during an earlier activation. This means she is able to hatch a new dinosaur. She discards 1 egg from her nest and adds a new dinosaur to her starting mountain hex.

She moves the new dinosaur she hatched 5 hexes, eating 3 predators and ending on a different mountain hex. This will score her 3 eggs.

Her second dinosaur can't reach any predators (and get back to a mountain), so she moves it to eat 1 frog and return to the hex where it started. This will keep it from starving, but will not create any new eggs. (Note she could end on the mountain hex with her nest, but this would stop her from hatching a new dinosaur there next time, if she wants to.)

Golden Eggs

Golden eggs are worth 5 regular eggs. You may exchange 5 regular eggs for a golden egg from the supply, or vice versa, at any time.

3. Move Dinosaur Marker

After dinosaurs activate, move the dinosaur marker to the next animal column (to the right).

If the dinosaur marker is in the eagles column (on the far right), move it back to the frog column.

4. Refill Animal Columns

Lastly, refill each animal column that is empty (there are no tiles left in the column). Going from left to right on the animal board, fill each empty column with new ecosystem tiles from the "A" stack.

If the "A" stack is empty, and you still need to reveal more tiles, begin drawing from the "B" stack. Continue through the stacks in alphabetical order, making sure that all tiles in the current stack are used before drawing from the next stack.

If you need to reveal a tile to fill a slot, but all 4 stacks are empty, the game ends immediately (see next section).

After frogs activate, the dinosaur marker is moved to the rabbits column. Then the empty columns (frog, rat, and eagle) are refilled. In this two player example the 3rd row is not refilled. Note that the rabbit and tiger columns are also NOT refilled.

IMPORTANT! Only columns that are completely empty are refilled. If a column has even 1 tile remaining, it does not get any new tiles.

Game End

After dinosaurs activate, if there are not enough ecosystem tiles to fill up all empty columns, the game ends immediately. Players score the following:

• 1 point for each regular egg in their nest.
• 5 points for each golden egg in their nest.
• 1 point for each dinosaur in their ecosystem.

The player with the most points wins!

Tiebreaker

In the case of a tie, the player who is furthest in turn order from the first player wins.

Frequently Overlooked Rules

General Gameplay

• The Volcano token indicates who the current player is during an activation.
• New ecosystem tiles are only revealed after dinosaurs activate. When an animal column without the dinosaur marker activates, no new tiles are revealed.
• When animal columns are refilled, only columns that are completely empty are refilled. If a column has even 1 tile remaining, it does not get any new tiles.
• At setup, all tiles should be separated by letter. All tiles of one letter should be revealed before any tiles of the next stack are revealed.
• Golden eggs count as 5 regular eggs (and have no other purpose).

Animals

• There can only be one animal in each hex. An animal can only move into a hex occupied by another animal if it can eat the other animal.
• Each prey only expands to one adjacent hex (not every adjacent hex).
• Any prey can expand into a Wild hex.
• If a prey has nowhere to expand, it doesn't expand (but it doesn't starve, either).
• Predators and dinosaurs will starve if they do not eat at least 1 animal. You can choose to let them starve and remove them instead.
• A predator must always end its move on a prey. A dinosaur must always end its move on a mountain.
• Predators cannot move through other predators or dinosaurs. Dinosaurs cannot move through other dinosaurs.
• A dinosaur that was just hatched can still hunt, and will still starve if it doesn't eat at least 1 animal.