GOLDblivion Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Game Contents
• Player Setup
• Global Setup
• Gameplay
• Main Actions
• Free Actions
• GOLDblivion Cards
• Combat
• Game End
• Solo Challenge
• Thank You
• Symbols

Game Contents

• 1 Main board
• 4 Player boards
• 4 Player aid cards
• 91 GOLDblivion cards
• 54 Combat cards
• 16 material cubes
• 30 gold nuggets
• 6 tokens, 4 gold nuggets each
• 3 tokens, 10 gold nuggets each
• 8 Magic tokens
• 2 dice
• 2 Village tiles
• 1st player marker
• 8 Forest tiles
• 7 Mountain tiles
• 4 Player markers (to assemble)

If you run out of gold nuggets or material cubes, use a substitute item to represent them. They are available in unlimited numbers in the game.

Player Setup

Each Player board has 4 areas: the Production area, the Combat area, the Game area, and the deck area holding the Combat deck and the GOLDblivion deck.

You accumulate resources on the Player board. You can have a maximum of 4 material cubes and 3 Magic tokens.

1. Select a Player board identified with a coat of arms.
2. Take the Player marker, the 5 Combat cards and the 6 GOLDblivion cards corresponding to the coat of arms on your Player board. Place those cards in 2 face-down stacks below the Player board. This is where you will draw your cards from.
3. Take a Player aid card.
4. Keep these 3 game areas free: Production area, Combat area, Game area.

Important: Depending on the number of players, remove unused Starting cards (white edges) from the game.

Global Setup

1. Position the Main board in the center and the resources next to it to create a Bank.
2. Place 6 Mountain tiles and 6 Forest tiles face down on their respective Mountain and Forest space of the Main board (including over the cow-dragon). With 4 players, double the tiles on the bottom row.
3. Shuffle, then divide the Combat cards into 2 equal piles face up on the Main board.
4. Position the Player markers on the Ship space "0" on the gold bars track.
5. Place the Village tiles (on either face at random) at the bottom of the Main board.
6. Shuffle the GOLDblivion cards and form a face down pile near the Main board.
7. Place 4 GOLDblivion cards in the Market space. If a Building card (grey card) is revealed at this stage, place it under the pile and draw a new one.
8. Randomly reveal as many Noble cards as there are players.
9. Determine a first player. Assuming the game is rotating clockwise, the player who will be last picks one of the available Noble cards and shuffles it with his starting cards. Then the second to last player chooses one, and so on. The last player to choose a Noble card will also take the 1st Player Token.

Gameplay

GOLDblivion plays out in 6 to 7 rounds. The end of the game is triggered when a player earns 10 gold bars. The round must then be completed to end the game. (See Game end p.13)

Rounds structure

1. Draw (people icon: everyone at once)
2. Development (people icon: everyone at once)
3. Production (people icon: everyone at once)
4. Actions (single-player icon: one player at a time)
5. End of Round (people icon: everyone at once)

1 - Draw (everyone at once) Players draw 5 cards from their GOLDblivion deck under their Player board.

2 - Development (everyone at once) Players pick 1 card from their hand. Each player places this card face down under one side of their Player board Production area. This card will stay there for the game.

Example: Mark places a "Tom" card from his hand face down under the left side of his Player area.

3 - Production (everyone at once) Players earn resources indicated on each side of their Production area.

• For each card under the left side, gain 1 gold nugget.
• For every 2 cards under the right side, gain 1 material cube. (Rounded down)

Example: Mark has 2 cards on the left side and 3 cards on the right side of his Production area. At the Production phase, he gains 2 gold nuggets and 1 material cube.

4 - Actions (each in turn) Starting with the first player and then clockwise, each player can take 2 Main actions.

Play as many turns as necessary, until all players have passed.

5 - End of Round (everyone at once) The end of Round occurs when every player has passed. Then, check if the game end conditions are met. (See p.13) If it is not the case:

I. Reactivate buildings. (See Buildings p.8) II. Shuffle the cards in play (and in your hands) into their own decks of cards: GOLDblivion cards and Combat cards. III. Shuffle revealed Magic tokens face down with those from the Bank. (See Magic tokens p.8) IV. The first player passes the first player marker to his left. This player destroys 1 card from the Market space as specified on the token. V. Start a new round.

Main Actions

In turn, every player plays 2 Main actions. The 2 actions can be the same or different.

Main actions (2 each turn)

• A - Play a card
• B - Buy a card
• C - Activate a Village tile
• D - Pass

A - Play a card From your hand, take a card and place it in your Game area to activate its power.

Example: Mark takes the "Tom" card from his hand and plays it to earn 1 gold nugget. Afterward, he plays the "Gloric" card to initiate a fight. His 2 Main actions are played, it is now Caroline's turn to play. (See Combat p.10)

B - Buy a card Pay the cost of the card (found on its left-hand upper corner) from the Market to the Bank. Shuffle the card into its corresponding deck on the Player board except for Buildings (see Buildings, p.8). Fill the Market area when a space is empty.

Example: This GOLDblivion card ("Eve & Lily") costs 7 gold nuggets paid to the Bank. Once bought, shuffled it into the player's deck. If there are no cards left on the Market area, do not shuffle the discard pile to create a new Market deck.

Example: This Building card ("Castrum") costs 4 material cubes paid to the Bank. It comes in play, vertically, ready to be used.

Important: A Building that is bought is placed in the Game area.

Example: This Combat card ("Champion") costs 3 gold nuggets paid to the Bank. Once bought, it is shuffled in the player's Combat deck. If you clear a whole deck of Combat cards from the Market, you activate the "card's theft" option under it. (See p.16).

C - Activate a Village tile Pay the Village tile activation cost to the Bank to use its power.

Once activated, flip the tile to reveal a new power.

D - Pass When you pass, you are forced to exchange your lots of 7 gold nuggets for gold bars (see buying 1 gold bar, p. 8).

Important: The round is over for you. You can't buy cards for the round.

Free Actions

Free Actions are unlimited during your turn.

Free Actions

• A - Buy a Gold bar
• B - Activate a Building
• C - Use a Magic token

A - Buy a Gold bar Pay 7 gold nuggets to move forward one space on the Gold bar track.

B - Activate a Building Rotate a Building card to activate its power.

Example: Caroline rotates her building card ("Mogika") to draw a card.

C - Use a Magic Token Magic tokens gained are accumulated to be used at the right time. Place a Magic token in the Bank area face up to use its power. A visible Magic token cannot be gained for the round.

GOLDblivion Cards

GOLDblivion cards are divided into 4 types and 2 categories:

Characters: Elf, Human, Dwarf Buildings: Building

Characters To activate the power of a Character, put it into play from your hand as a Main action.

Example: Caroline uses the "Harmony" character card in her Game area. She gains 2 Combat cards that she shuffles into her Combat deck.

Building When you buy a Building card, place it vertically in your Game area. To activate its power, rotate the card 90 degrees. You can only own one copy of each building.

Example: Caroline pays 4 material cubes to buy the Mine. She puts it into play and she rotates the Mine to gain a gold bar.

Some cards (with a red dashed line) require the player to choose between 2 powers. Activate only one side of the card.

Badges and Territories Synergy When a power depends on the number of badges, consider only the badges of cards in play and not of the cards in hand.

Example: The "Bud & Buddy" card has a value of 2 Elves (2 elf badges shown on the card).

• Gold nugget times elf badge: Gain 1 gold nugget per Elf in play.
• Gold nugget times building badge: Gain 2 gold nuggets per Building in play.
• Material cube times dice times human badge: Roll 1 dice per Human in play. (Re-roll dice if needed)
• Gold nugget times territory hexagon: Gain 1 gold nugget per Territory tile. (See Win or Lose, p. 12.)

Example: Marc has 4 cards in hand: "Assassins", "Naya" (x2), and "Bud & Buddy". He uses his 2 Main actions to play 2 cards, one after the other: first "Assassins", then "Bud & Buddy". "Bud & Buddy" gives him 4 gold nuggets as there are 4 elves in play when the card is used.

At his next turn, Marc plays his 2 other cards. With the first "Naya" card he gains 5 gold nuggets as there are 5 elves in play. The second "Naya" card allows him to gain 6 gold nuggets as there are now 6 elves in play.

Precisions about Symbols (Cards Symbols p.16)

• Blue draw-arrow / red draw-arrow: Drawn cards must be taken from the player's deck below the Player board. If you have no more cards to draw, strategy tip: buy some cards.
• Red arrow / green arrow: These arrows mean that you have to pay the cost shown on the left to obtain what is on the right. Red arrow: Once. Green arrow: Unlimited.

Example: Mark plays "Archimus", he pays 1 material cube to gain 1 gold bar.

• Character badge with a plus / red cross with a plus: A new card is gained and immediately shuffled into your deck for free.
• Elf badge with refresh arrow / dwarf badge with refresh arrow: Reactivate the power of one of your cards with this badge in play.

Combat

Start a Combat by activating a power with the sword symbol.

Fight the enemies hidden under the territory tiles. You fight these enemies with the strength from your Combat cards.

When you win a fight, you gain the Territory tile and the reward indicated on it. (The tile shows the enemy strength on one side and the gold nugget reward on the other.)

Combat order:

1. Choose a territory
2. Draw Combat cards
3. Resolve cards
4. Win or Lose

1. Choose a territory Flip over a territory tile, enemy side up, or choose an enemy to fight.

Example: Caroline fights the Dragon which has 9 Strength. Because the enemies on 4 sides have already been defeated (tile-free sides), she draws 4 Combat cards.

2. Draw Combat cards Draw 1 red card for each empty side (with no tile) around the chosen tile.

Example: This Enemy tile has empty spaces on 3 sides, therefore the player must draw 3 Combat cards. Those 3 cards are revealed in the Combat area.

Important: No cards are drawn for the tile sides next to water.

Important: If you have no Combat cards left to draw, do NOT shuffle your Combat cards to create a new deck. Your army is exhausted until the next round.

3. Resolve cards Choose in which order you will resolve your cards' powers. You are not forced to pay to resolve a card. Some cards request you to choose between 2 options.

Example: Mark uses the "Axel" card to obtain 1 material cube. He uses this material to activate the "Boomers" card. Mark's Strength value is 5.

4. Win or Lose To win the Combat, you must match or surpass your enemy's Strength. Otherwise, you lose.

When you win, take the reward written on the defeated enemy's tile and keep the tile as a trophy (Conquered territories are worth extra gold with certain powers).

When you lose, destroy 1 Combat card used during this Combat. Place the destroyed card back in the box. Destroying a weak card improves your chances of success in following combats. The enemy who survived the Combat stays in play and all players can fight it. The Strength of each new Combat is calculated separately.

Combat cards represent your army. Each card shows its Cost (top left), its Strength (bottom left), and its Power (bottom right).

Example: This "Archer" card has a Strength of 1 and he makes you draw one extra Combat card.

Example: "Thorin"'s Strength value is equal to the number of your Dwarf badges in play.

Example: "Karen" offers a choice: you can either use its Strength of 1, or you can sacrifice it (put it back in the game box) to have a Strength of 3.

Example: "Boomers" power costs 1 material cube to activate. If you choose not to pay it, its Strength value is zero.

Combat example: Mark plays a card to initiate a Combat. He reveals a Mountain tile face up. It's a Dragon with a Strength value of 7.

As 3 sides of the Enemy tile are tile-free, Mark draws 3 Combat cards. His army has a Strength of 3.

Mark resolves the power of his Archer and draws 1 extra Combat card: another Archer. He resolves this last card to draw again.

Mark destroys the Karen card and calculates the total Strength of his army (3+1+2+1+0) for a total of 7, he wins the Combat! Mark takes the reward and keeps the territory tile.

Cow-Dragon The Cow-Dragon on the Main board is considered like an enemy tile when visible. Each time it is defeated in Combat, gain 3 gold bars.

Good luck!

Game End

The Game end sequence starts when a player gains 10 gold bars or more. Then, the players complete the current round.

Example: Mark gains his 10th gold bar. The other players have until the end of the round to gain gold bars.

If a player gains more than 10 gold bars, place a cube under its Player marker to track his wealth.

The player with the most gold bars wins! In case of a tie, the winner is the one with the most gold nuggets. If there is still a tie, the player with the most territory tiles wins.

Solo Challenge

Face a Dummy Noble who will represent the second Player for the game. Choose one of the 4 Solo challenge Nobles: Ariane (Easy), Charles (Normal), Blaze (Hard), or Jade (Hard).

Setup Set up the game (p.3-4) and add the following steps:

1. Place a Solo challenge board on the table with the Player marker with its corresponding coat of arms on the Ship space "0".
2. There is no 1st Player marker. You begin every round.

Special solo rule for the Market When a space of the Market is empty, move the cards to the right to fill the Market space.

Play the rounds as usual with 3 Main actions instead of 2.

Solo turns sequence:

1. Play 3 Main actions
2. Dummy Noble turn
3. Repeat the sequence, if you did not choose the action "Pass".

Dummy Noble turn Roll a dice for the dummy Noble and take the card under the space corresponding to the dice symbol. (See Solo spaces at the bottom of the Main board.)

Place this card under the Dummy Noble board in the space reserved for this card badge. Ignore the card power, activate the power on the space where you place the card. Activate powers from left to right.

Example: Mark rolls a dice for the Dummy Noble turn. The dice result corresponds to the Magnus card on the Market. Mark places this card under the Dummy Noble board in the "human" space. He activates this space's powers.

Special rules in Solo:

• A Dummy Noble accumulates gold nuggets and material cubes on his board. They are converted into gold bars at the end of his turn following his conversion rate chart. The Dice rolls gained during the Dummy Noble turns gives him resources.

Example: At the end of his turn, the Dummy Noble has 11 gold nuggets and 2 material cubes. Following his conversion rate, he pays 7 gold nuggets and 2 material cubes to the Bank and obtains 2 gold bars.

• If you still have cards in hand, you cannot pass.
• If there are no more cards to fill the Market space, you lose.
• The Magic tokens gained by a Dummy Noble activate different powers for each board.
• Ignore this reward (the character-badge-plus-cross symbol) for the Dummy noble.
• With the Picassol card, you choose the badge type when you place it under the Dummy noble board.
• In solo, the red-cross-in-a-box symbol allows you to destroy 1 card from the Market or to destroy a gold nugget from the dummy noble. (See Solo Symbols p.16 for more details.)

Complete each Solo Challenge to be crowned Monarch of GOLDblivion! (Ariane, Charles, Blaze, Jade)

Thank You

Thanks to my muses Christine Boulianne and Félix. All this would not have been possible without both of you. Thanks to my bud Sylvain Lacroix and Jeff Julien who accepts to play my early prototypes.

Thanks to backers and players. I hope you will have fun playing GOLDblivion with your friends. I wish you many game nights filled with combos!

Game design and illustrations: Jean-François Gauthier

Proofreading and Translation: Émilie Levasseur, Arié Zarka « Des100solo »

Special thanks to my parents, Jeff Savoie, Sébastien Boisvert, Stéphane Lessard, Marc Verret, Joël Gagnon, Arnaud Bourez and Guillaume Benny!

Symbols

• Gold nugget with 1, 2, or 3: Gain 1-2-3 gold nugget(s)
• Material cube / material cube with red cross: Gain/Lose 1 material cube
• Gold bar: Gain 1 gold bar (move your Player marker 1 space forward on the gold bar track)
• Dice in a box: Roll 1 dice and gain its bonus
• Magic orb: Gain 1 Magic token and keep its information hidden from other players
• Blue draw-arrow / red draw-arrow: Draw 1 GOLDblivion/Combat card
• Character badges with a plus: Gain 1 Character card from the Market for free.
• Red cross with a plus: Gain 1 Combat card from the Market for free
• Human/Elf/Dwarf badge with refresh arrow: Reactivate the power of one of your Human/Elf/Dwarf in play
• Building badge with refresh arrow: Reactivate a Building
• Clover/flourish symbol: Copy 1 of your Combat card in play
• Torn card: Sacrifice this card (Put it back in the game box)
• Card with red cross: Destroy 1 GOLDblivion/Combat card of your choice from the Market
• Gold nugget times territory hexagon: Gain 1 gold nugget for each Territory tile in your possession
• Red arrow / green arrow: Pay the cost indicated on the left to obtain what is on the right. Red: Once. Green: Unlimited.
• Sword: Initiate a Combat
• Sword with +1: Initiate a Combat with +1 Strength
• Sword with draw-arrow: Initiate a Combat and draw an additional Combat card
• Character-plus times arrow times red-cross-question: If you gain a Combat card and this symbol is visible on the Main board, you can steal the top card from another player's Combat deck

Solo Symbols

• Card with red cross / exploding card pair: Destroy 1 card from the Market or destroy 1 gold nugget from the Dummy noble
• Blue card with red cross: Destroy the rightmost card in the GOLDblivion card Market
• Flame with 1: You lose 1 gold nugget
• Eye in hexagon: The dummy Noble reveals a territory tile of your choice
• Eye with red cross and treasure: The dummy Noble destroys a revealed territory tile and gains its reward.
• Card stack with x2 arrow: When a 6th card and more are placed here, activate the power twice