Great Plains
Great Plains Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
- 6 cave tiles (3 blue, 3 orange)
- 9 animal tiles (3 horses, 3 eagles, 3 bears)
- 7 double-sided tablets
- 40 tribe tokens (20 blue snakes, 20 orange foxes)
Aim of the Game
Explore the lowlands and call upon the wild animals you encounter to help you fight for dominance.
Setup
Randomly shuffle and flip the tablets and place them into the arrangement shown to create a unique game board.
Give each player 3 cave tiles and 20 tribe tokens of one color. Place the 9 animal tiles beside the game board.
Each space on the game board represents a type of terrain: mountains (peaks, cave, and spring) and lowlands (grass, plus the habitats of the three animals: horse, eagle, and bear).
- Mountains: Peaks, Cave, Spring
- Lowlands: Grass, Horse, Eagle, Bear
Any number of contiguous grass spaces, including connected spaces on adjacent tablets, create a single meadow. A meadow can be 1 space, 2 spaces, 5 spaces, or any number of connected grass spaces.
How to Play
In the first phase of the game, the players emerge from their caves.
Choose a starting player for the first phase, and then take alternating turns to place 1 cave tile on an empty cave space anywhere on the game board. Continue until each player has placed their 3 cave tiles. There will be one remaining unoccupied cave.
In the second phase of the game, the players explore the landscape.
The player who placed the last cave tile goes first in the second phase. Then take alternating turns until both players have placed all of their tokens.
On your turn, place 1 token on an empty lowland space adjacent to any one of your cave tiles or existing tokens. You can never place a token in a mountain.
Animals
If you place a token on a horse, eagle, or bear space, take a corresponding animal tile from the supply, if there is one, and keep it in front of you.
At the start of any turn, you may return one animal tile to the supply to place your token by the following alternate rules. You may play only one animal tile per turn.
HORSE: Explore further through lowlands. Place a token into an empty lowland space two steps away from one of your caves or tokens, moving through an empty or occupied lowland space. You cannot use a horse to move over a mountain.
EAGLE: Explore beyond mountains. Place a token into an empty lowland space two steps away from one of your caves or tribe tokens, on the directly opposite side of a mountain space. You cannot use an eagle to move through an empty or occupied lowland space.
BEAR: Explore into your opponent's territory. Place a token into an occupied lowland space adjacent to one of your caves or tribe tokens, and push the opponent's tribe token in a straight line into the empty lowland space beyond. If this is an animal space, your opponent does not take a tile. You cannot use a bear if the space beyond is occupied. If the space beyond is a mountain or off the edge of the board, remove your opponent's tribe token from the game.
In all cases, if you use an animal tile to place one of your tokens into an animal space, you take a corresponding animal tile.
End of the Game
The game ends when both players have placed all of their tribe tokens.
Look at each meadow in turn. If one player has more tribe tokens in the meadow, that player scores points equal to the number of grass spaces in the meadow plus the number of springs adjacent to it. Animal tokens that you have left do not score any points.
The player with the most points wins. If tied, play again.
Scoring Examples
- A meadow worth 6 points (5 for the number of grass spaces in it, plus 1 for the spring). The Foxes have 3 tokens and the Snakes 2 tokens. The Foxes score 6 points. (For clarity, the tribe tokens on animal spaces are not shown.)
- A meadow worth 2 points (1 grass space and 1 spring). The Snakes score 2 points.
- A meadow worth 5 points (5 grass spaces and no springs). The Foxes have 2 tokens and the Snakes 1 token. The Foxes score 5 points.
- A meadow worth 1 point (1 grass space and no springs). The Foxes score 1 point.
- A meadow worth 3 points (2 grass spaces and 1 spring). Foxes and Snakes are tied with 1 token each. Both players score 0 points.
Credits
Designers: Trevor Benjamin & Brett J. Gilbert Illustrations: Klemens Franz Layout and graphic design: atelier198
© 2021 Lookout GmbH