Guns & Steel: Renaissance Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• New Mechanics
• Card Functions
  • Civilisation Cards
  • Development Card Types
  • Resource Card Side (back)
  • Wonder Cards
• Game Setup
• Turn Overview
• End of Game
• Attack Rules
  • Activate an Attack
  • Respond to an Attack
  • Resolve Attack
• Purchase Rules
  • Extra Purchasing Cost
  • Resource Conversion Chart
• Claiming Wonders
• Combining Sets
• F.A.Q.

New Mechanics

Culture Tokens: Culture tokens can be obtained through card effects, and some effects must be activated by paying culture tokens. Whenever the term CT is mentioned, it will be referring to culture tokens. Used culture tokens are returned to the supply.

Once a player has 15 or more culture tokens the game will end after the current turn is finished. Culture tokens are worth 1 Victory Point each at the end of the game.

Glory Tokens: Players will have 5 glory tokens, and will have to perform the right action to place them on wonder cards multiple times before you can claim them.

When you run out of glory tokens to place, you may choose and move an existing token from another card to the wonder of your choice.

Note for players of base game: the timing for obtaining wonders is different from the original Guns & Steel game; please refer to the Turn Overview and Claiming Wonders sections for detailed rules on claiming wonders in Guns & Steel: Renaissance.

Interactive Effects: Some cards will not only give you an advantage, they might also provide a smaller benefit to your neighbors.

Be aware of cards that can activate cards belonging to others, use their resources, and even disrupt their plans. Some attack cards will not pillage your neighbors, but let players earn culture tokens through a glamorous display of their military might.

Wait patiently for the right time to play a card for the biggest payoff!

Card Functions

There are 2 types of cards in this game: Civilisation cards & Wonder cards.

Civilisation cards are the main focus of this game, you will be buying new civilisation cards and playing them for effects or resources throughout the game, and they will be cycled through your hand again and again.

Wonder cards will be obtained by satisfying the different requirements of each card; they do not provide any effects during the game except for giving you victory points, and cannot be added to your hand.

Civilisation Cards

Each civilisation card has 2 sides, the Development side and the Resource side.

The development side will list the card's title, illustration, effect text & diagram. Whenever the terms "front side", "face side", or "development card" is mentioned, it will be referring to cards showing the development side on the table.

Development Card side (front/face):

1. Card title.
2. Age icon. Also an indicator of the resource on the back side of this card.
3. Card type icon.
4. VP provided at the end of the game.
5. Military strength provided by this card, when it is showing the front side.
6. Response icon. See the Attack Rules section.
7. The listed cost of buying this card.
8. This card will not be used in 2 player games.
9. Card effect diagram & text.

Example card: "Defection" (Tactic) — Place this card in front of an opponent, take 1 face up attack card from him and place it in front of you.

Development Card Types

There are 3 types of development cards:

• Civil: Cards with a green textbox. Civil cards will aid in the resource production of your nation. Some give resources to you directly, but these resources cannot be retained, they will be lost at the end of the turn if not used in the purchase phase.
• Tactic: Cards with a blue textbox. Tactic cards will help you gain some military advantage, or disrupt your opponent's military planning. They can also be played when your opponent attacks.
• Attack: Cards with a red textbox. Attack cards will let you attack all opponents at the same time. See the Attack Rules section for detailed rules on attacks.

The term "Civil cards" will refer to "Civil type Development cards", same logic goes for "Tactic cards" & "Attack cards".

Example cards:

• "Barter Trade" (Civil) — Deplete 1 resource, gain 1 Iron or 1 Horse or 1 Gunpowder.
• "Reinforcement" (Tactic) — Play 1 attack or tactic card from your hand. The effect will not be activated.
• "Warrior" (Attack) — All opponents with less military strength than you choose and deplete 2 resources.

Icons

• Military: A player's military strength total is the amount of military icons shown on their face up cards.
• Response: When an opponent makes an attack, any card with the response icon may be played from your hand to increase your military strength immediately. The effects will not be activated when you do so.
• Victory Points: Victory points provided by the card at the end of the game, it will be the same on both sides. Whenever the term VP is mentioned, it will be referring to victory points.

Resource Card Side (back)

1. Resource provided when you deplete this card.
2. VP provided at the end of the game. (same as front)
3. "Resource" card type icon.

The resource side of a Civilisation card will have a resource icon corresponding to the age of the card. There are 7 resources in this game: Food, Iron, Horse, Gunpowder, Oil, Earth, and Space.

Earth is a wildcard (joker) resource that can be used in place of one of the 5 basic resources (Food, Iron, Horse, Gunpowder, Oil). Space will provide 2 Earths, and can be used in place of any 2 basic resources (may be different). But if you only need to pay for 1 resource, the unused resource will be lost at the end of the turn.

Whenever the terms "back side", "face down", or "resource card" are mentioned, it will be referring to cards showing the resource side up on the table.

As long as it is unused, resource cards can be kept in front of you indefinitely.

You may inspect both sides of cards in hand, and cards in front of you at any time, but you can never flip it unless instructed to do so.

Gaining Resources

Cards activated in the development phase may let you "gain" an indicated resource. This is a temporary resource that is given to you until the end of the turn.

You may use this resource for payments, and may also convert them into other resources. See the Purchase Rules section for details on card purchase.

At the end of the turn, all resources gained and not used will be lost.

Example: You used a "Space" resource to activate "Economics: Deplete any 1 resource to gain 2 CT." Note that you are instructed to "deplete resources", so you did not gain "2 Earths" and pay "1 Earth" for the effect; thus you will not have another "1 Earth" to use in the Purchase phase.

Example: When you are attacked and need to deplete 2 resources, you may deplete 1 "Space" resource in place of 2 resources.

Example: But when you are instructed to deplete only 1 resource (such as "Hussar") and choose to deplete a "Space" resource, you do not gain any resources when you deplete it, so there is no leftover "Earth" resource that can be kept for your next turn.

Deplete

There are 2 ways of flipping cards in this game: Deplete & Replenish. Note that you can never flip a card unless instructed to do so.

When you deplete a card, you flip a resource card over to the development side and the effect will not be activated. Cards may only be depleted when:

a. You are instructed to pay resources: you may deplete your resource cards to provide the indicated resource. b. You are instructed to deplete your resource cards in order to activate the effects of a development card in your development phase. c. Your resource cards are depleted by effects of cards activated by your opponent. d. You deplete your resource cards as a response to your opponent's attack.

You will only gain the indicated resource when you deplete the card in (a), you will not gain the resource in (b) ~ (d).

Replenish

When you replenish a card, you flip a development card over to the resource side. You may be instructed to:

a. Replenish a designated resource: Choose a development card in front of you with the designated resource on the top left corner, and flip it over to the resource side. b. Replenish any resource: choose any development card in front of you and flip it over to the resource side.

After you replenish a resource, it will be immediately ready for use.

Wonder Cards

Wonder cards will provide you with extra victory points to help you win the game.

The front side of wonder cards will list the requirements (condition & glory cost) to gain each wonder. The back side of a Wonder card is a full color illustration.

When you gain a wonder and place it in front of you, flip it over to the full color side to celebrate the achievement of your nation.

Please refer to the Turn Overview and Claiming Wonders sections for detailed rules on claiming wonders.

1. Card Title
2. Age Icon
3. "Wonder" card type Icon
4. Setup indicator
5. VP provided at the end of the game.
6. Condition text & diagram.
7. Amount of glory needed to claim this card.

Example card: "Sagrada Família" (Wonder) — Glory 3: Play an Oil or higher card as a resource from your hand in the resource phase.

Game Setup

1. Separate the civilisation cards according to the age icon. Shuffle each age individually, and build a tech pyramid as shown, with the Space age cards on the top, and Earth, Oil, Gunpowder and Horse cards below in that order. Every card will be connected to 2 cards from a lower age, except for the bottom row.

2. Compare the wonder cards from the same age, check the Setup Indicator icon on the top right corner. The indicated development icon that is closer to the leftmost edge of each row will determine which wonder is used in this game. Put those wonder cards to the left of each respective age row. The unused wonders will be put back into the box.

   Example: The Space age wonders are "Sagrada Familia" / "Sydney Opera House" and have "Stealth Bomber" / "Movie" icons on the upper right. Since "Movie" is closer to the left, "Sydney Opera House" will be used in this game. Put "Sagrada Familia" back into the box.

3. Each player takes a set of 5 glory tokens of the same color. The unused tokens are put back into the box.

4. Each player takes a set of 5 starting civilisation cards to their hand, consisting of "Reinforcement", "Agriculture", "Barter Trade", "Mining", and "Warrior". The resources of these starting cards are 3 Food, 2 Iron respectively. Each set will have a band with a different color on the back.

5. Take all culture tokens from the box and put them in the supply area in easy reach of everyone.

6. Randomly determine the starting player, the turn order will be clockwise. The 3rd player places 1 resource card in front of him, then the 4th player places 1 resource card. The 1st & 2nd player do not have any starting resource cards.

7. You may now start playing!

2-player Setup:

1. Remove cards with the "not used in 2 player games" icon from each age before shuffling.
2. The 2nd player will play a starting resource before the game starts.
3. The rest of the rules are unchanged.

Turn Overview

There are 4 phases in each turn:

1. Resource Phase
2. Development Phase
3. Purchase Phase
4. End of Turn Phase

Beginning with the starting player, each player will perform all phases in order, and then the next clockwise player will perform their 4 phases.

1. Resource Phase:

You must play a resource card (the back side) in front of you if you can. Choose a card from your hand and place it face down, so it shows the resource side. You can deplete this card later for effects or purchases.

2. Development Phase:

You must play a development card (the front side) in front of you if you can. Choose a card from your hand and place it face up, so it shows the development side.

You may activate the effect now, and must apply all effects as much as you can when you activate it. If you choose not to activate it now, the effect cannot be used until you play it from your hand again and activate it.

Some cards have effects that will target your opponents. When you activate these cards your opponents must apply all effects as much as they can.

If you activate an attack card, your opponents may respond. Please refer to the Attack Rules section for detailed rules on attacks.

3. Purchase Phase:

You may buy one civilisation card from the supply each turn.

You may deplete* resource cards and/or use resources gained by development card effects to pay the required cost for a civilisation card.

*This is the only time during your turn that you may choose to deplete cards.

Put the bought card in front of you. The military strength will be added to your total, but the effect will not be activated.

If you wish to buy a card that is connected to other cards beneath it, you will have to pay an extra price. See the Purchase Rules section for detailed rules on card purchase.

4. End of Turn Phase:

1. Retrieval Step: According to the number of cards left in your hand: a. If you have 2 or more cards in your hand, do nothing and skip to Step 2. b. If you only have 0 or 1 card left in your hand, then you must retrieve cards: i. You must return all face up development cards to your hand. ii. You may choose to return any amount of the face down resource cards to your hand. iii. Wonder cards cannot be retrieved to your hand.

   Example: At the end of your turn, you have no cards in hand. First you retrieve all face up cards to your hand, and choose to retrieve 1 Oil resource card. The other resource cards are left in front of you.

2. Glory Step: Check if you have satisfied the requirements of any wonder cards. If you do, you may choose and place a glory token on one of them. See the Claiming Wonders section for details on claiming wonders.

   Example: The cards you just retrieved are worth a total of 6 VP, so you choose to place a glory token on "Sydney Opera House." Since this is the 3rd glory token placed on this card, you must claim this wonder and place it in front of you. The game end conditions are not met, so the next player's turn begins.

3. Check if game ends, else the next player takes a turn.

If resources gained by effects or depleting cards are not used for purchases, they will be lost and cannot be kept for your next turn.

End of Game

The game ends after the current player has finished their turn and one of the following conditions is met during the End of Turn Phase:

• All Space age civilisation cards in the supply area are bought.
• All wonder cards are claimed.
• Any player has 15 or more CT.

Tally victory points listed on wonder cards & civilisation cards you have in hand or in front of you. Each culture token you have is also worth 1 VP.

The player with the most victory points wins. In case of a tie, the player with the most cards wins (including wonders). If there is still a tie, players share a joint victory.

Attack Rules

Activate an Attack

During the development phase, some cards will let you make an attack. When you activate such a card, all opponents will be attacked by you, you cannot choose to spare anyone, or only attack a single opponent.

Remember, you may choose not to activate the effects of a card you played during the development phase.

When you make an attack, you will be attacking with your visible military strength total on all face up cards in front of you.

Example: You play "Machine Gun" and attack with a total of 6 military strength (Your military x6).

Gandhi only has 3 military strength (Gandhi's military x3), but decides to do nothing and loses to you.

Respond to an Attack

When you make an Attack, your opponents will have 2 kinds of responses to make, and can do both if needed. Your opponents should make their decision clockwise in player order, starting from the player to your left.

i. Your opponents may choose to play any amount of cards with the response icon from their hand immediately, even if they already have a larger military than you, or if they will still lose even with the extra cards played.

ii. Your opponents may choose to deplete and flip over any covered attack/tactic cards that was a face down resource card. This includes attack cards without the response icon.

All cards played or flipped by opponents will not be activated, only their military strength are added to their total.

Example: Napoleon plays 2 response cards "Space Race" and "Horse Archer" from his hand, raising his total to 5 but still loses (Napoleon's military x5).

Example: Elizabeth plays "Nationalism" from her hand, depletes an Earth resource and reveals the "Battleship" card to add its military strength, raises her total to 7 and successfully stops your attack (Elizabeth's military x7).

Resolve Attack

When all opponents have made their response, compare the total military strength of all players, and resolve the effects of the activated card. Remember, all opponents will be attacked.

When the effects involve making a choice, the defending player will make the decision.

When a player resolves an attack effect, they must apply all effects as much as they can.

Example: Gandhi has 4 resource cards and needs to deplete 3 resources; he chooses to deplete 2 Food and 1 Iron.

Napoleon only has 1 Gunpowder in front of him, so he will just deplete that resource card. Since Elizabeth has equal military strength to you, nothing will happen to her.

Example: If you had played "Frigate" instead, you will get 4 culture tokens from the supply regardless of the result (Your military x6).

Elizabeth has a higher military strength than you, so she will also get 3 culture tokens. Since Gandhi and Napoleon have a lower military strength than you, they will get nothing.

Purchase Rules

In the purchase phase, you can pay resources to buy one new civilisation card from the supply. Use the resources gained in the development phase, and deplete resource cards in front of you to gain the indicated resource to pay the cost.

You only gain the indicated resource when you deplete resource cards when you need to make a payment. You do not gain the indicated resource when resource cards are depleted by card effects.

Extra Purchasing Cost

The cost to buy each development card will change depending on how many other unbought cards are under it:

1. If a development card does not touch any card under itself, you can purchase it at the listed cost.
2. If a development card touches one or two cards under itself, then you must pay 1 extra resource of any kind for every connected card under it.

Example: For the "Frigate" card, every red arrow marks a connected card under it. Thus in addition to the listed cost of "1 Iron, 2 Gunpowder" you must pay 3 extra resources of any type in order to purchase the "Frigate" card.

The card to the bottom left of "Frigate" has already been bought, so the "Trade and Tribute" card is not connected.

At the start of your turn, you have 2 Food, 2 Iron, 1 Gunpowder. First you play 1 Horse as a resource card, then you play a "Barter Trade" and deplete 1 Food to gain 1 Gunpowder.

Now you can pay 1 Iron, 2 Gunpowder and 3 extra resources. Deplete all your resource cards to pay the cost, and place the "Frigate" card in front of you.

Example: In the previous example, if "Defection" was already bought by someone, then you may buy "Frigate" for the original cost of 1 Iron and 2 Gunpowder, even if all horse age cards are still there.

Resource Conversion Chart

Anytime when you need to pay resources for card effects or purchases, you may pay the indicated resource on the left to convert into the resource on the right.

• 2 Food -> 1 Iron
• 2 Iron -> 1 Horse
• 2 Horse -> 1 Gunpowder
• 2 Gunpowder -> 1 Oil
• Any 3 resources -> 1 Earth

You can use any resources gained by effects or depleted during your purchase phase for conversion.

You cannot convert resources under the following conditions:

1. When you need to deplete resources.
2. During your opponent's turn.
3. When the converted resource is not used for payments.

Example: You wish to buy the "Movie" card. All Earth age development cards have been bought, so there are no touching cards under it.

You can buy "Movie" at the original price of 1 Horse, 2 Gunpowder, 1 Oil.

Before your turn starts, you have 1 Gunpowder and 1 Iron resource card in front of you. First you play a Iron resource card, then you play "Economics" and pay 1 CT to the supply to gain 1 Space.

Next, you deplete all resource cards. First you convert 2 Iron into 1 Horse, then you use Space in place of 1 Gunpowder and 1 Oil to pay the cost of 1 Horse, 2 Gunpowder, 1 Oil to buy "Movie".

Claiming Wonders

The requirement listed on the front side of a wonder card will have two parts:

Condition: An action you need to perform in order to place a glory token on this card.

During your turn, you may have performed the required action listed on multiple wonder cards; however you can only place 1 glory token per turn. Choose and place a glory token on one of them. You may also choose not to place any glory tokens.

When you run out of glory tokens to place, you may choose and move an existing token from another card to the wonder of your choice.

Glory X: Amount of glory tokens needed to claim this wonder.

When you have X glory on this card, you must claim it and place it in front of you before checking for 'End of Game Conditions'. All glory tokens on this card will return to their owners.

Example: At the start of your turn, you have 1 glory on "Lighthouse of Alexandria", 2 glory on "Panama Canal", and 2 glory on "Forbidden Palace". During your turn, you played a gunpowder card as a resource, and also did a 2 to 1 resource conversion.

But you can only place 1 glory token per turn. You decide to place glory on "Forbidden Palace", and since you ran out of cubes you move 1 glory from "Lighthouse of Alexandria" to "Forbidden Palace".

Now you have 3 glory on "Forbidden Palace", so you must claim it immediately and place it in front of you showing the color side.

Combining Sets

It is possible to mix different sets of Guns & Steel together for a more dynamic game experience. Note that it is recommended for all players to have played each set separately before combining them.

Apply these changes to the game when combining sets:

Game Setup:

Shuffle all cards of the same age from the sets used. Only deal 2 Space, 3 Earth, 4 Oil, 5 Gunpowder, 6 Horse cards when building the tech pyramid. Put all remaining cards from each age in a face up pile to the right of each row, these are the Secret Research Piles (SRP); there will be one pile for each age. They are not part of the supply.

Do not use wonder cards from the basic set of Guns & Steel. If the cards illustrated on the wonder setup indicator cannot be found in the supply area & top of SRP, you should choose a wonder randomly.

Purchase Phase:

You may buy the top card from any Secret Research Pile at the original price if there are no unbought cards in the supply row beneath it.

You will have to pay an extra resource of any kind for each unbought card.

Example: You wish to buy "Horse Archer" from the Gunpowder age SRP, however there are 2 unbought cards in the Horse age supply row.

Thus in addition to the original cost of 1 Iron, 1 Horse, you have to pay 2 extra resources of any kind.

The other rules & game end conditions are left unchanged, but note that there are only 2 cards in the Space age supply row.

F.A.Q.

Q1. Can "Mining", "Agriculture", "Code of law" flip themselves? A1. Yes. All card effects can target themselves if they are one of the indicated resources.

Q2. What happens if I start my turn with 1 or 0 cards? A2. In the first phase, you must play 1 card as a resource if you can, so if there is only 1 card in your hand, you must play it as a resource.

If you have 0 cards at the start of the turn, then you just skip the first two phases. You can still purchase one card in the 3rd phase if you want, then go on to the end of turn phase.

Q3. When I am attacking, can I reveal a covered card to use its military strength? A3. No. The option of revealing covered attack/tactic cards is only available to defending players. In this game you should never flip any cards unless instructed to do so.

Q4. Can I down-convert 1 gunpowder into 2 horses? A4. No. You can only convert from left to right on the conversion chart; in other words you can only combine resources to upgrade into higher levels, never downgrading and splitting them.

Q5. Can "Trade and Tribute" target a player without resource cards in front of them? A5. No. You must target a resource card that is in front of an opponent to use this effect.

Q6. When I use "Theology", what happens if an opponent does not have any development cards to flip? A6. Even if no opponent can replenish any cards in front of them, you can still get 2CT from the latter half of "Theology". Same logic applies to other cards such as "Calendar", "Sailing" and "Compass", even if your opponents can't completely apply their half of the effect, you still get to enjoy the benefits of the other half.

Q7. Can I place "Defection" in front of a player without any face up attack cards? A7. Yes, however you will not get anything back.

Q8. Can I use "Computer" to activate 2 different effects listed on a single card? (eg: "Code of law", "Economics") A8. No. When you activate "Computer", you must play 2 separate civil cards from your hand. You cannot choose to activate different parts of a single card.