Lunar Base Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• What's in the Box?
• How to Read Cards
  • Station
  • Module
  • Agent
  • Influence
• Goal of the Game
• Game Setup
  • Completed Setup of a Three-Player Game
• Turns
• Shuttles Arrive
• Costs
• Orbs
• Connectors
  • Connection Examples
• Sample Turn
• Influences
• Story
• Actions Cheat Sheet
• All Scientific Achievements in the Game

What's in the Box?

The game comes with 4 types of cards:

• 6 Stations
• 48 Modules
• 24 Agents
• 8 Influences

The box also contains 6 Credit Counters and this rulebook.

How to Read Cards

Station

You start the game with a Station Card, with its Terran Outpost side up. Station Cards can get flipped later on. Feel free to check the other side, but do not show it to other players. This is the first card of your Base and you can connect Modules to it later.

A Station card shows:

1. Card type icon
2. Connector
3. Main Actions

The Terran Outpost side is marked "MAIN ACTION (CHOOSE ONE BOX)" and offers Draft, Build, Resell x2 and Draw.

Module

Build Modules by playing a Module card from your hand and connect it to your Base. These connections form Orbs, which in turn make next cards cheaper to play.

Only Connectors of the same color can be connected.

Some Modules feature Scientific Achievements and Colonists.

Some Modules add a new Main Action to your Base. During your turn, you may choose any Main Action available in your Base.

Some Modules have a one-time effect that triggers when built.

A Module card shows the cost of playing the card in the top-right corner. A grey connector is a wildcard. Card notes on the example cards:

• Borehole is free to pay.
• Space Elevator has 2 colonists and also 1 Scientific Achievement on it.
• Some cards carry flavor text, which has no effect in the game.

Agent

You can play Agents from your hand before your Main Action. Playing an Agent means resolving the effect on the card and then placing the card in the Discard pile. You may play any number of Agents before your Main Action.

For example: Crazy President can be played at no cost. Upon playing this card, every player flips their Station. Flipping means turning their Station on the other side up. Each Station has an unique Main Action on one side and the common Terran Station on the other side. Flipping is a way to make that unique Main Action available or hide it — depends which side is up before flipping happens.

Influence

These are advanced cards. Consider playing your first games without including these.

Check the end of this rulebook to learn more.

Goal of the Game

Whoever gains lunar dominance over the other players wins the game. Keep count of your credits and a handy reminder of victory conditions. There are four ways to win:

• Collect 20 lunar credits.
• House 10 colonists in your base.
• Complete 5 different scientific achievements in your base.
• Reveal 4 Influence cards from your hand.

A player may gain two victory conditions simultaneously (epic victory). Two or more players might gain a victory condition simultaneously (results in a draw). If the deck runs out of cards, shuffle the Discard pile into a new deck.

Game Setup

1. Play your first games without Influence cards. You can learn about Influence cards at the end of this rulebook.
2. Deal each player a random Terran Outpost and a Credit Counter with three credits. Set the remaining Station cards and Credit Counters aside.
3. Shuffle the remaining cards and deal three cards to each player, facing down. This is the player's hand.
4. Deal three cards plus one card per player on the table, facing up. This forms the Supply. Players will Draft or Resell cards from the Supply later.
5. Place the remaining deck facing down on the table. Players will draw cards from it during the game. The setup is now complete.
6. The player who took the longest trip in the last 30 days gets the first turn. Players take turns in a clockwise rotation. The player sitting on the left from the winner gets to go first in the next game.

Completed Setup of a Three-Player Game

1. The cards in the Supply (face up).
2. The Deck (shuffled, face down).
3. A place for the Discard pile (face up).
4. One player's play area.
5. That player's Credit Counter (start with three).
6. That player's hand (initially three cards; no max limit).
7. A player's starting Base (just a Terran Outpost for now).
8. One of the possible places to build the first Module.

Turns

During your turn, you can perform two actions:

1. First, you may play any number of Agent cards you can afford (see Costs below).
2. Second, choose one "Main Action" from those available to you.

This marks the end of your turn.

• During a turn, you must take exactly one Main Action.
• You cannot play Agent cards in the middle or after the Main Action.
• If the Main Action consists of multiple items, follow these as marked from left to right.
• If the Main Action includes actions that cannot be completed (e.g. Discarding a card from empty hand, Reselling a card from empty Supply etc.), then these actions can be skipped.
• You may skip the Building action any time.
• You can not skip the Flip action.

Shuttles Arrive

At the end of the turn, if there are no Module or Agent cards left in the Supply, Shuttles arrive from Earth before the next player's turn begins. Shuttles deliver new opportunities: place three cards and one extra card per player from the Deck to the Supply facing up. In addition, each player gains a credit for each yellow (including gray and gray-yellow) Orb on their Base. After that, the next player's turn begins.

The refill diagram shows the Supply size by player count: 5 cards for 2 players, 6 cards for 3 players, 7 cards for 4 players, 8 cards for 5 players, 9 cards for 6 players (three cards plus one per player).

Costs

To play an Agent or build a Module, you must pay its Cost. The Cost of a card is marked on the top-right corner. Costs are paid with Credits.

However, the Cost is discounted by the number of respective Orbs in the player's base.

Gray Orbs are the most valuable, because they can reduce the cost of any color. The remaining Cost must be paid with Credits.

For example: the player base has 2 blue Orbs (from connections) and 2 red Orbs (from the flipped Station).

1. Space Elevator costs 2 credits.
2. Mormon Scientist is free to play.

Orbs

Orbs signify the production capability of your Base. Orbs are present on flipped Stations and can also be created by building Modules. An Orb is composed of two adjacent matching Connectors. The gray orb is a wildcard orb and can be used to discount any other color.

Valid orbs: red orb, blue orb, yellow orb, gray orb.

Connectors

You can place a Module in any direction as long as it is connected to your Base with a matching Connector. It is however illegal to place a Module with a Connector touching a side without a Connector of another Module or Station card.

Connection Examples

1. Gray-red connection, produces a red Orb.
2. Same color connection, produces a red Orb.
3. Gray-gray connection, produced a gray Orb.
4. Modules can connect if the touching edges do NOT have any Connectors.
5. Illegal placement of Module with Connector touching side of another Module without a Connector.
6. Yellow-red connections cannot be made.

Sample Turn

Even though there is only one Main Action per turn, some turns can be quite complex.

Consider this example:

1. It's Alice's turn.
2. She plays a Solicitor, stealing Bob's Inflatable Habitat. This costs her two credits (two blue Orbs in her Base give her a discount). She receives the Inflatable Habitat into her hand. Bob loses a Module. This also leaves Bob's Underground HQ without any connections to the Base. Regardless, Bob will be able to use the Main Action of the Underground HQ during his turn.
3. Alice now chooses Fusion Reactor's Main Action: Build, Draw, Discard.
4. She Builds a Depot (costs nothing because she has two blue Orbs in her Base) from her hand, which prompts another Build.
5. She could now either use the Build (from Depot) or continue with Draw, Discard.
6. Alice chooses to build Experimental Borehole (costs nothing), which gets her to draw two cards from the Deck.
7. She then continues with Fusion Reactor's Main Action, draws another card and discards one.

In total, Alice built two Modules, stole one Module from Bob, drew three cards from the deck and discarded one card.

Influences

Influences are an add-on to the Base game. We encourage adding Influence cards to the deck when you feel comfortable with the basic rules. Influences add a unique character to each game.

Rules about Influence cards:

• The effects are always active when the Influence cards are in the Supply.
• Cannot be resold from the Supply.
• Can be discarded to counter Agents that target you or your Base.
• Collecting 4 Influence cards to a hand and revealing them at any time triggers Influence Victory: you just politically out-maneuvered the competing Bases.

Influence example: Player 3 builds a Laika Memorial and discards his hand (Beruang Engineers) in the process. Next, Laika's Paradise triggers and Player 3 Drafts Experimental Borehole from the Supply.

Story

The year is 2049. Nations of the world have been sitting on fusion technology for a long time, but have not dared to use this technology for spacecraft propulsion. After the United States of Africa sent a Fusion energy propelled spaceship to orbit, other countries and private enterprises could not resist to follow suit. A bolder era of space colonization began. Many shuttles were prepared for colonization effort, the five first ones were named Garuna, Mah, Ilmatar, Meztli and Chang'e... You are now tasked with leading one of Moon colonization attempts. Because the motivation and capabilities of your organization differs from that of the competitors, you'll probably approach the mission with a distinct strategy.

The game has several factions with their own proclivities for winning by one or more strategies:

• UN-backed Shackleton aims to integrate mankind to a space civilization by building a large multinational city.
• Taikotech believes that profit from space mining and related industry will be the driving force that uplifts the mankind to a space civilization.
• Selene Labs aims to become the leader of space science by luring the brightest minds to open the door that leads beyond solar system.
• Dark Side, funded by biotech and augmented reality companies believe in transhumanism: enhancing mankind itself first is the fastest path to stars.
• Imbrium is an industrial cartel that takes an old school imperialist approach to colonization by becoming the mightiest one by means of industry or trade.
• The Oasis aims to make the Moon a second home to not only mankind but the life of Earth itself by including animals and plants, especially the threatened ones.
• Terran Outpost represents a base that is under the supremacy of administration on the homeworld, Earth, while the flipped station represents a station with mostly local rule that allows more liberty and actions more in line with the station's "hidden agenda".

Actions Cheat Sheet

Actions must be taken in order from left to right.

Actions prompted by "on playing this card" abilities can be interjected into the parent Main Action sequence (see turn example).

Immediate actions must be interjected into the parent action before anything else.

• Build a Module (pay the Cost and connect a Module from your hand to your Base; orientation of the card is irrelevant as long as the connections are valid).
• Draft a card: take one card from the Supply into your hand.
• Draw a card: take one card from the Deck into your hand.
• Resell one card (put a card from Supply to the Discard pile and gain one credit).
• Resell two cards (put two cards from Supply to the Discard pile and gain two credits).
• Chosen opponent must Resell a card if able (opponent puts a card from the Supply to the Discard pile and gains one credit).
• Gain one credit.
• Flip your Station.
• Chosen opponent Flips their Station.
• Discard a card (choose and put one card from your hand into Discard pile).
• Chosen opponent Discards a card.
• Steal credits from a chosen opponent.
• Steal a Module from any Base with a corresponding icon into your hand.

All Scientific Achievements in the Game

The game contains 16 different Scientific Achievement icons. Shown on the cheat-sheet page as pictograms, they are (reading left to right, top to bottom): meteor impact, satellite, telescope, brain, space tether/skyhook, atom, rover, robotic probe, printer/manufacturing, dome habitat, Laika (dog), astronaut helmet, DNA helix, laboratory flask, lotus flower, and terraforming/plant growth.