Manitoba Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Game Materials
  • The village board
  • The vision board
• Set-up of the Game
• Course of the Game
  • 1. Actions
  • Action of the passive players
  • 2. End of the Round
• The Ceremonial Places
• End of the Game
• Vision Paths
• Appendix
  • Events (explanation of the symbols)
  • Alternative Set-ups
  • Credits

Game Materials

• 36 "Cree" (9 for each player)
• 66 goods (10 eagle feathers, 14 berries, 14 bison, 14 horses, 14 canoes)
• 2 eagle heads (1 for the starting player and 1 to mark the rounds)
• 20 wampum tiles
• 1 totem, consisting of 5 wooden disks
• 26 season cards (2 x winter, 8 x spring, 8 x summer, and 8 x autumn)
• 4 overview cards
• 12 score tiles
• 1 vision board, consisting of 4 vision paths
• 1 rulebook
• 4 50/100 point markers
• 4 village boards (1 for each player)
• 6 territory tiles, each consisting of 5 landscape areas (forests, prairies, hills, lakes, and mountains)
• 1 score track

The village board

Each player's village board shows:

• Wigwam — where sleeping Cree wait until woken up.
• Place for the totem — where the active player's disk stack is placed each round.
• Two ceremonial places — one holding 3 goods, the other holding 4 goods.
• Village square — where a player's active Cree wait before being sent onto the territory or a vision path.
• Storage area — one storage sector for each type of good (berries, bison, horses, canoes; eagle feathers may be stored in any sector).

The vision board

The vision board is made up of four vision paths, each tied to a territory color:

• Hunter's path (bison/brown)
• Gatherer's path (berries/green)
• Warrior's path (horses/beige)
• Shaman's path (eagle feathers/white)

There is no vision path for canoes (blue/lakes).

Set-up of the Game

1. Sort all goods and put them as a general supply in the middle of the game table. Depending on the number of players, you need only the following number of goods (any excess is removed from the game):

   Number of players	Goods (except feathers)	Feathers
   2	10 of each type	7
   3	12 of each type	8
   4	all	all

2. Randomly pick the territory tiles — always one tile more than there are players. Put them together on the game table in such a way that each tile is adjacent to no more than two other tiles. For alternative set-ups, see appendix. These tiles form the whole territory!

3. Then place one good conforming to the landscape on each area in the territory (i.e., 1 berry on each forest area, 1 eagle feather on each mountain area, etc.).

4. Lay out the score track within reach.

5. Put the 50/100 point markers next to space 0 of the score track.

6. Each player chooses one color and gets a village board and 9 Cree in this color. He puts 3 of these Cree in his own wigwam, 5 on the village square, and 1 Cree on space 0 of the score track.

7. Lay out the vision board, consisting of four sections.

8. Place the wampum tiles next to the playing area with the "2 victory points" side facing up. The number needed depends on the number of players (the rest is removed from the game):

   Number of players	Number of wampum tiles
   2	12
   3	16
   4	all

9. Mix the 12 score tiles thoroughly and keep them within reach, face down.

10. The player who last visited Manitoba becomes the first active player. If none of the players has ever been to Manitoba, the youngest player becomes the first active player. This player gets the totem and the big eagle head as an insignia.

11. Sort the season cards by seasons (winter, spring, summer, autumn) and form face-down decks.

    The "Winter solstice" opens the game!

12. With 2 or 4 players, both winter cards are laid out face up: the "Winter solstice" card (winter card 1) on the left, the winter card 2 to its right. With 3 players, only the "Winter solstice" card is laid out; the winter card 2 is removed from the game. (This guarantees that each player will be the active player equally often.)

Course of the Game

The game proceeds over rounds. Each round, one player is the active player, whereas all the others are passive players. The active player may carry out one or two active actions; the passive players may carry out no more than one passive action. At the end of a game round (except in winter), either an event or a scoring takes place.

Each game round consists of the following steps:

1. Actions
   • The active player chooses one disk of the totem (see Determine actions by using the totem) and carries out his active action(s).
   • After that, the passive players, clockwise in turn, carry out one passive action.
2. End of a round
   • An event or a scoring takes place (except in winter).
   • The eagle head is moved to the right onto the next season card (if applicable, the season changes).
   • The active player changes.

The game ends after 16 rounds (with 3 players, after 15 rounds) with the final scoring (5th card) in autumn.

1. Actions

Actions of the active player:

The active player may carry out either the "Territory" action and the "Vision path" action or, alternatively, the "Wake-up" action. In most cases, the active player will choose the "Territory" and the "Vision path" actions in order to collect goods and to make progress. To this end, the active player chooses a sphere (color) where he wants to become active. Each color stands for a specific type:

Color	Territory	Vision path
Brown	Prairies, where bison live	Hunter's path
Green	Forests, where berries grow	Gatherer's path
Beige	Hills, where horses graze	Warrior's path
White	Mountains, where you find eagle feathers	Shaman's path
Blue	Lakes, where canoes are needed	no path

Determine actions by using the totem

The active player takes off the disk representing the sphere where he wants to become active, plus all totem disks on top of it. Then he turns this stack over so that the disk he has chosen is lying at the very top. The disks that originally were on top of that disk are now underneath it.

The player places this stack on the place between the ceremonial places and puts the eagle head on the top disk (this disk shows the color he has chosen for his actions). He keeps all the other disks next to his village. Now he can carry out a "Territory" action as well as a "Vision path" action for this sphere.

Example: Henry is the active player. He wants to carry out his actions in the prairie (brown). So he picks up the brown disk and lifts it along with the disks lying on top of it (beige and green). Then he turns the disks over and places them in his village, so that the brown disk is now lying on top.

The actions are not mandatory. The active player can carry out both actions or only one action or even no action at all.

Important: Each action may not be carried out more than once, i.e., 1x "Territory" and/or 1x "Vision path." Consequently, the active player may not forgo one action (e.g., "Territory") and carry out the other action ("Vision path") twice instead — he can't do this even if it is not possible to carry out one of the actions. If the active player chooses the "Lake" area (blue) for his actions, he can carry out only one "Territory" action, since there is no vision path for blue!

A player can freely choose the order in which he wants to carry out his actions.

Even if the active player doesn't want to carry out any action, he still has to choose a color/disk and place the stack with all the disks on top of it in his village, as described above. This is necessary so that the passive players can carry out their action.

"Territory" action:

The player relocates one Cree from his village square to an unoccupied area of the territory, or he moves one of his Cree from one area to an adjacent unoccupied area of the sphere he has chosen. He takes the good lying there (if there are any left) and immediately puts it either in the corresponding storage sector of his village or, if possible, on one of his ceremonial places (see The Ceremonial Places).

Note: Feathers don't have a storage sector of their own. They can always be put in any storage sector or on any ceremonial place. They are a "joker good," so to speak. But beware: Feathers always have to be given up at the end of each season, after the scoring. If it happens that a player can't place a good either on a ceremonial place or in a storage sector of his village (since this sector is full), the good is put back in the general supply.

Unoccupied area – Empty area: An unoccupied area is an area in which no Cree is standing (neither one of yours nor one that belongs to another player). There may not be more than one Cree in each area. An unoccupied area may hold a good or it can be empty; there may never be more than one good in each area. An empty area is an area in which there is neither a Cree nor a good.

"Vision path" action:

The player places one of his Cree from his village square on the first (bottommost or leftmost) space of the vision path in the color he has chosen for his actions, provided he hasn't yet placed a Cree on this path. If he already has a Cree on this path, he moves this Cree one space ahead instead. The player immediately receives the development bonus indicated on the space. Most bonuses grant a one-time benefit; some of them, marked with a permanent-effect symbol, are permanent, whereas others are given only to the first player to enter the space with his Cree. Each player may have no more than one Cree on each vision path. For details about the development bonuses, see Vision paths.

Example: As his second action, Henry moves his Cree who has already been placed on the brown vision path one space ahead and immediately receives the bonus indicated. In this case, he earns 3 points because his Cree is the first to enter this space.

"Wake-up" action:

As an alternative to the two actions "Territory" and "Vision path," the active player may choose the "Wake-up" action. If he chooses this action, he may not carry out any of the other two actions.

To do so, the active player takes as many disks off the totem as he likes, turns this stack over, places it in the center of his village, and then puts the eagle head on the top (that means he proceeds in the same way as with the "Territory" or "Vision path" actions). But for this action, it is not the color of the disk at the top that is significant for the active player but solely the number of disks that he has taken off and placed in the center of his village. This number determines the maximum number of Cree that the active player may wake up. Waking up Cree means that the Cree that are lying in the wigwam are brought from there to the village square; with this, they are activated. Only Cree on the village square may be used for the "Territory" and "Vision path" actions.

The player is also allowed to take off and turn over more disks than the number of Cree he wakes up.

Example: Henry, the active player, has placed the totem with 3 disks in his village. Since he has no Cree left on the village square that he can use for actions, he decides to "wake up" sleeping Cree. To this end, he takes 3 Cree (= number of disks of the totem) and relocates them from his wigwam to his village square.

Action of the passive players

Now, in turn, beginning with the player to the left of the active player, each of the other players may carry out one passive action — either the "Territory" action or the "Vision path" action. The passive players may carry out only one action, but for this, they may choose from all disks lying in the active player's village (however, they may not use the colors of the disks that are lying outside the village).

Example: Henry, the active player, has determined the composition of the totem. His village square contains the disks in the colors green, beige, and brown. Consequently, the following passive actions are possible: either a "Territory" action in the forest, hills, or prairie, or a "Vision path" action on the path of the Gatherer or the Warrior or the Hunter.

Passive "Territory" action:

The passive player relocates one Cree from his village square to an unoccupied area of the territory in the color of the sphere he has chosen.

Important: To do so, the passive player (unlike the active player) has to abide by the following restriction: The area must be adjacent to another area that already contains a Cree of this player (it is not required that this area be of the same area type, though). But: If the passive player has no Cree at all in the territory, he doesn't have to place adjacently.

Alternatively, the player can move one of his Cree that is already on the territory to an adjacent, unoccupied area of the sphere he has chosen.

After that, he takes the good lying there (if there are any left) and puts it either in the corresponding storage sector or on a ceremonial place of his village.

Passive "Vision path" action:

To do so, the passive player places one Cree from his village square on the first space of the vision path of the sphere he has chosen, or — provided he already has a Cree on this path — he moves one space ahead and receives the bonus of the space he lands on.

2. End of the Round

After all players have carried out their active and passive actions in player order, an event or a scoring can take place, depending on the specification on the season card.

Event:

The season cards with a "?" on the back show an event. Beginning with the active player, this event is always conducted in the order of play, clockwise and in turn. For details about the different events, see appendix.

Scoring:

At the end of the 3rd and the 5th round of a season, a scoring takes place. The score tile determines what is scored.

Important: All pieces of a good in a storage sector have to be scored.

The following possibilities are depicted on the score tiles:

• One specific good: All players must score for this good. Exception: A player who has reached the space on the vision path that allows him to not score for this good may (but doesn't have to) forgo this scoring.
• Two alternative goods: Each player chooses exactly one good of the two possible goods for the scoring. The chosen good must be scored. The other good (the one that was not chosen) may not be scored. Exception: If a player has reached both spaces on the vision path, that exempts him from the compulsory scoring for the respective good. In this case, he may (but doesn't have to) forgo this scoring completely.
• Score for the good you have the most of: In this case, the player must score for the good he has stored the most pieces of. If this applies to several different goods, he can choose any one of them. In any case, he may score for only one good and not for several different goods. If the player is exempt from the compulsory scoring for this good (or all goods, if there are several goods he has the most of), he can completely forgo this scoring.

Scoring procedure:

In turn, beginning with the active player, each player who scores for a good carries out the following steps:

1. The player scores the number of points indicated next to the topmost piece of the good to be scored in his respective storage sector and records them on the score track. If he has to score for a good he doesn't have in his storage area, he gets 2 minus points.
2. All pieces of the good scored in a player's storage area (even if they are pieces of other goods, e.g., eagle feathers) are put back into the general supply.
3. After that, the player takes back his Cree that are in the areas corresponding to the good scored and places them in his wigwam (e.g., from the hills if horses have been scored; for later actions, these Cree first need to be "woken up").
4. Now the player takes goods of the type scored from the general supply and puts one on each empty area of that type of good. If there are not enough goods of this type left in the supply to refill all areas, the player decides which areas to refill and which ones to leave empty.

The player records his points immediately by advancing his Cree on the score track. Once somebody passes the 50-point space, he takes a 50/100 point marker and puts it, with the 50-point side facing up, next to his village. Then he records his points as usual. If he reaches the 50-point space a second time, he turns his point marker onto the 100-point side, indicating that he has already reached 100 points.

Special steps after the scoring at the end of a season:

In addition, at the end of the season spring and summer after the scoring, remove all feathers lying in the storage area and put them back into the general supply. (If doing so produces gaps, close them by moving goods down.) Feathers lying on ceremonial places are not removed.

Now, in turn, each player takes back his Cree standing in mountain areas and places them in his wigwam. Then a feather from the supply is put in each empty mountain area.

After that, each player may wake up one of his Cree. If somebody doesn't have any Cree in his wigwam, he skips this step.

Changing the season card:

After the event or scoring, move the eagle head from the current season card to the right, onto the next season card. Provided there is no other season card left there, the current season is over and the next season begins (exception in autumn: After the 5th round in autumn, the final scoring takes place and the game ends).

When the season changes, lay out the cards for the new season and put the eagle head on the first card (on the very left) of the display.

Changing the season:

When the season changes, the currently active player takes the face-down deck of cards for the next season (winter is followed by spring, then summer, then autumn) and lays them out as follows:

The two score cards showing a "3" or a "5" on the back are picked out and put aside for the time being; the six remaining event cards with a "?" on the back are shuffled and three of them are chosen randomly. The other cards are removed from the game. Then, the first two "?" cards are laid out next to each other, and the score card "3" is placed to their right; to the right of these cards, the third "?" card and after that, the score card "5."

Now all these cards are turned over so that the front is visible. One of the face-down score tiles is drawn and placed face up on the score card "3"; another randomly drawn score tile is put face up on the score card "5."

Changing the active player:

Now the totem and the big eagle head are switched to the new active player. To this end, the active player of the current round takes the stack of disks lying next to his village and places it — without turning it over — on top of the totem stack in his village (for this, he might have to lift the eagle head and put it back afterwards). Then he passes the totem to his left neighbor, who becomes the active player in the next round.

Example: After the round has been finished, Julia becomes the new active player. Henry puts the disks lying next to his village on top of the stack in the village and then passes the totem to Julia.

The Ceremonial Places

Each player has two ceremonial places in his village — one for 3 goods and the other for 4. Every time a player gets a good during the course of the game, he may decide whether he puts it in the corresponding storage sector or stores it temporarily on a ceremonial place.

Two or more pieces of the same type of good may never be stored on one ceremonial place; and each space of a ceremonial place may hold no more than one piece of good.

Example: Felix has already placed one berry and one feather on the 3-space ceremonial place. Now he gets another feather. He may not place the second feather on this ceremonial place; instead, he may put it either on the yet empty 4-space ceremonial place or in any storage sector.

Once a ceremonial place has been completed (i.e., all spaces are occupied), the goods kept there must immediately be moved to the corresponding storage sectors. (Feathers may be put in any storage sector, of course.)

Wampum tiles:

In addition, the player who completes a ceremonial place immediately gets a wampum tile and puts it next to his village, with the active side (showing "2 points") facing up. If there is no wampum tile left in the supply, he can't get any.

If the player completes the larger ceremonial place, he may also turn over an inactive wampum tile (if applicable), with the "1 victory point" side facing up, thus reactivating it.

Anytime — even multiple times during his turn — a player may use as many of his active wampum tiles as he wants, including those that he has gotten or activated in the current round.

Important: In the final round (round 5 in autumn), wampum tiles may not be used anymore!

Wampum tiles can be used to:

• either wake up a sleeping Cree (move a Cree from the wigwam to the village square)
• or exchange a berry from your own supply for a different good. To this end, move a berry from the berry storage sector to a different storage sector; from now on, it is considered the other good.

When the player has used an active wampum tile, he turns it over to its inactive side. An inactive wampum tile can no longer be used. (However, it can be reactivated and then used again later.)

At the end of the game, each active wampum tile scores 2 victory points; inactive wampum tiles are worth 1 victory point each.

Example: Felix, the active player, has started his turn by carrying out the "Territory" action. For this, he got a horse. He puts the horse on the 3-space ceremonial place, which is now complete. Now he has to put all goods in the corresponding storage sectors (even before carrying out his second active action, "Vision path"). The feather may be put in any storage; Felix chooses the horse storage. In addition, he gets a wampum tile. He uses it immediately to exchange a berry for a horse, and moves the topmost berry in his berry storage to his horse storage. He turns the wampum tile he has used to its inactive side. Then he continues his turn by carrying out the "Vision path" action.

End of the Game

The game ends after 16 (or, with 3 players, 15) rounds with the final scoring at the end of autumn. This scoring comes with special rules:

Special conditions of the final round:

• In the final round (round 5 in autumn), players may no longer use any wampum tiles.
• Before the final scoring at the end of the game, each player first has to sacrifice one of each type of good (except feathers): that means he has to remove 1 good from each storage sector (provided there is at least 1).
• Exception: If a player has reached the last space of the Shaman's vision path, he doesn't have to make these sacrifices, i.e., to remove any of his goods.
• After that, each player must score for all goods in all his storage sectors, unless he is exempt from the compulsory scoring, in which case he may score for this good but doesn't have to (for instance, in order not to get minus points if he doesn't have any pieces of this type of good in storage).

Example: Jack is exempt from the compulsory scoring for bison and berries. First he removes 1 berry and 1 bison because he hasn't reached the last space of the Shaman's path (see appendix, "Shaman's path"). Since he now has no berries left in the corresponding storage sector and would thus get 2 minus points at the scoring, he doesn't score for berries. However, he has 4 bison in storage and decides to score for these, since they give him 8 points.

• After this scoring, the Cree are not taken back from the areas and empty areas are not refilled. Waking up a Cree is not done either.

Winner:

Now each player adds up the points of his wampum tiles (2 points or 1 point each) and records these points on the score track as well. Goods on ceremonial places do not count for the final score. The player who has collected the most points overall becomes the new chief and wins the game.

Vision Paths

On the vision board, consisting of 4 vision paths, the clans develop their spiritual abilities. Each level of a vision path contains another ability that the player can immediately use and that applies to his clan only.

Important:

1. There is no vision path for canoes.
2. Cree, once placed on a vision path, cannot be taken back any more.
3. Each vision path may contain no more than one Cree from each player.
4. There may be Cree of several players on the same space of a path.

• To begin with, a Cree enters a path through the "Vision path" action and is placed on the first space. If the "Vision path" action is carried out again for the same color later on, the Cree moves one space ahead. The bonus indicated on the space he reaches becomes effective immediately.
• Once a Cree arrives at the last space of one of the three lower paths, he earns the 5-point bonus (immediately, one-time only) for completing this development. The Cree can't continue on this path; but every time the player carries out the "Vision path" action for this path again, he gets the bonus indicated on the right of that space (but not the 5-point bonus again).
• If a Cree moves onto a space on a path and the execution of the bonus is not possible, the bonus goes to waste.

Each path focuses on different abilities:

Hunter's path (bison/brown):

• Space 1: You immediately get 1 point.
• Space 2: You immediately get 1 point. If you are the first to reach this space, you get 2 points.
• Space 3: You immediately get 2 points. If you are the first to reach this space, you get 3 points.
• Space 4: You don't have to score for bison.* The first player to reach this space immediately gets a wampum tile.
• Space 5: You immediately get 3 points. If you are the first to reach this space, you get 4 points.
• Space 6: As soon as you reach this space, you get 5 points as a one-time bonus. If you have already reached the space, you get 2 points every time you carry out the "Vision path" action for this path again.

Gatherer's path (berries/green):

• Space 1: Immediately take a berry from the general supply and put it in your corresponding storage sector or on a ceremonial place.
• Space 2: Immediately take either a berry or a horse from the general supply and put the good in the corresponding storage sector or on a ceremonial place.
• Space 3: Immediately take either a berry or a canoe from the general supply and put the good in the corresponding storage sector or on a ceremonial place.
• Space 4: You don't have to score for berries.* The first player to reach this space immediately gets a wampum tile.
• Space 5: Immediately take a good of your choice from the general supply and put it in the corresponding storage sector or on a ceremonial place.
• Space 6: As soon as you reach this space, you get 5 points as a one-time bonus. If you have already reached the space, you get a berry every time you carry out the "Vision path" action for this path again.

Warrior's path (horses/beige):

• Space 1: You may immediately wake up a Cree.
• Space 2: Permanent effect: From now on, you no longer have to place a Cree adjacently when you carry out a passive "Territory" action. That means you may place the Cree on any unoccupied area of the sphere you have chosen. (But when you move a Cree, you still have to move to an adjacent area.)
• Space 3: Permanent effect: From now on, you get 1 point for each of your Cree that you wake up (through a wampum action, events, at the end of the round, or the "Wake-up" action).
• Space 4: You don't have to score for horses.* The first player to reach this space immediately gets a wampum tile.
• Space 5: Immediately relocate one of your Cree from the village square to any unoccupied area of the territory (and take the good if any left).
• Space 6: As soon as you reach this space, you get 5 points as a one-time bonus. If you have already reached the space, you may wake up a Cree every time you carry out the "Vision path" action for this path again.

Shaman's path (eagle feathers/white):

• Spaces 1, 2, and 4: You may immediately use the instant bonus again for a space of a different vision path on which there is one of your Cree.

  Example: Mark carries out the "Vision path" action for white and moves his Cree on the Shaman's path onto the second space. He chooses to use the bonus for his Cree standing on the second space of the Hunter's path. For this, he earns 1 point and immediately records it on the score track.

  Important: With the Shaman, you can always trigger just the standard bonus of a different path. That means, you get:

  • the lower number of points (not the higher one) on the Hunter's path.
  • no other wampum tile (since it is given only once, to the first player to reach the space).
  • the bonus indicated on the right of the last space of the other paths (the 5 points for reaching the last space are given only once).

• Space 3: You don't have to score for canoes.* The first player to reach this space immediately gets a wampum tile.

• Space 5: At the final scoring in the game (at the end of autumn), you may score for all your goods; that means you don't have to sacrifice 1 good from each storage sector beforehand.

* Reaching these spaces exempts you from the compulsory scoring for the respective good.

Important: The exemption from the compulsory scoring as well as all other permanent effects remain in force, even if the Cree moves on.

Appendix

Events (explanation of the symbols)

• Either place a Cree from your village square on a vision path on which you are not yet represented, or advance a Cree 1 space on any vision path on which you already are represented.
• Move a Cree 1 area ahead on the territory (to an adjacent area). If there is a good there, take it and put it either in the corresponding storage sector or on a ceremonial place. (Observe the rules for ceremonial places!)
• Remove one of your Cree from the territory and place him in your wigwam.
• Take one good from the general supply. You can choose from the goods indicated on the card. If there is no good of the desired type left in the supply, you have to choose a different one. If none of the possible goods is left in the supply, you can't take any. Put the good either in the corresponding storage sector or on a ceremonial place. (Observe the rules for ceremonial places!)
• Remove one feather from a storage sector, if there is one, and put it back into the supply. (If doing so produces a gap, close it by moving goods down.) Important: Feathers on ceremonial places are not removed.
• For each of your Cree standing on the territory, you score 1 point.
• For each of your Cree standing in a lake area, you score 2 points.
• The player who has the most Cree on the territory scores 6 points; the player with the second most Cree, 2 points. In case of a tie, all players involved score as many points as provided for the respective position (for example: several players in first place — each of them gets 6 points; several players in second place — each gets 2 points).
• The player who has occupied the most contiguous areas with his Cree (number of adjacent areas occupied by Cree) scores 6 points; the player with the second most contiguous areas, 2 points. In case of a tie, all players involved score as many points as provided for the respective position (for example: several players in first place — each of them gets 6 points; several players in second place — each gets 2 points).

Alternative Set-ups

Besides the standard set-up of the territory, we suggest the following alternative set-ups (the number of territory tiles according to the number of players doesn't change):

1. Lake Manitoba: Put the territory tiles together in such a way that the lake areas of all the tiles you use adjoin each other so that a contiguous lake district is formed.
2. Duck Mountain Range: Put the territory tiles together in such a way that the mountain areas of all the tiles you use adjoin each other so that a contiguous mountain range is formed.

Credits

• Authors: Remo Conzadori & Marco Pranzo
• Illustrations: Dennis Lohausen
• Editing: dlp games, Ralph Bienert
• English translation: Sybille & Bruce Whitehill, "Word for Wort"
• Rule set / Layout: atelier198

© dlp games 2018 — dlp games Verlag GmbH, Eurode-Park 86, D-52134 Herzogenrath — www.dlp-games.de