Pocket Civ Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Object
• Components
• A Few Words of Note
• Deluxe versus Basic
• Decimation, Creation, and Reduction
• Neighboring, Affected, and Active Regions
• Icons
• Setting Up the Game
  • Build Your World
  • Other Setup
• Quick Phase Overview
• Playing the Game
  • 1. Population Growth and Movement
  • 2. Draw an Event Card
  • 3. Advance
    • Black Market (requires the Black Market Advance)
    • Mining (requires the Mining Advance)
    • Expeditions
    • Create a City
    • Create a Farm
    • Acquire Advances
    • Build Wonders
  • 4. Upkeep
• End of Era
• When the Game Ends
• Two-Player Variant
• Event Explanations
  • Anarchy
  • Attack (Visitation or Bandits)
  • Bandits
  • Civil War
  • Corruption
  • Earthquake
  • Epidemic
  • Famine
  • Flood / Tsunami
  • Sandstorm
  • Superstition
  • Tribal War
  • Uprising
  • Volcano
  • Visitation
  • Trade (Visitation)
• Hints
• Questions and Answers
• Advances Reference
• Wonders Reference

Object

Starting with a few tribes, you lead your civilization through the ages until it becomes truly civilized.

Components

The only thing you strictly need is the deck of Event cards.

Playing "basic" Pocket Civ, the way it was originally designed, also calls for a pencil, a pad of paper, this rulebook, and a printout of the Advances and Wonders list.

If you'd rather work from a set of ready-made starting positions, you can use the Scenario book instead of laying out your world randomly.

Finally, if you want the full "board game" experience, print and mount the Resource Tile and Land Mass graphics, the deck of Advance and Wonder cards, some poker chips to track Gold, and glass beads or wood cubes to represent Tribes.

A Few Words of Note

Pocket Civ is a solitaire game, so its systems are deliberately open to interpretation and to however you'd like to play it. For example, the "Build Your World" setup below has you lay out a single Frontier region, but nothing stops you from splitting the Frontier into two areas so that your empire sits like a peninsula between two Seas. It's your world — feel free to adapt it, and the sample Scenario maps show just how varied a starting layout can be.

That said, your first game should stick fairly close to the rules given here, since the Event cards are written to match this setup. Once you understand how the cards behave, you'll have a much better sense of how far you can safely deviate — for instance, if you want a set of islands with no Frontier at all, you'll need to work out your own way of handling any Event that calls for one.

If you're playing bare-bones Pocket Civ, your pad of paper is both your map and your data tracker: draw the map on half a sheet and keep your numbers on the other half, or dedicate a whole sheet to each. As the paper gets marked up, crossed out, erased, and generally abused, feel free to "refresh" your empire at any time by copying your current map and data onto a clean sheet.

Deluxe versus Basic

Pocket Civ comes in two flavors. Basic is the barest version — just the Event card deck plus a pad of paper and pencil, and very portable. Deluxe adds printed and mounted artwork (cardboard, illustration board, or foamcore) for a more board-game-like feel. The rules are identical either way; only the presentation changes, though some of the terminology shifts a little between the two.

Where the Basic version has you erase or draw something, the Deluxe version simply has you move a piece off or onto the board. Wherever these rules say "erase," Deluxe players should read it as "remove the piece from the board" instead; conversely, wherever these rules say "remove," Basic players should read it as "erase."

In the Deluxe version, stack City counters as a City's Advance Value grows, and simply lift the top counter off the stack whenever that City's Advance Value is reduced.

Decimation, Creation, and Reduction

Events will frequently use the words Decimate, Create, and Reduce — precise terms with the following meanings:

• Decimate something means to cross it off or erase it entirely; it is gone from the world. Decimating the Tribes in a Region leaves that Region with none. Decimating a City removes it completely. Decimated Advances go back into the Advance deck.
• Create is the opposite of Decimate: simply draw the appropriate icon in the target Region. Only one each of Forest, Mountain/Volcano, Farm, and Desert can exist in a single Region; if an Event tells you to Create an icon that Region already has, ignore that instruction. In the Deluxe version, Creating something means placing the matching counter on the board.
• Reduce something means to cross off, erase, or otherwise remove down TO a stated amount, or BY a stated amount. "Reduce Tribes to 1" means removing every Tribe in a Region except one (if the Region has none, there is nothing to Reduce, and it stays at zero). "Reduce Tribes by 1" means removing a single Tribe from the target Region, if it has at least one. The same logic applies to City Advance Values — but if a City's Advance Value is Reduced to zero or below, that City is instead Decimated and erased from the empire.

Neighboring, Affected, and Active Regions

The Active Region is the Region where an Event is centered, or where it began. A Neighboring Region is any Region that borders the Active Region and typically feels some knock-on effect from whatever happens there.

An Affected Region is any Region — Active or Neighboring — whose status actually changed because of an Event: a change in its Tribe count, its City's Advance Value, its resource icons, or anything else.

Icons

The rulebook's suggested icons are just that — suggestions. Draw whatever symbols clearly mean something to you; you're also free to invent your own for Wonders.

• Tribes are simple tic marks (give them faces or limbs if you like). In the Deluxe version, use your own counters — glass beads or poker chips work well.
• Cities should be drawn big enough to hold a number in the middle; the number is the City's Advance Value, and a higher number means a larger, more prosperous City. Only one City can exist per Region. Deluxe City counters come in two colors, mainly for the two-player variant.
• Mountains provide Stone toward Advances. Only one Mountain can exist per Region.
• Volcanoes are Mountains that have erupted through an Event. They still provide Stone, but come with unpleasant side effects when they erupt. A Region can hold only one Mountain or Volcano.
• Forests provide Wood toward Advances. Only one Forest can exist per Region.
• Farms provide Food toward Advances and keep Cities from falling into disrepair. Early in the game you'll need to Decimate Forests to Create Farms. Only one Farm can exist per Region.
• Deserts provide nothing but the occasional bandit raid and sandstorm — draw them as a skull-and-crossbones, a cactus, or whatever fits your taste. Only one Desert can exist per Region.
• Fault Lines are simply a crack drawn in the ground; they are left behind by earthquakes.

Setting Up the Game

When you buy an Advance, either jot it down on your pad or (if you've printed the Advance deck) pull the physical card and keep it near your paper as proof of ownership.

The Event deck sees constant use: shuffle it and draw from the top, face down, keeping a separate face-up discard pile as you go. Leave yourself room for both piles alongside your pad of paper.

Build Your World

Draw your own map, step by step, using nothing more than your pencil and your own sense of geography:

1. Draw one large outline — this is the border of your Empire.
2. Divide the Empire into 8 Regions. When you draw the borders between them, make sure every point where lines cross joins exactly three borders — avoid a "four corners" intersection like the meeting point of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado.
3. Randomly number each Region 1 through 8, for identification.
4. Draw a large Frontier region around the outside edge of the Empire, touching 4 or 5 of your Empire's Regions, and label it.
5. Any border of your Empire that does not touch the Frontier instead touches the Sea — label it too. Tribes from other kingdoms will "visit" you across the Frontier and the Sea, usually as barbarian raiders or pirates, but sometimes as friendly traders.
6. Draw a Mountain icon in 5 Regions. Mountains provide Stone.
7. Draw a Forest icon in 5 Regions — a Region may hold both a Mountain and a Forest. Forests provide Wood.
8. Draw a Desert icon in any Region that has neither a Mountain nor a Forest. If every Region already has one or the other, pick any Region without a Forest and put a Desert there instead — your Empire must contain at least one Desert. Deserts occasionally attract desert bandits, and the odd sandstorm.

If you don't trust your own sense of randomness for any of the above, you can use the small numbers printed in the circles on the Event cards to help place things.

Putting a Forest and a Mountain together in the same Region makes some things easier later (notably, some early Advances), but it also means more Regions end up with Deserts, which makes other things (creating and moving Tribes, fending off bandits) tougher.

Finally, Create 3 Tribes (tic marks) anywhere you like — a good starting spot is a Region that already has both a Mountain and a Forest.

That's your starting map.

Other Setup

Set aside a small space to track Gold, which you'll accumulate through Trade, Expeditions, or certain Advances, and another to track Glory — your running score for how well your Empire is doing. You gain Glory at the end of every Era (see below).

Note that you're starting in Era 1.

Shuffle the Event deck and place it face down. Draw and discard the top three cards. You're ready to play.

Quick Phase Overview

Each Round runs through the following four phases, described in full detail later:

1. Population Growth and Movement — Create one new Tribe in every Region that already has at least one; you may then move each Tribe across one border into an adjacent Region.
2. Draw an Event Card — draw the top card of the Event deck. If it shows an entry matching your current Era, resolve that Event. If the deck runs out, advance the Era by one, check that your City count meets the new Era number, then reshuffle the deck and draw/discard the top three cards.
3. Advance — build Cities and Farms, acquire Advances, send Tribes on Expeditions, and build Wonders.
4. Upkeep — Reduce City Advance Values that have lost Farm support, Reduce unsupported Tribes down to what each Region can sustain, and Decimate all Gold.

Playing the Game

The game unfolds as a series of Rounds, each made up of the four phases below, always in this order. Advances mostly grant Victory Points, but many of them also bend these base rules — those modifications are called out in each phase as they apply.

1. Population Growth and Movement

Create one new Tribe (a tic mark) in every Region that currently has at least one Tribe.

If your total is under 3 Tribes, you may create enough new Tribes to bring yourself back up to 3 — but only into Regions that already have a City.

If you have no Tribes and no Cities at all, the game ends immediately.

You may then move each Tribe across a single border into a neighboring Region — Decimate it in its old Region and Create it in the new one. Since whatever you do in the Advance phase draws on wherever your Tribes end up, move them where you'll want to use them.

• Roadbuilding lets Tribes cross two borders instead of one.
• Equestrian lets you move any Tribe to any Region, except that Tribes still cannot move through a Frontier or sail across a Sea.
• Fishing or Navigation let you move a group of Tribes between any two Regions that both border the same Sea, at the cost of Reducing that group by 1 Tribe. (What counts as "the same sea" is left to your own map — in theory Frontiers extend forever, so you can't sail around one, but it's your call.)
• Magnetics removes the 1-Tribe cost of a sea move granted by Fishing/Navigation.

2. Draw an Event Card

Draw the top card of the Event deck and turn it face up. Each Event card carries a row of small numbered shapes (and sometimes a handshake icon) in the upper left, plus one or more larger boxes in the middle — each box has a number and an Event name.

Look for a box whose number matches your current Era. If there isn't one, nothing happens this Round. If there is, resolve the Event named in that box (see Event Explanations below, or the shorter descriptions on the printed Event Explanation cards — the ones here go into more depth).

If the Event deck ever runs dry, immediately perform an End of Era check (below). Afterward, reshuffle the whole deck, draw and discard the top three cards, and carry on as normal.

3. Advance

Once any Event has been resolved, it's time to grow your Empire by assigning your Tribes to work. Assigned Tribes are removed from play — they've gone off to serve the common good.

You may Create Farms and Cities, Create Wonders, send Tribes on Expeditions, and acquire Advances, in any order and as many times as you can afford, as long as at least 1 Tribe remains somewhere in your Empire — you may never willingly Decimate your very last Tribe to pay for an action.

Black Market (requires the Black Market Advance)

You may attempt to collect taxes from the Market:

1. Draw the top Event card and add its Gold Nugget value to your stock.
2. If that card shows a handshake symbol, Decimate 1 Gold from your stock and draw again, adding the new card's Gold Nuggets as before.
3. Keep drawing as long as handshakes keep appearing; once a card without a handshake appears, taxation ends.
4. If you can't pay the 1 Gold for a handshake, you must immediately trigger an Anarchy Event, exactly as if it had been drawn from the deck.

An End of Era check still happens if the deck runs out mid-draw; pass it as usual, reshuffle, discard three, and continue.

Mining (requires the Mining Advance)

You may try to mine for Gold:

1. If you have Surveying, you may peek at the discard pile first to see how much has already been mined this Round; without it, you may not look.
2. Decimate 3 Tribes from any Region containing a Mountain or Volcano, then draw the top Event card. If it shows 1, 2, or 3 Gold Nuggets, add that to your running Mine Cart.
3. Either stop and move your whole Mine Cart into your common Gold stock, or keep drawing ("dig deeper"). Every card that shows Nuggets adds to the Cart; the first card that shows none empties the Cart completely and ends this attempt.
4. You may attempt Mining as many times as you like in a Round, each time paying the 3-Tribe cost again.

An End of Era check still happens if the deck runs out mid-draw; pass it as usual, reshuffle, discard three, and continue.

Expeditions

Tribes in a Region bordering the Frontier may be sent out for Gold. Decimate any number of Tribes from one Region — this is your Expedition Force — then flip the next Event card and subtract the value shown in its blue hex from your Force. Whatever remains (if above zero) is the Gold your Expedition brings home; keep a running note of it.

• Magnetics halves (round up) the blue-hex subtraction.
• You may launch as many Expeditions as you like in a Round, but each one burns an Event card, so one large Expedition usually nets more Gold than several small ones.
• Navigation lets Regions bordering the Sea send Expeditions too, using the green-square value instead of the blue hex.
• Magnetics likewise halves (round up) the green-square subtraction on Sea Expeditions.
• Roadbuilding's extra movement makes it easier to mass larger Expedition Forces.
• Cavalry doubles the effective size of each Tribe sent on a Frontier Expedition.
• Meteorology doubles the effective size of each Tribe sent on a Sea Expedition.
• Unless you have Coinage, any Gold gained this way is Decimated during the following Upkeep — otherwise it's kept for good.

Create a City

Cities are the heart of your Empire, letting you purchase Advances. To found one, Decimate 4 Tribes in a Region that has at least that many, giving the new City an Advance Value (AV) of 1.

• Common Tongue lowers this cost to 2 Tribes.
• Only one City may exist per Region — 8 Cities is the absolute maximum.
• Unless you have Roadbuilding, a City needs a Farm in its own Region to survive, so build the Farm first.
• A newly founded City may immediately be used to acquire an Advance.

Create a Farm

Decimate a Forest and 2 Tribes in the target Region to Create a Farm there.

• Agriculture lets you Create a Farm without Decimating a Forest, once per Round.

Acquire Advances

Advances make your Empire stronger, bend the game's rules in your favor, help you weather disasters, and are worth Victory Points at game end.

• You cannot acquire any Advance unless your Total City AV (the sum of every City's Advance Value) is strictly greater than the number of Advances you already own.
• Each City may acquire only one Advance per Round. The Region containing the acquiring City — the Active Region for this purchase — supplies that Advance's Resources.
• Every Advance has up to three costs to pay: Cost (Gold and/or Tribes, Decimated — Gold from your common stock, Tribes from the Active Region), Resources (Wood/Stone/Food that must be present via Forest/Mountain-or-Volcano/Farm in the Active Region, but are not consumed), and Requirements (other Advances you must already own).
• Machining lets a Region substitute a Forest for a required Stone or a Mountain/Volcano for a required Wood — but each resource icon can only satisfy one requirement at a time, so an Advance needing both Wood and Stone still needs both icons present.
• Acquired Advances belong to the whole Empire, not just the City that bought them — their effects apply everywhere.
• If an Event drops your Total City AV below your Advance count, you don't have to discard anything; you simply can't acquire new Advances until you've rebuilt enough AV to open up space again.
• Acquiring Black Market grants an immediate, one-time bonus of 5 Gold.

Build Wonders

Wonders sit between Cities and Advances: like Cities, they're drawn on the map, but unlike Cities there's no cap on how many can occupy a single Region. Like Advances, they score Victory Points at game end, and they carry their own Gold/Tribe costs and occasional Requirements.

You may build as many Wonders, of as many kinds, as you can afford in a Round — Wonders aren't tied to a City's one-purchase-per-Round limit.

4. Upkeep

Perform the following clean-up steps in order at the end of each Round:

1. Each Region can only support a limited number of Tribes — its Support Value, equal to its count of resource icons (Forest, Mountain, Volcano, Farm) plus its City's AV, if any. Reduce Tribes in any over-full Region down to its Support Value.
2. Decimate all Gold earned from Expeditions or Trade this Round.
   • Coinage stops your Gold from being Decimated.
   • Black Market still costs you 1 Gold here even with Coinage.
3. If you have Culture of Thievery, check for Violent Profits: draw the next Event card (its red circle names the Active Region); if that Region has at least one Tribe, Decimate 1 Tribe there, then draw again and add that card's Gold Nuggets to your stock. If the Region has no Tribes, nothing happens.
4. Resolve any Advances that act during Upkeep:
   • Advance Cities — you may raise a City's AV, paying a number of Tribes (from anywhere in the Empire) equal to the AV you're advancing to. Raising a City to AV 3 costs 3 Tribes.
     • Masonry, Civil Service, and Slave Labor each let you raise one City's AV by 1 during Upkeep, and their effects stack — with both Masonry and Civil Service you could raise one City by 2, or two Cities by 1 each.
     • Basic Tools, Simple Tools, and Machining each reduce the Tribe cost of an AV increase by 1, and stack the same way — with Basic Tools and Simple Tools together, raising a City to AV 3 only costs 1 Tribe.
     • A City's AV cannot exceed 2 normally. Engineering or Metal Working raises that cap to 3; Architecture raises it to 4.
     • Centralized Government lets you mark one City as your Capitol (draw a star beside it). A Capitol may keep advancing past AV 4, up to AV 10: below AV 4 it advances normally, but each step past 4 costs Decimating one resource icon (Forest, Mountain, or Farm) from anywhere in the Empire, plus a number of Tribes in the Capitol's own Region equal to the target AV. A Capitol may advance only once per Upkeep, and Basic Tools/Simple Tools/Machining do not reduce this cost. If your Capitol is ever Decimated, you may name a new one.
   • Gold management — Banking adds 1 Gold if your stock is already above 3; Patronage adds 1 Gold for every City you own beyond your fourth.
5. Any City in a Region without a Farm has its AV reduced by 1 (a City reduced to 0 AV is Decimated).
   • Fishing exempts Cities in Regions bordering the Sea from needing a Farm.

A new Round then begins with Population Growth.

End of Era

Running out of Event cards marks the end of an Era. When that happens:

Check whether your current City count is at least equal to the Era number you're leaving. If so, you gain Glory; if not, you gain none this Era. (A game reaching the end of the 8th Era skips this City check.)

The Glory you gain is the total Victory Points of your best Advances — but you may only count as many Advances as you currently have Tribes. For example, with 8 Tribes in your Empire, add up the VP of your 8 highest-scoring owned Advances (or fewer, if you own fewer) and add that to your running Glory total.

Wonders never contribute to Glory during the game — their VP is only added once, at the very end.

Unlike earlier versions of this game, failing the City check does not end the game — it only costs you that Era's Glory. You may, however, choose to end the game voluntarily at any End of Era check.

If the deck runs dry in the middle of resolving an Event, pause that Event, perform the End of Era check, reshuffle and draw/discard three cards, then return to finish the interrupted Event.

When the Game Ends

The game ends when any of the following occurs:

• You've played through all 8 Eras.
• You have no Tribes and no Cities at any point.
• You choose to end it during an End of Era check.

Perform one final Glory check exactly as above, then add up the VP of every Wonder you've built and add that to your Glory total as well. The result is your final score.

Two-Player Variant

Pocket Civ can be played by two people, most comfortably with the Deluxe components. This isn't a war game — you can't directly attack your opponent's Cities — the goal is simply to build the more advanced civilization. The changes to the base rules are:

• There is no End of Era check. Eras still progress on schedule: the first pass through the deck plays Era 1 Events, the second pass plays Era 2 Events, and so on.
• The Empire is built from 16 Regions instead of 8 (plus Frontier) — two of each number 1 through 8, laid out randomly.
• A token called the Totem is passed between players. Randomly decide who starts with it. Whoever holds the Totem goes first whenever turn order matters, controls the reveal of Event cards (though the other player may take the Totem after an Event is revealed but before its Active Region is chosen), and removes Tribes first when a Region is over its Tribe Support.
• Both players may generally act simultaneously within a phase, but either player can ask to go first if order matters, with the non-Totem player following.
• When an Event's Active Region is picked, the Totem holder reveals it and chooses which of the two same-numbered Regions is actually Active; Cities and Tribes are treated as colorless for that Event, and the Totem holder decides which are affected wherever a choice exists.
• Each Region can hold one City per player, and Tribes from both players.
• For Tribe Support, a City supports both players' Tribes; if a Region holds too many mixed-color Tribes, players alternate removing one at a time (Totem holder first) until it's back within its Support Value. For City support, one Farm can support one City of each color.
• Special Advance-driven actions (Mining, Expeditions, and the like) are performed individually — the other player simply watches.
• If you Acquire an Advance the other player already owns, you pay 1 less Gold and 1 less Tribe for it, since the knowledge has already spread.
• The game ends when either player loses all Tribes and Cities, or after all 8 Eras are played; whoever has the higher combined Advance + Wonder VP total wins.

Event Explanations

The following are detailed explanations of every Event, in alphabetical order. The printed Event Explanation cards give a shorter version of the same rules. Where an Event lists several Advance effects, apply them in the order given.

Anarchy

1. In every Region where your Tribe count exceeds the local City's AV, Reduce that City's AV by 1 and Reduce Tribes there by 3. Keep repeating this in that Region until the City's AV reaches 1, or the Tribe count drops to or below the City's AV.
   • With Literacy, Reduce Tribes by 5 instead of 3.
   • With Law, skip the AV reduction — instead Reduce Tribes by an amount equal to the City's AV, in each Region.
   • With Organized Religion, at most 4 Regions are Affected (you choose which), and you may choose Regions without Cities — Regions with no City feel no effect from Anarchy at all.
2. With Slave Labor, draw the next card and Reduce Tribes empire-wide by the additional amount shown in its red circle.
3. With Machining, Reduce an additional 2 City AV total, from any City or Cities of your choice (Law cancels this effect).

Attack (Visitation or Bandits)

1. With Ministry, draw the next card and Reduce the Attacking Force by the value in its green square, gaining 1 Gold for each point of Force removed this way.
2. Starting in the Active Region, Reduce Tribes to Reduce the Attacking Force:
   • Normally, 1 Tribe Reduces 1 point of Force.
   • With Military or Metal Working, 1 Tribe Reduces up to 2 points of Force.
   • With both Military and Metal Working, 1 Tribe Reduces up to 3 points of Force.
3. If Force remains after all Tribes in the Region are Decimated, 5 remaining Force Reduces 1 City AV (8 with Architecture); if there isn't enough Force left to Reduce a full AV point, the remaining Force is simply spent. Decimate 2 Gold from your stock for every AV point lost this way.
4. If Force still remains after the City is destroyed, it moves into the Neighboring Region with the fewest Tribes (ties go to the Region whose City has the highest AV, or your choice if there's no City involved). An Attacking Force never moves into, or through, a Region with no Tribes and no City — if every Neighboring Region is empty, the attack ends there. Equestrian Reduces the Force by 2 whenever it enters a new Region that still has Tribes.

Bandits

1. Draw the next card; its red circle names the Active Region.
2. The attack only occurs if the Active Region, or one of its neighbors, contains a Desert — otherwise ignore this Event entirely.
3. If attacked, set this card aside and draw again to determine the Attacking Force: sum the values of whichever symbols appear on the original Bandit box's right-hand side, matched against those same symbols on the new card (see the Q&A section for a worked example). Resolve as an Attack (above).
   • Law or Democracy each Reduce the Force by one blue-hex value; Equestrian or Slave Labor each increase it by one blue-hex value.
4. You cannot make Trading Partners out of Bandits.

Civil War

1. Draw the next card; its red circle names the Active Region.
2. Reduce City AV by 2 in the Active Region and every Neighboring Region (Cities reduced to 0 are Decimated).
   • Military makes the Neighboring-Region reduction 3 instead of 2.
   • Mythology makes the Active-Region reduction 3 instead of 2.
   • Civil Service stops any City from being reduced below AV 1.
   • Architecture softens every reduction by 1 — so a "base" reduction becomes 1, and Architecture combined with either Military or Mythology becomes 2.
3. Determine Collateral Damage: draw the next card; with Law, use the value in its green square, otherwise use the value in its blue hex.
4. Reduce the total Tribes across the Affected Regions by the Collateral Damage value (spending all of it if possible; you choose how it's distributed if you have more Tribes than damage to apply).
   • Arts or Theater each subtract 2 from the Collateral Damage.
   • Meditation halves it (round down).
   • After damage is applied, Medicine Creates 1 Tribe in each Affected Region.
   • Engineering stops any City from being reduced below AV 1 (Decimated Cities are instead set to 1 AV).
   • Medicine additionally Creates 2 Tribes in each Affected Region that lost at least 1 Tribe to Collateral Damage.

Corruption

1. Draw the next card and sum the matching symbols against the original Corruption box's symbols (as with Bandits above) to determine your Corruption level.
   • Government adds 3 to this value.
   • Literacy halves it (round down).
2. Reduce City AV empire-wide by a total equal to your Corruption level, distributed across Cities as you choose (any City reduced to 0 is Decimated).
3. Decimate all of your current Gold — unless you have Law, which cancels this loss.

Earthquake

Draw Fault Lines in the affected Region as small ground cracks. A Fault Line is not itself a resource, so it grants no extra Tribe-support capacity during Upkeep.

1. Draw the next card; its red circle names the Active Region.
2. If the Active Region has no Fault Line: Reduce City AV there by 1, Reduce Tribes there by 1, and Create a Fault Line there.
3. If the Active Region already has a Fault Line: Reduce City AV there by 3, Reduce Tribes there by 4, Decimate all Wonders there, and Create Fault Lines in up to two Neighboring Regions of your choice that don't already have one. Then draw another card and sum its matching symbols against the original Earthquake box (as above) to get the Population Loss; Decimate that many Tribes, split however you like between the Active Region and its neighbors.

Epidemic

1. Draw the next card; its red circle names the Active Region. If that Region has no Tribes, ignore this Event.
2. Draw again and sum its matching symbols against the original Epidemic box (as above) to get the Population Loss. Starting in the Active Region and moving outward through Neighboring Regions, Decimate Tribes equal to that total — a Region's Tribes must be fully wiped out before the Epidemic can move to the next. If a chain of empty Regions blocks the path to a Region with Tribes, that Region is spared; you may deliberately empty Regions to create such "fire breaks."
   • With Roadbuilding or Equestrian, the Epidemic instead jumps straight over empty Regions, so fire breaks no longer work.
   • You must Decimate as many Tribes as the Population Loss calls for, but you may always leave 2 Tribes remaining in your Empire rather than going below that.
3. Medicine halves the Population Loss (round down).
4. Roadbuilding additionally Reduces a City's AV by 2 if the Epidemic wipes out every Tribe in that City's Region.

Famine

1. Draw the next card; its red circle names the Active Region.
2. In the Active Region, Decimate all Tribes and Farms, and Reduce City AV by 2.
   • Irrigation spares the Farms and only Reduces City AV by 1 instead of 2.

Flood / Tsunami

A Flood becomes a Tsunami if the Active Region borders the Sea.

1. Draw the next card; its red circle names the Active Region.
2. If the Active Region borders the Sea, resolve it as a Tsunami (below). Otherwise: Reduce Tribes there by 2, Decimate its Farms, Reduce its City AV by 1, and Create a Forest there.
   • Irrigation spares the Farms and the AV reduction (a new Forest is still Created if none exists).

Tsunami:

1. Draw the next card and sum its matching symbols against the original Flood box (as above) to determine Damage.
2. Every Region bordering the Sea that also neighbors the Active Region takes that much Damage, applied first to Tribes, then (once Tribes are gone) to City AV, then (once the City is gone) to Wonders of your choice, one at a time. 1 Tribe = 1 Damage, 1 City AV = 2 Damage, 1 Wonder = 3 Damage.
   • Engineering raises the cost of a Wonder to 10 Damage.
   • Civil Service raises the cost of a Tribe to 3 Damage and a City AV to 5 Damage.
3. Medicine Creates 2 Tribes in each Region hit by the Tsunami.

Sandstorm

1. Draw the next card; its red circle names the Active Region.
2. If the Active Region contains a Desert: choose two Neighboring Regions, Decimate their Farms and Forests, and Create Deserts there instead. If the Active Region has no Desert: Decimate its own Farms and Forests and Create a Desert there instead.
   • Irrigation spares the Farms either way.

Superstition

1. Draw the next card; the symbol value on it (matched against the original Superstition box's symbol) tells you how many Event cards to draw and discard outright. If the deck runs dry mid-discard, run an End of Era check, reshuffle, draw/discard three, and keep discarding until you've reached the required count.
   • Astronomy adds 2 to the green-square value used here.
   • Meditation lets you optionally stop discarding once only one card remains in the deck.

Tribal War

With Government, ignore this Event entirely. Otherwise:

1. Draw the next card; its red circle names the Active Region. If it has no Tribes, ignore this Event.
2. The Active Region's Tribe count becomes the base Warring Tribes amount, doubled (unless you have Sense of Community, which cancels the doubling).
3. Choose two Neighboring Regions with Tribes if possible (only one, with Music), and Reduce their Tribes by the Warring Tribes amount.
4. Reduce Tribes in the Active Region by 3 (only 1, with Music).

Uprising

1. Draw the next card; its red circle names the Active Region.
2. Reduce City AV there by 2, and Decimate all Tribes and Farms there.
   • Organized Religion softens this to a Reduce of Tribes by 2 rather than a full Decimate.
3. Slave Labor additionally Decimates Farms in every Region that has no City.
4. Military lets you pick a Neighboring Region with a City: Reduce that City's AV by 1 and Decimate its Tribes (or, with Organized Religion, Reduce them by 2 instead).

Volcano

A Volcano is a specialized Mountain, still providing Stone; draw it like a Mountain but with smoke (and maybe lava) coming from the top.

1. Draw the next card; its red circle names the Active Region.
2. If the Active Region has neither Mountain nor Volcano: Create a Volcano there and Reduce its Tribes to 1.
3. If it has a Mountain but no Volcano: turn the Mountain into a Volcano, Reduce City AV there by 2, Reduce Tribes there to 1, and Decimate its Farms and Wonders.
   • Engineering stops the City from being reduced below AV 1 (a Decimated City is instead set to 1 AV).
4. If it already has a Volcano: Decimate its City, Farms, Tribes, Forest, and Wonders, Create a Desert there instead, and Reduce Tribes by 2 in every Neighboring Region.
5. Medicine Creates 1 Tribe in every Region affected by the eruption.

Visitation

1. If you're already Trading Partners with the visiting empire, skip straight to Trade (below).
2. Otherwise, with Diplomacy you may try to make them a Trading Partner: Decimate any combination of Tribes and Gold to build a Diplomatic Offer worth 1 point per unit Decimated, then draw the next card — if your Offer meets or beats the value in its red circle, this empire becomes a permanent Trading Partner, and you go straight to Trade.
3. If you have no Trading Partner status (or didn't attempt Diplomacy), set this card aside and draw again to check for a handshake icon.
   • Philosophy lets you draw a second card if the first has no handshake.
4. A handshake means the visitors are Trading with you this Round only (see Trade, below) without becoming permanent partners.
5. No handshake means the visitors have come to pillage: draw the next card — its red square names the Active Region. If that Region doesn't border the Sea or the Frontier, there's no attack. Otherwise draw once more and sum its matching symbols against the original Visitation box (as with Bandits above) to get the Attacking Force, then resolve as an Attack (above).

Trade (Visitation)

1. Draw the next card; increase your Gold by the value in its red circle.
2. Shipping lets you draw again if that card also showed a handshake, adding the green-square value of the new card to your Gold as well.
3. Culture of Thievery lets you try to steal more: draw the top Event card and, if it shows 1–3 Gold Nuggets, add them to a running Stash and keep drawing ("dig deeper"); a Nugget-less card immediately halves your Stash (round down) and turns this Visitation into an Attack — draw again, sum its blue-hex and green-square values (as above) for the Attacking Force, and resolve as an Attack. You may instead stop at any point to bank your Stash safely and end the Trade.

Hints

If you're not sure where to start: spend your first few Rounds spreading a Tribe into every Region — Tribes are your core currency, and you can never gain more than 8 new Tribes in a single Round (one per Region), so keeping at least one Tribe everywhere matters early on.

Your first City is usually the hardest. Aim for a Region that already has a Mountain and a Forest: spend 2 Tribes converting the Forest into a Farm, then 4 Tribes to build the City (possibly across two Rounds).

A pricier but more flexible route: convert a Forest into a Farm anywhere (2 Tribes), then gather 6 Tribes in a Region with a Mountain — spend 4 on the City and the remaining 2, plus that City, on Cartage as your very first Advance, so any Farm anywhere can support it during Upkeep.

Fishing is a similarly expensive early target — 10 Tribes total in a Region with a Forest that also borders the Sea (4 for the City, 6 for Fishing) — but pays off later, since any Sea-bordering City then supports itself.

Good early Advance picks tend to be Agriculture, Masonry, and Cartage, followed by Engineering. Eras 1–3 are usually about getting a stable base of Cities and Advances running; Eras 4–6 about building a Gold income; Eras 7–8 about finally getting Wonders built.

Questions and Answers

My Total AV dropped below my Advance count — do I have to discard Advances? No. You just can't acquire new ones until your Total AV climbs back above your current Advance count.

Can one City acquire more than one Advance? Not in the same Round — each City is limited to one Advance purchase per Round no matter how high its AV is.

I had Architecture (max AV 4), then acquired Metal Working (max AV 3) — did my cap drop? No — your maximum City AV always comes from whichever owned Advance grants the highest cap, regardless of purchase order. In this example, your cap stays at 4.

How do I work out a variable Attacking Force or Epidemic Population Loss? These Events reference symbols printed on the original Event box — Blue Hex, Green Square, and/or Red Circle. Draw the next card and add up the values under each of those same symbol types on the newly drawn card; that total is your Force, Loss, or Damage. If an Event box shows a symbol type more than once, count that symbol's value on the new card once for each time it appears on the original box.

More about Epidemics: an Epidemic doesn't spread outward in all directions — treat it like an Attacking Force moving Region to Neighboring Region in a single chain, and it can only move into a Region that currently has Tribes. If it reaches a Region with no Tribe-holding neighbors, it stops there, so deliberately empty "fire break" Regions can blunt one — unless you have Roadbuilding or Equestrian, which lets the Epidemic (and Bandit/Visitation Attacks) jump straight over empty Regions instead.

If an Event Creates a Mountain or Volcano in a Region that already has a Desert, does the Desert go away? No — icons are only Decimated when an instruction explicitly says so. The Region simply ends up with both; the Mountain adds Tribe support, the Desert adds none. The same logic applies to building a Farm in a Desert Region.

Can I discard Black Market or Culture of Thievery whenever I like once I have Law or Civil Service? No — you may only discard either of them at the exact moment you acquire Law or Civil Service.

Advances Reference

Each entry below lists Victory Points, Cost (Decimated), Resources needed (present, not consumed), Requirements, and its special rule(s). "Free" means the Advance has no Tribe/Gold cost.

#	Advance	VP	Cost	Resources	Requires	Special Rule
1	Masonry	3	2 Tribes	Stone	—	During Upkeep, increase one City AV by 1. Max City AV is 2 unless another Advance raises it.
2	Engineering	5	3 Tribes	Wood, Stone	Masonry	Max City AV is 3 unless another Advance raises it. Softens Volcano, Earthquake, and Tsunami.
3	Architecture	8	6 Tribes, 6 Gold	Wood, Stone	Engineering	Max City AV is 4. During Attacks, 8 Attacking Force (not 5) is needed to Reduce 1 City AV. Softens Civil War.
4	Agriculture	5	4 Tribes	Stone	—	Farms may be Created in any Region without Decimating a Forest (still costs 2 Tribes).
5	Horticulture	8	2 Tribes	Wood	—	Decimate 4 Tribes in a Region to Create a Forest there.
6	Irrigation	10	2 Tribes, 2 Gold	Wood	Agriculture or Horticulture	Softens Flood, Famine, and Sandstorm.
7	Equestrian	8	6 Tribes	Food, Wood	Agriculture or Horticulture	Move any Tribe to any Region (except through Frontiers or across Seas). Affects Attacks, Bandits, Epidemic.
8	Cavalry	8	6 Tribes, 8 Gold	Wood	Equestrian	Each Tribe counts double on a Frontier Expedition.
9	Sense of Community	6	3 Tribes	Wood	—	Softens Tribal War.
10	Government	8	4 Tribes	Food	Sense of Community	Cancels Tribal War entirely. Softens Corruption.
11	Military	8	4 Tribes, 3 Gold	Stone, Food	Government	Each Tribe counts double defending an Attack. Affects Uprising and Civil War.
12

Wonders Reference

Wonders are built during the Advance phase (see Build Wonders, above) and score their VP only at the very end of the game.

Wonder	VP	Cost	Requirements
Giant Gilded Statue of Yourself	18	6 Tribes, 25 Gold	Requires Arts.
City of Atlantis	50	8 Tribes, 25 Gold	Requires being Trading Partners with Atlatea. Convert an existing City in a Sea-bordering Region into the City of Atlantis — it keeps behaving as a normal City in addition to being this Wonder.
Coliseum of Death	25	6 Tribes, 25 Gold	Must be built in a Region with a City. Requires Theater.
Hanging Gardens	20	4 Tribes, 20 Gold	Requires Irrigation and Arts.
Hall of Justice	40	8 Tribes, 20 Gold	Must be built in a Region with a City. Requires Law.
Great Wall of Solitude	25	6 Tribes, 25 Gold	Must be built in a Region bordering the Frontier. Visitation Events are not resolved when they would occur in this Region, and Expeditions cannot be launched from it.
Huge Monolith of Impressiveness	8	6 Tribes, 15 Gold	—
Amphitheater	25	6 Tribes, 15 Gold	Must be built in a Region with a City. Requires Theater.
Mountain Citadel	45	12 Tribes, 30 Gold	Must be built in a Region with a Mountain or Volcano.
Palace of the Senate	12	6 Tribes, 20 Gold	—