Reiner Knizia's Amazing Flea Circus
Reiner Knizia's Amazing Flea Circus Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Game Components
- 28 saucer cards (7 kinds of cards, 4 of each).
- 27 action cards: 12 x In Numbers There Is Strength (W kupie sila), 7 x Animal Counterattack (Kontratak zwierzat), 6 x Recruitment (Werbunek), 2 x General Saving the Earth (General ratujacy Ziemie). (Counts assigned to the card types from the illustration on the component list.)
- 36 loot tokens: 6 x, 6 x, 8 x, 8 x, 8 x (five kinds of people and animals).
Setup
A. Place the loot tokens in the middle of the table. This is the Earth.
B. Shuffle all the cards and deal 5 cards to each player. Do not reveal them to your rivals!
C. In front of each player there must be space for the cards played during the game. They are played one on top of another so that they form a pile.
D. Place the remaining cards in a pile (face down) next to the Earth. This is the aliens' planet.
Goal of the Game
The aliens are invading Earth. They want to gain as much loot as possible: people and animals. The aliens are, however, not very disciplined and during the invasion they often steal loot from one another!
The players take the roles of these little green creatures and try to gain as much loot as possible. The person with the most loot at the end of the game wins.
Course of Play
The game is started by the person who is dressed in the most green (or the youngest player), and then play proceeds clockwise.
On their turn, a player:
- plays a card and carries out the action corresponding to that card,
- draws cards so as to again have 5 cards in hand.
The player places the played card in front of themselves picture side up. Each subsequently played card is placed on the previously played card. In front of each player there will therefore be a pile of cards with only one card visible, the one played most recently.
Types of Cards
UFO Saucers
Saucers have a value from 2 to 4. This value is the number of loot tokens the player may gain.
On their turn the player may play 1 such card.
What happens after playing such a card?
- The player takes the corresponding number of loot tokens from the first person (clockwise) in front of whom lies the same saucer card. If that person does not have enough loot, the player takes all of that person's loot (the remainder is not drawn from the Earth).
- If in front of no person lies the same saucer card, the player takes the corresponding number of loot tokens from the Earth.
Example: Ola plays a saucer card of value 3. She checks which player, starting with the one sitting to her left, has the same card:
- Pawel has a card of the same value, but with a different saucer,
- Patrycja has the same card, so Ola takes 3 loot from her. If Patrycja did not have the same card, Ola would have taken 3 loot from the Earth.
At the end of the turn Ola draws 1 card from the aliens' planet (to have 5 cards in hand).
Animal Counterattack
The animals decided to chase the aliens away to the back of beyond. The aliens drop their loot in panic.
On their turn the player may play 1 such card.
What happens after playing such a card?
- The player takes 2 loot from a chosen person.
Example: Pawel plays an animal counterattack card. He takes 2 loot from one of the players; he chooses Ola. At the end of the turn Pawel draws 1 card from the aliens' planet (to have 5 cards in hand).
Recruitment
The player recruits other people's aliens. Each recruited alien will gain 1 loot for them.
On their turn the player may play 1 such card.
What happens after playing a recruitment card?
- The player takes from the Earth as many loot tokens as there are recruitment cards lying on top of the players' piles.
Example: Patrycja plays a recruitment card. There are 2 such cards on the players' piles (on Patrycja's pile and on Ola's pile), so Patrycja takes 2 loot from the Earth. At the end of the turn Patrycja draws 1 card from the aliens' planet (to have 5 cards in hand).
In Numbers There Is Strength
The player sends a squad of aliens for loot. The larger the squad, the more loot: each alien will gain 1 loot.
On their turn the player may play any number of such cards.
What happens after playing such cards?
- The player takes from the Earth as many loot tokens as the number of cards played.
The icon in the corner of the card is a reminder that the player may play several such cards.
Example: Ola plays 3 In Numbers There Is Strength cards. She therefore takes 3 loot from the Earth. At the end of the turn Ola draws 3 cards from the aliens' planet (to have 5 cards in hand).
General Saving the Earth
The General saves the Earth and retakes from the aliens' hands some of the abducted people and animals.
On their turn the player may play 1 such card.
What happens after playing such a card?
- Each of the other players returns to the Earth as many loot tokens as the value of the card on top of their pile of cards.
- If a UFO Saucer lies on top of the pile, they must return as many loot tokens as the value of that card.
- If In Numbers There Is Strength or Animal Counterattack lies on top of the pile, they must return 1 or 2 loot tokens respectively.
- If a Recruitment card lies on top of the pile, they must return as many loot tokens as there are such cards on the players' piles.
Example: Pawel plays the General Saving the Earth card. Patrycja and Ola must return part of their loot to the Earth:
- In front of Patrycja lies a recruitment card. It has a value of 1 (because only 1 such card lies on the players' piles), so Patrycja returns 1 loot to the Earth.
- In front of Ola lies a card of value 1, so she also returns 1 loot to the Earth.
At the end of the turn Pawel draws 1 card from the aliens' planet (to have 5 cards in hand).
The player who played the General Saving the Earth gathers all the players' piles of cards (including their own), shuffles them and places them at the bottom of the aliens' planet.
Note! If a player has no cards in hand and the pile of cards on the aliens' planet has run out (the player cannot draw cards at the end of the turn), they skip their next turns until someone plays the General Saving the Earth. Then a pile of cards appears again on the aliens' planet and they can be drawn so as to have 5 cards in hand.
End of the Game
The game ends when someone takes the last loot from the Earth. The person with the most loot wins. In case of a tie, the players share the victory.