Sidereal Confluence FAQ
240 questions players ask · Updated Nov 11, 2026 · Full rulebook
Setting Up the GameExpansion
- Do the Zeth start the game with a colony?
- What changes to base-game setup does Proliferation make for Unity, Zeth and Kt'Zr'Kt'Rtl?
- How many starting cards does the Zeth species start with?
- How do you set up a three-player game of Sidereal Confluence?
- Is three players a supported player count for Sidereal Confluence?
- Which decks are shuffled at setup?
- Are starting research teams dealt at random?
- Can you research a technology on turn 1?
- Does a starting research team give its technology at the first Confluence Phase?
- Does having Kjasjavikalimm in the game change how many colony spaces are on the bid track?
- Does player count change the technology or research team deck size?
- How is the technology deck arranged for the auction?
- What does a starting resource with no number mean, such as a single large blue or black cube?
- Should the Proliferation starting resource cards replace the originals permanently?
- Which side of the Faderan Relic World deck faces up at setup?
- How do Caylion colony bids and colony output work?
- Do the Caylion get a 2x seedling token on their starting colony, and do colonies traded to them get one?
- Can the Eni Et run their own Interest Converters?
- How does the Kjasjavikalimm double colony bid work?
- What are Yengii license technologies?
- Can Im'Dril take colonies that give only immediate resources, and do Charity Syndicate colonies change this?
- How many starting cards does the Im'Dril Nomads begin with?
- Can an era II research team be on the era I bid track at the start?
Components and ConceptsExpansion
- What kinds of cards are in Sidereal Confluence, and how do economic cards, colonies, research teams and Confluence cards differ?
- What does the exchange rate on a converter card mean?
- What information is hidden in Sidereal Confluence?
- Do the blue and purple VP icons on converters mean different things?
- Is a purple VP symbol without a number worth 1 VP?
- What do the era numbers on species and starting cards mean, and why do Unity computer worlds have eras printed on them?
- Do all races share the same upgrade options for technologies gained from research teams?
- Are ship tokens piece limited, and can you substitute other species' ships or x5 tokens in a bid?
- Do the species-specific ship tokens have any gameplay function, or can all ships go in one pile?
- Are Faderan Acknowledgements, Zeth Envoys and Caylion seedling tokens piece limited?
- What does the small grey cube picture on a research team's converter mean?
- What do the planet symbols on colony cards mean?
- Are upgrades permanent, and does a loaned upgraded card keep the card that upgraded it underneath?
- Does the round-up wording on Contextual Integrator Cache give a victory point for a single leftover Acknowledgement?
- How many Relic Worlds can a Faderan player bring into play each turn, and can the Relic Detector be run twice?
- Can Caylion collaborative projects fail to distribute if a voter refuses every deal?
- Are Caylion vote tokens spent once a collaborative project activates?
- How do Yengi Jii upgrade the Sympathy of Mules starting card?
- How many Grand Fleet orbital factory tokens can be in play at once?
- What do the two resource icons on Grand Fleet orbital factories mean?
- What are the 3x resource tokens in Bifurcation for?
- What happens if you run out of cubes of one colour?
- How do you terraform colonies?
- Can the fleet support on one Im'Dril fleet card be split between two players?
How to Play
- Does 'may not' in the Eni Et rules mean the Eni Et player cannot use their own special converters?
- Can a card that has just been upgraded be spent to upgrade another card, or still serve as the prerequisite for another upgrade?
- Can Unity use grey wild cubes as any colour?
- Can a converter be run more than once per turn?
Trade PhaseExpansion
- Can you upgrade a card that another player lent or traded to you, or use a borrowed technology to upgrade your own card?
- Can a player refuse donation goods another player gives them at the end of the Trade Phase?
- Must donation goods be given away if they cannot be traded?
- Can donation goods be traded away and then traded back?
- Can leftover donation goods be given to several players at the end of the Trade Phase?
- Does trading with the Zeth protect you from theft that turn?
- Can donation goods be traded to the Zeth for protection, and does a forced gift protect you?
- Does repaying a Zeth debt on the next turn count as trading, so that you stay safe from theft that turn?
- Can Zeth Envoys be traded or given away?
- Can Faderan Acknowledgement tokens be gifted, or attached to a gift to force another player to accept them?
- Can a Faderan trade more than one Acknowledgement in a single trade?
- Does Contextual Integrator Cache cut a technology's cost by one cube for each Acknowledgement the inventor holds?
- When does a Faderan Acknowledgement token pay its VP?
- Can victory points be traded to another player?
- Can you make a secret deal that the rest of the table cannot see?
- When does a verbal trade become binding if a player says 'I accept' before the goods change hands?
- If a player trades away a cube they promised to deliver later, what happens to the promise?
- If an opponent steals a cube that a player owes for next turn, is the debt cancelled?
- If the Zeth steal a promised good so that a binding agreement cannot be fulfilled, what happens?
- What is the penalty for a binding agreement that is not fulfilled?
- Can a player's victory points go negative when a promise is broken?
- Must a borrowed species card go back to its owner at the end of the turn?
- Can a permanent exchange card be lent temporarily, and can it be traded on to other players?
- Can research team cards be traded in the Trade Phase, and is there a cap on how many a player may hold?
- Can you trade a research team card after its technology has been invented?
- Can a Level IV research team be used again after it invented an Era IV technology?
- Can you invent a technology whose research team is still on the research bid track?
- Can you use a technology you just invented to upgrade a card, or run its converter, in the same Trade Phase?
- Can Yengii license out a technology in the same Trade Phase it was invented?
- When can you upgrade a card by spending another card, and can it wait until the Confluence Phase?
- Where does a card spent to upgrade another card go, and is it still in the game?
- Can you run purple (violet) converters at any time, or only during the Trade Phase?
- Can you run a violet converter after the Economy Phase has started, to invent before sharing, or run purple converters after white ones?
- Can purple-arrow effects be used in any order during the Trade Phase, and can one be traded away for a second use?
- How does the top-card violet converter work, and which deck does it draw from?
- Can you trade an undeveloped Relic World card to another player?
- Do Faderan Relic World draw costs use white cubes or grey cubes?
- How is a Unity computer world such as Limit put into play?
- Can the Faderan bring more than one Relic World into play per Trade Phase?
- Can Kt'Zr'Kt'Rtl pick any card from the nullspace colony deck, and how many colonies can they bring in each turn?
- Can a Kt'Zr'Kt'Rtl player trade a nullspace colony before paying to bring it into play?
- How do you bring a Kjas territory or other tile-type converter into play?
- How does the Independent Nations (Kjas) upgrade work when using another species' converter?
- Can you upgrade your converter using a technology or converter borrowed from another player?
- Does a Caylion colony with two output cost twice as much to upgrade?
- Do the output colours of a technology differ between species?
- Is a binding deal to have the Zeth steal from a particular player legal?
- When does a Trade Phase round end if players still want to invent, upgrade or bid?
- Which player gets the resources on the Gift of the Duruntai in the French version?
- In Proliferation's live bidding, does the number of colonies or research teams you hold break a tie?
- Do Regret tokens gained during the Trade Phase change the round's bidding under the Society of Falling Light?
- Is there anything to bid on in the round 6 Trade Phase with Proliferation live bidding?
- When are colonies won through Live Bidding in Proliferation distributed relative to the Economy Phase?
Economy PhaseExpansion
- Does receiving a gift of donation goods count as a trade that protects you that turn?
- Can donation goods be traded to several players, or must they all go to one player?
- Can you swap donation goods with another player so they are no longer donations?
- Can the Zeth steal from another player's donation box?
- If the Zeth give a non-Zeth player an Envoy from a donation box, can that player pass the token on?
- Do Zeth Envoy packages stay separate from other donation goods?
- What happens when the Zeth Envoy factory runs out of Envoy tokens?
- Are Zeth Envoy tokens spent or used up when the Zeth steal from a player?
- If the Zeth give away an output that includes an Envoy, must the Envoy go with it, and does a traded package protect the receiver?
- Who receives the output of a Zeth converter that runs an undesirable card?
- Where do consumed colonies made by the Wasp go?
- When you spend a colony to pay for an upgrade, where does the colony card go?
- How do wild (grey) cubes work in Eni Et interest converters, including all-wild input?
- How do Eni Et multicolor converter symbols handle wild cubes?
- How do Unity multicolor inputs and grey wild cubes work?
- Can you pay two greens to run a Caylion seedling twice for two Ultratechs?
- How do Grand Fleet orbitals work?
- Does a Caylion seed factory double the output of a Grand Fleet orbital?
- What is a barren world, and which player can consume it?
- Can Automation Services run a colony twice that has no white arrow, or double a purple-arrow upgrade?
- Does the Kjas Undesirable converter count as a starting converter for the Kjas upgrade rule?
- Can you rebuild an orbital factory token that is already in play?
- Do the Hyperspace Consortium planet project planets refresh every turn?
- Are wild cubes or green cubes usable for a converter when a Yengii Jii player has a no-green constraint?
- If Eni Et engineers reduce a converter's cost so it no longer needs green, can a Yengii Jii player with a no-green constraint use it?
- Can you run more than one card from the same faction deck in one turn?
- Can you trade for another player's technology card and run a second copy in the same Economy Phase?
- Can you bid donation ships from your donation card in the Confluence Phase?
- Are donation ships worth less than donation cubes, or than non-donation ships?
- Can victory points be traded to other players?
- Can you run a converter from a later era in the first Confluence?
- Are Fleet Support cards tied to the converter they come from?
- How do Im'dril Nomads fleet cards limit which converters they can run?
- What is the triple Fleet card for, and how many fleets does running converters take?
- Can you pick any card from the Im'dril fleet deck?
- Can a consumed colony be upgraded or terraformed before being used as converter input?
- What happens to consumed Kt'Zr'Kt'Rtl nullspace colonies?
- How do you know the maximum number of colonies you can support?
Confluence PhaseExpansion
- When do you collect the invention VP and the Sharing Bonus for a technology?
- Are Era IV technologies shared, and do they give the sharing bonus?
- Does the Yengii Society get the larger sharing bonus when they invent an Era IV technology?
- How does the Zeth Steal Phase work?
- Can the Zeth steal from a player they traded with on the same turn?
- Are deals and promises made during the Confluence Phase binding, and when are they carried out?
- How does the Kjasjavikalimm split a colony bid, and is the split required to be even?
- When do Faderan acknowledgement tokens score their VP?
- How do you set up the Live Bidding bid tracks for four players?
- In Live Bidding, when are won colonies and research teams taken and paid for?
- When you upgrade a converter, do you spend the research team card?
- How is the Confluence Technology Sharing Bonus calculated?
- Can a race other than the Yengii share a technology early, so another player can run it the same turn?
- If a technology is invented during the Trade Phase, can it be run once in the next Economy Phase before it is shared?
- Do invented technology cards count toward a player's research-bid tiebreaker?
- Can the Zeth steal from more than three players in a single turn?
- Can a Zeth stealing converter's cost be reduced to one black cube when the target holds an Envoy?
- What limits apply to Zeth stealing converters?
- How many resources can a Zeth stealing converter take from one player?
- When a Kjas split bid ties, is the normal tiebreaker used, and does it change between the two halves?
- Do the Kit win colony bid ties, and how do their tiebreakers work?
- Can players negotiate after colony bids are revealed in the Confluence Phase?
- How do Kt'Zr'Kt'Rtl win ties in colony and research bids?
- Are colony and research bids pre-allocated, so ships from a lost colony bid cannot go to research?
- Where do unbought cost-1 colonies and research teams go at the end of a round?
- Do you keep your ships if you pass on a colony bid?
- Where do invented technologies and their flipped research teams go on the table?
- Can Yengii license an upgraded technology, and does the Yengii sharing bonus apply to upgrades?
- Does Yengii Jii get the Yengii sharing bonus when it invents a technology?
- Can shared technologies be used with converters by every player?
- When a player completes a research in the Trade Phase, when do the other players get that technology?
- In what order do you add or upgrade multiple shared technologies in the Confluence Phase?
- Can you bid on multiple colonies or research teams in one turn?
- Are colony bids and research team bids revealed at the same time, and which is resolved first?
Ending the Turn and Game
- Can a player leave a Sidereal Confluence game partway through without breaking it for the others?
- Does the last turn of Sidereal Confluence still run an economy phase, and what does it involve?
- How many turns does Sidereal Confluence last, and does turn 6 include a Confluence phase or bidding?
- Do players still score the Sharing Bonus for technologies invented on the final turn?
- If the Zeth lends you a card in one trade phase and you pay them in the next, are you protected from Zeth stealing in both rounds?
- How does the Zeth steal work, and who can the Zeth steal from?
- Do the Zeth still steal on the last turn, before final scoring?
- Can cubes taken by one Zeth steal pay for a second theft in the same round?
- Are Era IV technologies and every research team expected to come out by the end of the game?
- How are leftover resources scored at the end of the game?
- Why is an octagon worth a full point during the game but only half a point at the end?
- Is there a tiebreaker if two players finish with the same score?
- Do donation goods from the last turn count toward the final score, and what happens to donations you cannot trade?
- Can you profit-share a converter in the last round, or trade victory points?
Optional Rules
Sidereal Confluence: BifurcationExpansion
- How do Caylion Collaborative projects flip after they are funded in Bifurcation?
- How does the Society of Falling Light invent a research team?
- What does a Regret token do to a non-Society player who accepts a Society of Falling Light research team?
- Can the Society of Falling Light invent the same technology again after a traded-away research team comes back to it?
- Do the Bifurcation Yengii Jii score points for research, and how do they score the Yengii sharing bonus?
- Can Kt' Technophile upgrade tokens be used on the Kjasjavikalimm Independent Nations starting converters?
- What does the large cube on the light side of an I'mdril Orbital Factory token mean, and how do you tell which cube it produces?
- Can Sidereal Confluence: Bifurcation be used with the original edition of the base game?
- Can the Charity Syndicate decline to place a cross-colonization token on a colony it wins in bidding?
- What happens when the Charity Syndicate wins a colony bid but has no cross-colonization token to place?
- Does a Charity Syndicate cross-colonization token take the colony out of the bidding for other species?
- Can an Eni Et Engineering discount token go on a dice converter, and does the discount stay on that converter?
- Can two modifiers be applied to the same die on a dice converter?
- Does a Yengii Jii constraint on a colour also stop the Charity Syndicate from running a loaned card of that colour?
- Can an Eni Et Engineers service token be placed on a converter that already has one?
- Does an Eni Et Engineers service token reduce the cost of a converter that takes only one Ultratech?
- Does the Society of Falling Light get the card from its technology deck when it invents a technology?
- Does activating a Caylion Collaborative project make the other voting players safe from Zeth theft?
- Can a Deep Unity player use a Retrocontinuity token to run one converter, then change the die modifier to run a second converter in the same Trade Phase?
- How many converters does the Deep Unity get each turn, given the dice results?
- What does the Kt' Technophiles board mean by Unity Computer Worlds?
- Does the Kt' Technophiles upgrade when the Society of Falling Light invents a technology?
- Can the Society of Falling Light trade research teams nobody has invented yet?
- How does the Society of Falling Light round when halving resource costs and victory points?
- Can the Charity Syndicate force another player to lend it an Undesirable card?
- Which components are shared between base and Bifurcation faction variants when setting up?
Sidereal Confluence: ProliferationExpansion
- Do the advanced colonies in Sidereal Confluence: Proliferation change by round, and which set is used when?
- Can you use the advanced colonies in Proliferation without the live bidding rules?
- Can you get C colonies in round 6 of Sidereal Confluence: Proliferation?
- Can Y'golonac, Gla'aki or Xa'ligha be treated as either of their two terrain types?
- What can upgraded Chiyou, Forseti and Vivasvat colonies be used for?
- Does a Caylion seed token double the immediate bonus of a colony?
- How do you upgrade a C colony that has rings on it?
- Should you use the New Start faction cards when playing without live bidding?
- How many bidding tracks do you set up for live bidding?
- Does the Charity Syndicate bid on colonies in Proliferation's live bidding?
- Do the Kjasjavikalimm Directorate or Society of Falling Light have to split their bid ships evenly between colonies and research teams?
- Do regret tokens still matter in Proliferation's live bidding?
- When are live bids resolved in Proliferation, and are the bid ships spent?
- Can you reduce or move a live bid after placing it?
- If you are outbid in live bidding, are your ships still locked to your old bid card?
- How are tied live bids resolved with tiebreaker numbers in Proliferation?
- Do unpurchased Consultant promo cards move down or get discarded, and do their planets upgrade for free?
- How many green cubes do the Kt'Zr'Kt'Rtl Technophiles start with in live bidding?
- Which Proliferation colonies replace the base colonies in each round if you only want the new colonies?
- How do cross-colonization tokens work for the Charity Syndicate on the new colonies?
- Does the Proliferation promo card go back on the bid track if its player does not use it?
- In a four-player game with the Charity Syndicate and live bidding, how many colony spaces do you use?
- When do you gain the planets and technologies you win in Proliferation's bidding, during the Trade Phase or after the Economy Phase?