Sidereal Confluence
Sidereal Confluence Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Overview
Sidereal Confluence is a trading game. Players represent alien civilizations that are trading resources and inventing shared technology. Technologies earn the inventor many points, but the advantages of the technology are given to all players. The player with the most victory points at the end of six turns wins the game.
There are a few ways Sidereal Confluence is unusual compared to most other trading games:
- This is a simultaneous game — in each phase of the game, players act at once.
- Information is open, except for bids and victory points.
- Almost everything is tradeable, including sectors of your economy. Victory points are not tradeable.
- Deals are binding, even across turn boundaries: if you promise to do something, you must do it.
Components
- Victory Point Tokens: 30 worth 1, 20 worth 2, 10 worth 5, 30 worth 10
- 9 "x5" tokens
- Ship Tokens: 54 worth 1, 22 worth 3
- 11 Faderan Acknowledgement Tokens
- 6 Caylion "x2" Tokens
- 7 Zeth Envoy Tokens
- 8 Zeth Protection Racket Tokens
- 45 Small Food/Life Support Cubes (Green)
- 45 Small Culture Cubes (White)
- 45 Small Industry Cubes (Brown)
- 35 Large Information Cubes (Black)
- 35 Large Biotechnology Cubes (Blue)
- 35 Large Power/Electrical Cubes (Yellow)
- 12 Large Unity/Wild Cubes (Gray)
- 16 Small Unity/Wild Cubes (Gray)
- 24 Ultratech Octagons
- 9 Player Screens
- 3 Kjasjavikalimm Tiles
- 9 Species Boards
- 12 Track Boards
- 1 Rulebook, 1 Teaching Guide
- 41 Technology/Research Team Cards
- 40 Colony Cards
- 9 Donation Cards
- 12 Confluence Cards
- 9 Species Starting Cards
Setting Up the Game
Select Species
Starting with the least experienced player, each player chooses a species whose play style is the most enjoyable for them. You can find more about each species on their species boards. They are listed below, from easiest to most difficult to play.
- Kt'Zr'Kt'Rtl have a single driving need — green cubes. They have many products to trade for them, including a near inexhaustible supply of inexpensive colonies. Recommended for players who desire a razor-sharp focus to their goals, and the tools to negotiate for it.
- Caylion need very little (other than ships), and thus give you no direction. They will support you well with any goals you choose. Recommended for players who are comfortable choosing a path for themselves without landmarks.
- Kjasjavikalimm have a strong economy that can be crafted during play. It is possible to set them up to be relatively independent of the other players. Recommended for players who enjoy analysis and puzzles.
- Faderan have "Relic Worlds" — random cards they can put into play with situationally powerful abilities. Recommended for players who enjoy being surprised, and like to wrap their minds around strange play styles midway through the game. Fun for new players, although they are unlikely to win with them.
- Im'dril economy is extremely strong but fragile and must be tended carefully to make it grow. Their needs are well defined (octagons, black, and brown), but nearly insatiable. Recommended for experienced players who are comfortable with complex bargains.
- Eni Et are resource poor, but have the ability to make other players extremely rich. Recommended for experienced players who are skilled at reading others' game state and seeing opportunity in it.
- Unity produce wild resources — whatever everyone else most needs. They can run their economy on whatever everyone else sees as junk. Recommended for experienced players who can make challenging negotiations — trading quality for quantity means needing to trade at an apparent profit.
- Yengii require a nearly preternatural understanding of the game's state and to know the other player's desires even better than they do. Recommended for very experienced players who enjoy paying attention to many things at once.
- Zeth are not really playing the same game as everyone else — they are running a protection racket. Recommended for players who are good at being mean and pretending to be scary. Not recommended when the other players in the game are new.
Advice: Picking a Species. Kt'Zr'Kt'Rtl, Caylion, Kjasjavikalimm, and Faderan are easiest to play. A skilled new player can do well with the Im'dril. The Eni Et and Unity require very pushy trading. The Yengii are a challenge for experienced players. Zeth are mean, so best if most players are experienced.
Player Area
Take your species' starting cards, components, and board(s).
- Species Starting Cards: Your cards with a star on the top left start in play in front of you. Several species have unique components. Each player also has a Phases reference card and a Donations card. Collect the resources and ships printed on your starting card.
- Starting Technology: Deal one era I technology card with the research team side faceup to each player with a research team symbol on their starting card.
- Starting Colonies: Deal the number of random colonies to players with the colony symbol on their starting card.
Once done, you may return the starting card to the box. Keep remaining cards in a stack for easy access. This is your species deck. Do not shuffle it. This is a library of cards that you can look through at any time.
Bid Track
Find the Research Team Bid Track and Colony Bid Track that matches the number of players in your game. The player count is printed next to the icon.
Kjasjavikalimm increase the player count for the colony bid track. If someone is playing Kjasjavikalimm, use the Colony Bid track for +1 player, which is why some go as high as 10 players. Kjasjavikalimm do not affect the length of the research team bid track. An 8 player game may or may not have the Kjas, and thus could either use the 8 or 9 player Colony Bid track.
Place the boards in the middle of the play area. Track boards that are split into multiple parts are coded with an "a," "b," and "c." Arrange them as a continuous track in alphabetical order. Put unused boards back in the box.
Confluence Stack
Find the Confluence cards that match the number of players in your game. This is printed next to the icon. Put any others back in the box. They won't be used this game. There should now be six confluence cards.
Splay them in a column so you can see the top of each card. Arrange them so the Turn 1 card is in front. Behind that is turn 2, behind that is turn 3, and so on.
Colony Cards
Colony cards have an un-terraformed front side showing a smaller planet icon and darker card border, and a terraformed side, showing a larger planet icon with a bright card border.
Shuffle the colony cards without looking at them. Set this deck front side up. Put the colony deck near the Colony Bid Track. Deal one Colony card from the top of the Colony deck to each space of the Colony Bid Track, from left to right.
Technology Cards
Technology cards have a Research Team side, showing the type of researchers along the top, and a Technology side, showing just the name of a technology along the top.
Shuffle each era's cards separately, research team side up. Stack the cards together with era I on top, then era II below that, then era III below that, and era IV on bottom.
Put the technology deck near the Research Team Bid track. Deal one Technology card from the Technology deck to each space of the Research Team Bid Track, from left to right.
Final Setup
Pile the points, ships, and resources in reach of all the players.
Components & Concepts
- Victory Points represent influence over the developing society. Keep points hidden facedown and behind your player screen. Points cannot be traded.
- Ships are used to bid on colonies and research teams. Ships can be traded and are worth roughly one small cube.
- Resources are cubes that represent various trade goods. Resources are distinguishable by their color, size, and shape. One point is worth roughly one octagon or two large cubes or three small cubes.
- X5 Tokens are included if ships, victory points, and resources run out. They should be considered unlimited.
- Player Screens hide your victory points and some ships during bidding. Resources and cards never go behind screens.
Resource Icons
- Food & Life Support (small green cube)
- Culture (small white cube)
- Industry (small brown cube)
- Information (large black cube)
- Biotechnology (large blue cube)
- Power, Electrical (large yellow cube)
- Unity, Wild (gray cube)
- Ultratech (octagon)
Anatomy of a Card
- Borders: The colors indicate the owner.
- Converters: These show how you exchange resources. Converters show either a violet arrow or a white arrow, representing when they can run.
- Exchange Rate: This approximates the values of this conversion.
- Entering Play: These icons tell you how a card comes into play — this card starts the game in play; this enters play when someone invents this technology; this enters play when you run this converter; when this converter runs, the top card of the matching deck enters play.
- Era: The icon on top right shows when the technology appears.
- Upgrades: The bottom of your technology card shows two ways to upgrade it. The icons on the center show the results of upgrading.
- Colony Converters: Colonies have free converters at the top of the card. These require no inputs.
- Terraforming: Colonies may be flipped to increase output and change climate. The icons on the bottom right show the results of terraforming. The four climates are Desert, Ice, Jungle, and Ocean.
How to Play
A game of Sidereal Confluence is composed of six turns. Each turn is composed of three phases. All players play each phase of each turn simultaneously. In order, the phases of a turn are:
Trade Phase (in any order):
- Negotiate the exchange of goods and other items
- Run converters that have violet arrows
- Upgrade cards
- Invent technologies
Economy Phase (in this order):
- NO NEGOTIATION ALLOWED
- Check colony support, discarding excess colonies
- Run converters with white arrows
- Place donation goods in donation area
Confluence Phase (in this order):
- Share technologies, receive the Sharing Bonus
- Assign bids for Colonies and Research Teams
- Resolve bids for Colonies
- Resolve bids for Research Teams
Trade Phase
During the Trade Phase, you may freely exchange resources, ships, cards, and promises. You may not trade Victory Points. All agreements are binding: trading players must agree to what is being traded before it happens. Neither can cheat the other by withholding what has been agreed upon. Trades that involve action later in the turn or on future turns are still binding.
Negotiation
Players may only trade during the Trade Phase. Players should avoid talking about potential future trades except during the Trade Phase.
Multilateral Trading
Players can make three-way (or more) binding trades. Everyone involved must agree to everything that is being traded before it happens. This resolves situations where three players each want what the next one has, or where a player only wants to make one trade contingent on another trade going through. For example: You make a trade for a resource you don't personally need because another opponent demands that resource in order to trade with you. If that opponent changes their mind, it would render the goal of the first trade moot. Multilateral agreements prevent this situation from happening.
Penalties
In the rare case that a player cannot fulfill their promise, the offending player may instead give compensation to the wronged player(s) that everyone involved in this trade agrees to. If they do not agree to the compensation, the offending player must complete as much of the original agreement as possible, then the offending player loses points based on each item they failed to uphold. These losses may cause a player's score to go negative.
- For each cube or ship: lose 1 point.
- For each card, octagon, or point: lose 2 points.
Trading Cards
If a player trades away a card with their species border, it must be returned at the end of the turn. Cards without specific player borders, such as colonies and research teams, are traded away permanently.
Violet Converters
Players may run violet arrow converters during the Trade Phase. Each converter may be run at most once per turn.
- Top Card: Running a converter next to this symbol brings the top card of the matching deck into play.
- Put Into Play: Running a violet converter next to this symbol makes the card enter play. This is the only case where you may run a converter that is not already in play.
- Upgrade: There are two ways you may upgrade (flip) most cards — Running a Converter or Spending a Card.
- Running a Converter: Run the violet arrow converter noted on the card then flip the card.
- Spending a Card: If another card's name is printed in the upgrade area, that is a prerequisite for upgrading. Both cards must be in play in your possession (not loaned to another player). Flip your upgrading card and put the prerequisite card underneath it.
Inventing Technologies
You may invent a technology by running the violet converter on a research team you control.
- Input: Spend one of the sets of resources printed to the left of the arrow. Each set is separated by a slash ( / ). Spent resources return to the general supply.
- Output: This produces the indicated points and invents the technology. Do not take the additional points for the Sharing Bonus yet.
- Preview: The bottom of the card shows the name of the technology invented and the new converter. Note that the colors of the resources in the output may differ by species.
After running this converter, flip the card over from the research team side to the technology side. Find the matching card in your species deck and put it into play.
Advice: Inventing on Turn 1. For new players, it's best not to invent any technologies on Turn 1. Experienced players can take the risk, but generally it's too much of a strain when your economy is still in its early stages.
End of the Trade Phase
Trade Phase continues until all but one player is done trading. If you feel it necessary, you may impose a 10-minute time limit to all trading. The turn then continues to the Economy Phase.
Economy Phase
No Negotiation
Negotiation is prohibited during the Economy Phase.
Colony Support
Check your Colony Support at the beginning of the Economy Phase. If you have more colonies than your Colony Support, you must put the excess under the colony deck.
Running Economic Converters
Players may run their economic converters during the Economy Phase. Economic converters have white arrows. Each converter can be run at most once per turn. Converting is optional. You may choose to not run a converter.
All economic converters are run simultaneously. As such, the output of one converter cannot be used as the input for another in the same turn. Converters with nothing to the left of the arrow can be run without input resources. Colonies are a common example of this.
First, put all resources you input onto the converters. Then, take resources from the common pool and put them on the outputs of your converters. Finally, return all input resources to the common pool.
Donation
Converters sometimes output "donation" resources, ships, or points, indicated with a dashed violet outline. Place your donations on your donation card.
During the next Trade Phase, you must trade away all donation goods. If you do not, you must gift them to another player at the end of the Trade Phase. Players cannot refuse a gift. Until the donations are traded or gifted, they must stay on your donation card to make their nature clear to the other players.
Donation victory points break the normal rule that points cannot be traded.
Wild Resources
Some species have converters that input or output wild resources. Those species have specific rules governing what they can do with wilds. In all cases, sizes cannot change. Small wild resources can only be small resource cubes. Large wild resources can only be large resource cubes.
- Unity inputs can be any mix of colors of the matching size. Unity's wild outputs are always wild gray resources.
- Eni Et have converters that input a single type of resource and output more resources of the same type. You may input Unity wilds, but they are not destroyed. Instead, pass the wilds through the converter unchanged, then fill in the remainder of the output with one type of resource in that size. You may mix wilds with one other resource type as input, in which case the output is that type of resource.
- Zeth cannot steal gray Unity wild resources.
Consuming Colonies
Some converters consume colonies with the correct climate icon. Those colonies are discarded front-side-up under the colony deck. The colony deck is not shuffled — it will go through the discarded colonies in the order they were discarded.
Confluence Phase
Sharing Technologies
First, players share technologies they invented during the Trade Phase then earn points for sharing those technologies. Each player announces every technology they invented and places them facedown in the middle of the play area. Splay the cards so that their names can be easily read.
For each technology you invented, you now receive points equal to the current Sharing Bonus printed on the Confluence card. The Yengii instead receive the Yengii Sharing Bonus.
Each player then searches their species deck for the newly invented technologies. Put them into play.
Era IV technologies are unique: they are not shared after they are invented. Despite this, era IV technologies do reward the Sharing Bonus normally.
Overview of Bidding
After technologies are shared, players bid ships for new colony cards and research team cards. These are two simultaneous hidden bids that determine the order in which the players can buy one card from each of the two bid tracks.
The number above each track space is the Minimum Bid, the lowest price to purchase a card in that space.
Before bidding begins, each player does the following: First, announce to the other players how many ships you have. Then, secretly divide your ships into a colony bid in one hand, the research team bid in another hand, and any ships you don't want to spend hidden behind your screen. Any of these can be empty. Put forth your closed fists to signal you are ready to bid.
Negotiation During Bidding
Players may briefly negotiate during the bidding, although only regarding what is being bid upon. You may try to convince another player to not take a card, in exchange for promises. Nothing can be traded until the next Trade Phase, although all deals are still binding.
Colony Bids
Once all players are ready, simultaneously reveal all colony bids. In order from highest bid to lowest, each player has the opportunity to buy a colony or pass:
- Buying a Colony: Return your bid ships to the general supply. Select a colony card from the Colony Bid Track. You may not select a colony card if its minimum bid is higher than your bid. If there are no colony cards you can buy, you must pass.
- Passing: If you pass, keep all the ships from your Colony bid.
Remember that Colony Support is only checked at the beginning of the Economy Phase. You may take colonies even if it would put you over this limit at this time.
Research Team Bids
Once all players have bought a colony or passed, resolve research team bids. Simultaneously reveal all Research bids. In order from highest bid to lowest, each player has the opportunity to buy a research team or pass:
- Buying a Research Team Card: Return your bid ships to the general supply. Select a research team card from the Research Team Bid Track. You may not select a research team card if its minimum bid is higher than your bid. If there are no research team cards you can buy, you must pass.
- Passing: If you pass, keep all the ships from your Research Team bid.
Tiebreakers
In both bidding rounds, two or more players might tie by bidding the same number of ships. In that case, the player with fewer of the type of card being bid on (colonies or research teams) gets to choose first. If players are still tied, the player with the highest tiebreaker number on their species board chooses first.
Advice: Bidding on Turn 1. 3 for a colony and 1 for research is a good turn 1 bid.
Advice: Research Teams. When selecting a research team to buy, new players often get bogged down looking at the converters that each will add to the game. Even for experienced players, the results of a technology are much less important than simply determining whether you can afford the resource cost to invent it. If you must choose a research team based on what it invents, remember that every player will benefit from that invention. Don't pick something just because it synergizes well with your own economy, as it likely does the same for everyone. Instead, pick a technology that drives up supply or demand. Pick a converter that consumes a resource you over-produce or produces more of a resource that you desperately need. Think about how technologies warp the playing field of the game, not merely what they do for you.
End of Confluence Phase
At the end of the Confluence phase, take all remaining cards with a minimum bid of 1 and put them under their respective decks, front-side face up.
Then, slide all remaining cards in the tracks all the way to the left and fill the empty spaces to the right from the top of the research team or colony deck, as appropriate. Do not flip cards as you draw them: keep them front-side face up.
Ending the Turn
At the end of each turn, players return any cards that have another species' border.
The current Confluence Technology Sharing Bonus card is flipped upside down and added to the splay of shared technologies. The back of that card lists what phases remain in the game so players can plan accordingly.
Then, if there are any Confluence cards left in the stack, go on to the next Trade Phase.
Zeth Steal Phase
When Zeth are in the game, add an additional phase called Zeth Steal Phase. Zeth may run their red stealing converters during this phase. The output of a red converter steals non-wild resources from another player. See the Zeth species board for more details.
Ending the Game
If there are no Confluence cards left, it is the last turn of the game. During the last turn's Economy Phase, you keep any donations you output. The final Confluence Phase is replaced with scoring the game.
Endgame Points
Players receive the final turn Sharing Bonus for any technologies invented, as if those technologies had been shared.
Resources and ships are worth points at the end of the game. Score is tracked down to ½ point. Each octagon, every 2 large cubes, and every 3 small cubes and/or ships are worth ½ point.
Players reveal their hidden points. The player with the most victory points wins, having influenced the resulting multi-species society to hold most to their own ideals. There is no tiebreaker.
Optional Rules
Handicapping
If a group wants to adjust the strength of a species or a specific player, the easiest way to do this is to add or remove a single small cube from that player's starting resources.
Precise Resource Scoring
At the end of the game, instead of adding up half points, you can treat octagons as 6/12 point, large cubes as 3/12, and small cubes as 2/12. This gives a much more precise score, but takes longer to calculate.
Credits
Game Design: TauCeti Deichmann. Graphic Design: Errick Dadisman. Rulebook Layout: Patricia Rodriguez, Daniel Solis. Cover Art: Kwanchai Moriya. Proofing: Summer Mullins. Illustrations: Nakarin Sukontakorn. Additional Art: Shutterstock. © 2020 WizKids/NECA LLC. WizKids and related marks and logos are trademarks of WizKids. All rights reserved.