Terra on Tour Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
  • Game Board
• Setup
• The Terra Cards
• Object of the Game
• Playing the Game
  • 1. Challenge
    • Placing on an area
    • Placing on a scale
    • The three scales
  • 2. Estimation phase
  • 3. Scoring
    • Example A
    • Example B
  • End of the round
• Variant: Nobody Knows Anyway!
• End of the Game
• Scoring Summary
• Combining with the Big Terra Game

Components

• 1 game board
• 75 Terra cards
• 1 "Estimator" card (Schätzmeister)
• 1 "Challenger" card (Herausforderer)
• 1 card box
• 12 estimate stones in 6 player colours

The Terra cards come in 2 difficulty levels, recognisable by the coloured ruler strip on the card edge:

• Light green: for beginners
• Orange: for globetrotters

Game Board

The board shows a world map of land and sea areas, a starting field, a score track, a "Nobody Knows Anyway!" field, a YES field and a NO field, the three scales (year, length/distance and number), and an info box for scoring. The card box holds the Terra cards, and each player's estimate stones are placed on the board during play.

Setup

The game board is placed in the middle of the table. Each player receives 2 estimate stones in their colour. Each player places one of them as a scoring marker on space 3 of the score track.

The card box is filled with Terra cards. It is recommended to fill the card box completely, even if a game of Terra on Tour only needs a limited number of cards.

Note: The cards do not need to be shuffled before the first game. Simply fill the card box with the light green ruler strip facing forward.

The Terra Cards

The upper half of each card shows the information the players receive before placing their estimate stones:

1. Topic: each topic has 3 tasks, one of which is solved per round.

2. Photo: always relates to the item being sought and may give more or less concrete hints. Caution: the photo does not in all cases show exactly what is being sought.

3. Task 1: the number of areas in which the topic of the card can be found.

4. Tasks 2 and 3: measurements to be estimated. These refer to 2 of the 3 scales on the game board and are marked in colour as follows:

   • Green text: refers to the Year scale
   • Blue text: refers to the Length/Distance scale
   • Orange text: refers to the Number scale

   This information is visible while the card is in the card box.

The lower half of the card shows the solutions and some short additional information on the task:

5. Solution to Task 1: the area or areas in which the item sought can be found.
6. Hint for the solution to Task 1: a world map for quickly finding the areas sought.
7. Solutions to Tasks 2 and 3: the measurements sought.
8. Info box: additional information on the topic of the card.

The lower half of the card is hidden in the card box while estimate stones are being placed. The solutions only become visible when the card is taken out of the card box for evaluation.

Object of the Game

In each round, one player first estimates a sought area or a measurement that relates to one of the tasks on a Terra card. The other players then decide whether they consider this estimate right or wrong.

If the player was right, he and all fellow players who judged his answer correct receive points. If he was wrong, he and all players who judged his answer correct are eliminated from the current round and receive no points. Only the players who judged his answer wrong continue the round with a new estimate, until one of them is right or only one NO-sayer remains.

The player who has collected the most points at the end wins.

Playing the Game

For the first games it is recommended to play the first difficulty level (card border: light green ruler strip). Play as many rounds that every player is starting player the same number of times:

• with 2 or 4 players: 8 cards
• with 3 players: 9 cards
• with 5 or 6 players: 5 or 6 cards respectively

Alternatively, before the game begins the players can decide for themselves how many cards they want to play through.

The game is played over several rounds. A round proceeds as follows:

1. Challenge
2. Estimation phase
3. Scoring

1. Challenge

The players agree on who begins. This player is the starting player and receives the Estimator card (Schätzmeister). The player to his right is the Challenger (Herausforderer). He places the Challenger card in front of him on the table and also receives the card box. He names the topic of the front card in the card box. The other players may look at the card in the box, but may not take it out of the box.

The Challenger chooses one of the three tasks and reads it aloud. The Estimator may answer this task, but does not have to. The Estimator decides whether to accept the challenge or decline it. If he declines, he gives the Estimator card to the Challenger. The Challenger then becomes the Estimator and must give the answer himself.

Whoever gives the answer places his estimate stone on one of the areas of the world map, or on a field of one of the scales, depending on which task is to be solved.

Placing on an area

When areas are asked for, the Estimator places his estimate stone on a land or sea area of the world map. Sea areas are marked by a frame around their name.

Caution: sea areas include, besides the stretch of sea, the islands lying in them (such as Newfoundland in the North Atlantic or Sri Lanka in the Northern Indian Ocean), unless these are specially marked as land areas (e.g. Japan or New Zealand).

Example: West Coast, Rocky Mountains, Midwest, East Coast, Southern States and Central America are land areas. The Caribbean is a sea area, which also includes the islands lying in it.

Caution: the areas refer to different regions of the world and only roughly follow existing state borders. It can therefore happen that large states extend over several areas, such as the USA (including Hawaii) or Russia (including the larger islands in the Arctic Ocean and in the North-West Pacific). On the other hand, one area can include several states (wholly or partly), such as Central America or the Sahel.

Placing on a scale

When a unit of measurement is asked for, the Estimator places his estimate stone on the corresponding scale (the range between two lines).

The three scales

There are three scales, each relating to different measurements. Each card asks for measurements for two of the scales.

• Year scale: questions about a point in time or a period (a year or a century).
• Length/Distance scale: questions about lengths, heights and distances (centimetres, metres, kilometres).
• Number scale: all other measurements, e.g. area (m²/km²), volume (m³/km³), degrees (°C), percent (%), hours (h), litres (l), tonnes (t) and so on, as well as the number of different things or their age.

The unit of measurement asked for is often noted in brackets for questions on the number and year scales.

2. Estimation phase

After the Estimator has placed his estimate stone, the other players take turns clockwise. Each places his estimate stone either on YES, if he considers the answer correct, or on NO, if he thinks the answer is wrong.

When all players have placed their stones, the Estimator draws the Terra card from the card box without showing it to the other players. He checks secretly whether his answer is correct.

If the Estimator is right, the round ends immediately. The Estimator and the players who placed their stones on YES receive points, which are advanced at once on the score track. Players whose stones are on NO receive no points. Then all players take their estimate stones back.

If the Estimator is wrong, he puts the Terra card back into the card box and removes his estimate stone from the game board. He receives no points for this round, or may even lose points if he had to estimate as Challenger (see The Challenger below). The players who placed their stones on YES also remove them from the board and receive no points. Only the players who placed their stones on NO remain in the game.

The one of them who sits closest clockwise to the previous Estimator receives the Estimator card and places his estimate stone on an area or a scale field, depending on what was asked. He has the small advantage that he already knows, for at least one area or scale field, that it is not the correct answer.

The remaining players still in the game decide again whether to place on YES or NO, depending on whether they consider the new estimate right or wrong. The current Estimator then checks his answer secretly:

• If he is right, he and the players who placed on YES receive points.
• If he is wrong, he and all YES-sayers remove their estimate stones from the board. They receive no points in this round.

If more than one estimate stone is still on NO, the estimation phase continues. The next of the remaining players (NO-sayers) clockwise receives the Estimator card and places his stone.

The round ends as soon as a player has given the correct answer, or when only one NO-sayer remains. That last player may forgo estimating and immediately receive 3 points. Alternatively, he may take the Estimator card and give an estimate himself: if he is right he receives 5 points, and if he is wrong he receives 0 points.

Exception: in a game with only 2 or 3 players, the last player must also give an estimate. Only if he is right does he receive 5 points, as the new Estimator.

3. Scoring

The Estimator:

• If he is wrong, he receives 0 points.
• If he is right, he receives 5 points.
• If the first Estimator of a round is right alone, because all other players placed their stones on NO, he receives 7 points. If at least one player has placed a stone on YES, the Estimator receives 5 points.

YES-sayers:

• If the Estimator is wrong, all YES-sayers receive 0 points.
• If the Estimator is right, all YES-sayers receive 3 points.

NO-sayers:

• If the Estimator is wrong and more than one estimate stone is still on NO, the round continues for the NO-sayers (see above).
• If the Estimator is wrong and only one estimate stone is left on NO, its owner may immediately take 3 points or estimate once more himself. Exception: in a game with only 2 or 3 players, the last NO-sayer does not automatically receive points. He must estimate again: if he is wrong he receives 0 points, and if he is right he receives 5 points.
• If a NO-sayer becomes the new Estimator and gives the correct answer, he receives 5 points.

The Challenger:

• If the first Estimator of a round declines the challenge and gives the Challenger the Estimator card, the Challenger must estimate first. If the Challenger gives a wrong answer, he loses 3 points.
• If the Challenger gives the correct answer, he receives 7 points, regardless of whether any players placed their stones on YES.

Caution: a player cannot fall below 0 points.

Example A

Peter is up and receives the Estimator card. Christian, who sits to his right, receives the Challenger card and the card box. The topic of the card is the most dangerous airport. Christian asks Peter for the area in which this airport is located. Peter accepts the challenge and places his stone on the Tibetan Plateau.

Ellie, who sits to his left, must place her estimate stone next, on either YES or NO, depending on whether she considers Peter's answer right or wrong. She thinks the answer is wrong and places her stone on NO. The other players agree with her and all place their stones on NO.

Peter now draws the card from the box and checks the answer. He is right. All players therefore take their estimate stones back from the game board, and only Peter receives points. Since he was the first Estimator of the round and nobody placed a stone on YES, he advances his scoring marker on the score track by 7 spaces.

Had at least one of the other players considered Peter's answer right and placed a stone on YES, Peter would have received only 5 points and the YES-sayer would have received 3 points.

Example B

Ellie is up and receives the Estimator card. Peter, who sits to her right, receives the Challenger card and the card box. The topic is Tierra del Fuego. Peter asks Ellie for its current population. She has no idea and declines the challenge. Peter therefore receives the Estimator card from her, and as Challenger has the chance to receive 7 points if he answers correctly. He places his estimate stone on the orange scale between 500,000 and 1 million.

Now the other players take their turns clockwise. Ellie must place first, on YES or NO. She doubts Peter's answer and places her stone on NO. The next player, Anna, thinks Peter's answer is correct and places her stone on YES. The following players, Maria and Christian, place on NO as Ellie did.

Now Peter checks the answer without showing the card to the other players. Unfortunately his answer is not correct. He therefore takes his estimate stone off the game board and, as Challenger, loses 3 points. Anna, who had placed on YES, also takes her stone back and receives 0 points. She is out of this round.

Only Ellie, Maria and Christian remain in the game. They too take their estimate stones off the game board, and Ellie, who is up next, receives the Estimator card from Peter and estimates 50,000 to 100,000 inhabitants on the orange scale.

Maria and Christian doubt this answer too and place their stones on NO.

Ellie checks the answer and finds that she was indeed wrong. She takes her estimate stone off the board but loses no points. Then she passes the Estimator card and the card box on to Maria.

Maria estimates 1 to 2 million inhabitants. Christian thinks this answer is wrong too and places his stone on NO. Maria then checks the answer, and it is indeed wrong, so she receives 0 points. Christian declines to give an answer himself and receives 3 points for being the last to place on NO.

Had he taken the Estimator card and given a correct answer, he would have received 5 points for it. Had he answered wrongly, he would have received 0 points.

End of the round

At the end of the round, the player in front of whom the Challenger card lies passes it on clockwise. The new Challenger also receives the card box, while his left-hand neighbour becomes the new starting player and receives the Estimator card.

Variant: Nobody Knows Anyway!

Additional rule. This field may optionally be added to the game. It is recommended not to use it in the first rounds.

On the game board there is a field marked "Nobody Knows Anyway!" (Das weiß eh keiner!).

After the first Estimator has placed his estimate stone, the other players place on YES or NO as usual. In this first pass, before the first Estimator checks the answer, a player (but not the Estimator) may instead place his estimate stone on "Nobody Knows Anyway!". Once a player has placed a stone there, the following players can no longer use this field in that round. The stone stays on this field until the end of the round.

Scoring:

• If nobody has given the correct answer by the end of the round, the player who placed on "Nobody Knows Anyway!" receives 2 points per fellow player. For example, in a five-player game he has 4 fellow players and receives 8 points.
• If at least one player gives the correct answer, the player who placed on "Nobody Knows Anyway!" loses 1 point per fellow player. For example, in a five-player game he has 4 fellow players and loses 4 points.

End of the Game

The game ends when the players have played the number of rounds fixed at the start of the game. The player with the most points wins. In case of a tie, there are several winners.

Note: the information on the Terra cards comes from various sources on the internet and in specialist books, which differ to a greater or lesser degree. Figures are often averages of several sources. Some of the content queried in the game is subject to yearly fluctuation, and records are broken over time. The game uses, as far as possible, current values from 2014 and 2015. For cards that ask for the year of a discovery, the European perspective is the basis. Where a superlative is used (the largest, highest, longest, etc.), it always refers to the whole world, unless a restriction is stated (for example "the largest X in Asia").

Scoring Summary

Situation	Correct answer	YES-sayers
Only the 1st Estimator correct	7 points	No YES-sayers
Estimator and YES-sayers correct	5 points	3 points
Estimator wrong	0 points	0 points
Challenger (+ YES-sayers) correct	7 points	3 points
Challenger wrong	-3 points	0 points

The last remaining NO-sayer receives 3 points (in a game of 4 or more players).

Combining with the Big Terra Game

Suggestion for globetrotters.

Besides the cards from Terra on Tour, one of the small stones can also be used as a scoring marker for the big Terra game, so that an additional estimate stone is available there.

Variant rule for Terra: if a player is the only one to have given answer(s) in an area (that is, the only one to have placed stones there), he receives double the points for all points scored in that area.

Example: Max is the only player to have placed 2 stones on the year scale. One stone is wrong and one is adjacent. He loses the wrongly placed stone, but receives 6 points for the other (adjacent) stone instead of the usual 3 points. (A hit would have brought 14 points instead of 7.)