Terra Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Contents
• Set-up of the Game
• The Terra Cards
• Object of the Game
• How to Play
  • 1. Placing the Guessing Pieces
    • Placing a Piece in an Area
    • The Wind Rose
    • Placing a Guessing Piece on a Bar
    • Placing Another Piece
    • Passing
  • 2. Evaluation
    • Evaluation of the Areas
    • Evaluation of the Bars
    • Wrongly Placed Guessing Pieces
  • 3. Changing the Starting Player
• End of the Game
• Note on Card Information

Contents

• 1 gameboard
• 150 Terra cards in 4 difficulty levels
• 1 card box
• 36 guessing pieces in 6 player colors

There are Terra cards in 4 levels of difficulty - recognizable by the color of the yardstick:

• yellow: for beginners
• green: for enthusiastic travelers
• blue: for globetrotters
• red: for explorers

The wind rose on the card with a green or blue yardstick indicates a particular quarter of the world map (see explanation below).

The gameboard shows a world map with land and sea areas, a scoring track around the edge, bars for year, length/distance and number, a space for players' guessing pieces, a card box space for the Terra cards, a scoring information box, and a wind rose at all four corners.

Set-up of the Game

Put the gameboard in the middle of the table. Each player gets 6 guessing pieces of one color and places one of them next to space 1 on the scoring track.

Fill the card box with the Terra cards. It is advisable to fill the box completely, even though you need only a limited number of cards for a game of TERRA.

Note: Before the first game, you don't need to shuffle the cards - just insert them into the card box, with the yellow yardstick side showing to the front.

The Terra Cards

The upper half of the card shows the information players get before they place their guessing pieces:

1. Topic - There are 3 questions for each topic; the active player decides which and how many questions he will try to solve.
2. Photo - always refers to the item asked about; can give more or less concrete clues. Watch out: The photo doesn't show exactly the item asked about in all cases.
3. Question 1 - Number of areas in which the topic asked about on the card can be found.
4. Questions 2 and 3 - Measurements to be estimated; each refers to 2 of the 3 bars on the gameboard. They are color-marked as follows:
   • Green writing: refers to the year bar
   • Blue writing: refers to the length/distance bar
   • Orange writing: refers to the number bar

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

The lower half of the card shows the solutions, plus some brief additional information on the respective item.

5. Solution to question 1 - the area(s) in which the item asked about can be found.
6. Clue for the solution to question 1 - a world map to quickly find the applicable areas.
7. Solutions to questions 2 and 3 - the estimated measurements asked for.
8. Information box - additional information on the topic on the card.

During the placement of the guessing pieces, the lower half of the card is concealed by the card box. The solutions are shown only when the card is taken out of the card box for evaluation.

Object of the Game

Each round, players estimate or guess the areas and measurements regarding the topic on the current Terra card. In turn, they place their guessing pieces on the world map and the corresponding bars. At the end of a round, players score points for correct and close estimates, whereas they have to put away wrongly placed guessing pieces. The player who has accumulated the most points by the end of the game wins.

How to Play

For the first few games, we recommend that you play the cards of the lowest difficulty level (card frame: yellow yardstick). The higher difficulty levels (green, blue and red yardsticks) can be used - unshuffled - in later games as separate stacks. But it is also possible to combine all four difficulty levels in any way as a mixture.

In a game of TERRA, each player should be the starting player an equal number of times. Before the game begins, players determine how many cards they want to use.

Suggestion:

• with 2 players, 4 cards each - the game ends after 8 rounds
• with 3 players, 3 cards each - the game ends after 9 rounds
• with 4 players, 2 cards each - the game ends after 8 rounds
• with 5 or 6 players, 1 card each - the game ends after 5 or, respectively, 6 rounds

The game proceeds over several rounds. Each round consists of:

1. Placing the guessing pieces
2. Evaluation
3. Changing the starting player

1. Placing the Guessing Pieces

The starting player gets the card box and reads aloud the topic and the questions on the first card in the card box. The other players may also look at the card in the box individually, but without pulling it out of the box. All players consider where to place their guessing pieces. Beginning with the starting player and then in clockwise order, each player places one of his guessing pieces on the board, either in an unoccupied area or on an empty space on one of the bars.

Placing a Piece in an Area

You can place one of your guessing pieces in a land or sea area on the world map in which there is no other piece yet (neither yours nor another player's).

Sea areas are marked with a frame around their name.

Attention: Besides the water section, the sea areas also include the islands contained within them (e.g., Newfoundland in the North Atlantic, or Sri Lanka in the Northern Indian Ocean), unless these are specifically marked as land areas (e.g., Japan or New Zealand)!

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

Example of the placement of a guessing piece: The red player wants to place another one of his pieces in an area. The Southern States, Central America and the Rocky Mountains are already occupied by other pieces. Therefore, the red player has to choose a different area to place his guessing piece in.

Attention: The areas refer to different regions in the world and are only roughly based on actually existing country borders. So it can happen that large countries extend over several areas, e.g., the USA (including Hawaii) or Russia (including the larger islands in the Arctic Ocean and in the northwestern Pacific); on the other hand, one area can also comprise several countries (partly or completely), e.g., Central America or the Sahel.

The Wind Rose

(This section can be skipped if you don't use any cards with a green or blue yardstick.)

Two lines divide the world map into 4 quarters, each of which is marked with a wind rose. This wind rose is also shown on the cards with a green or blue yardstick and gives you an approximate clue as to where to find the area(s) asked about.

Example: The wind rose on the card indicates that the telescope is located in the northwest section of the world map, i.e., in the upper left quarter.

If one or more areas in question extend over more than one quarter, the wind rose highlights the quarter in which the item asked about is (if it can be located exactly); otherwise, it indicates the quarter with the largest applicable portion of the area. In the case of Britannia or Iberia, for example, sometimes the northwestern quarter can be indicated, and other times, it can be the northeastern quarter, depending on the question.

Placing a Guessing Piece on a Bar

You can place one of your guessing pieces on a space of one of the bars (i.e., the space between two marks) on which there is no other piece (your own or another player's).

Note: There are three bars, each referring to different measurements. Each card asks for measurements on two bars.

• Year bar - questions about a point in time or period of time (year or century)
• Length/distance bar - questions about length, height or distance (in centimeters, meters or kilometers)
• Number bar - all other measurements, e.g., questions about area (m²/km²), volume (m³/km³), degrees (°C), percent (%), hours (h), liters (l), tons (t), etc., or the number or age of different things

With questions about number and year, the unit of measurement asked for is often indicated (in parentheses).

After each player has placed one piece, everybody - again, beginning with the starting player - may place another piece, in turn, or pass.

Placing Another Piece

On your turn, you may place another one of your guessing pieces in a vacant area or on a vacant space of a bar. During a round, you can place several pieces on the same bar; and you can place several pieces in different areas as well, as long as you have guessing pieces left.

Passing

If you pass because you are no longer willing or able to place pieces, your placement in this round ends. It is not possible to re-enter this round any more.

When all players have passed, the evaluation of this round takes place.

2. Evaluation

Pull the Terra card completely out of the card box. First, the areas are evaluated; then, the bars. Each placed piece is scored only once: either 7 points (exact) or 3 points (adjacent). If, for instance, a piece has been placed correctly (7 points) and, at the same time, is adjacent to another correct space, you can't score another 3 points for this.

Evaluation of the Areas

You score 7 points for each guessing piece you have placed in a correct area. You score 3 points for each guessing piece you have placed in an area that is adjacent to a correct area. Immediately advance your piece on the scoring track around the edge of the gameboard.

Example of an area evaluation: The Terra card "Pyramids of Giza" has one correct area: East Sahara. The East Sahara area has 5 adjacent areas (4 land areas and 1 sea area). The white player scores 7 points; the blue player, 6 points (2x adjacent). The yellow player doesn't get any points (the Middle East is not adjacent to the East Sahara area).

Adjacent areas: Two areas are adjacent if they either have a common border or touch each other as a land area or sea area.

The evaluation of the areas is followed by the evaluation of the bars.

Evaluation of the Bars

As in the area evaluation, you score points both for exact hits and for answers that are slightly off the mark. You score 7 points for each guessing piece you have placed on a correct space of a bar. You score 3 points for each guessing piece that is adjacent to a correct space.

Example of a bar evaluation: Since the exact answer is "1950," the two spaces left and right of "1950" are considered hits. If "1950s" or "1952" were answers, only the space to the right of "1950" would count as a hit; the space left of the year would only be adjacent. In this example, White and Blue each score 7 points; Red scores 3 points. The players immediately advance their pieces on the scoring track.

Wrongly Placed Guessing Pieces

Put the guessing pieces you have received a score for back into your personal supply. Guessing pieces that were not scored are collected next to the gameboard. Some of them will be available to the players again only after the starting player has changed.

3. Changing the Starting Player

At the end of the round, the card box is passed to the next player (in a clockwise direction). He becomes the starting player for the new round. Each player gets back one of his guessing pieces from the stock next to the gameboard, provided he has any pieces in there.

But if you now have fewer than 3 guessing pieces in front of you, you may refill your personal supply to 3 guessing pieces, so that you have at least 3 pieces you can place in the new round.

End of the Game

The game ends when the players have played the number of rounds agreed upon at the beginning of the game. The player who has the most points after this final round wins the game. In case of a tie, there is more than one winner.

Note on Card Information

The information on the Terra cards comes from various Internet sources and from reference books on the subjects. Depending on the source, the specifics diverge more or less significantly. In some cases, the locations or the dates of the records differ in the different sources. Therefore, the information on the cards is often based on average values from the different sources. In addition, some of the content asked for in the game is subject to annual fluctuations; and records can be broken over time. As far as possible, we tried to take up-to-date values from 2013 and 2014 as a basis. On cards that ask for the year of discovery, answers are based on the European perspective. If a superlative is given (the tallest, highest, longest, etc.), this always refers to the entire world, unless a restriction is given (e.g., "the largest XY in Asia").

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© 2014 HUCH! & friends

Author: Friedemann Friese

Design: Sabine Kondirolli / HUCH! & friends

Production + distribution: Hutter Trade GmbH + Co KG