Overview

This is a wonderful strategic game where one’s goal is to use one’s workers to maximum capacity while building buildings which create both income & victory points for the player! In the end, whoever is able to obtain the most victory points is the winning player!

Gameplay

The game is played over a series of turns, until someone has reached 17 points.

On your turn, you get to take 3 actions and additional actions, at the cost of 5 coins for each extra action.

You may use actions to:

• Start a Construction
• Recruit a Worker
• Make an Investment
• Send a Worker to work
• Take Coins

Start a Construction

You take 1 Building from the five available Building cards and place it in front of you, at the cost of 1 action.

Recruit a Worker

You take 1 Worker from the five available Worker cards and place it in front of you, at the cost of 1 action.

Make an Investment

Once per turn, you can take one of the cards on the Investment line, at the cost of 1 action:

• purchase a prisoner: for 7 coins, you can take one of the slaves in the Investment line. The slave is considered as a Worker, but does not have to be paid when sent to work. At the cost of one action (or 5 coins at the end of the game), you can free them, but they now have to be paid when sent to work. Each slave makes you lose a victory point at the end of the game if not freed. A Slave cannot use a tool or be educated until freed.
• buy a tool: for 2 coins, you can take one of the tool cards on the Investment line. Whenever you send a Worker to work, you can equip them with the tool at no additional cost (no coin or action).
• take a loan: you can take a loan card from the Investment line, gaining 10 coins. However, at the end of the game, you must pay 15 coins for each taken loan, or lose 2 points per unpaid loan. Paying a loan isn't an action.
• educate a Worker: for 7 coins, you can take one of the clear education card on the Investment line and add it on top of one of your available Workers. The new resource level replaces the old one and the cost for sending this worker to work is not increased. An education card remains on the same worker until the end of the game.

Send a Worker to work

You place one of your Workers next to one of your buildings under construction. You must pay the coin cost indicated on the Worker card. That Worker is now tied to the Building until it is completed.

Sending a worker has a cost of 1 action, except:

• if you send a second Worker, on the same turn, to the same Building, sending that 2nd Worker has a cost of 2 actions.
• if you send a third Worker, on the same turn, to the same Building, sending that 3rd Worker has a cost of 3 actions.
• etc...

So if you send another Worker to a different Building, it only cost you a standard 1 action.

Take Coins

You can spend 1 action to get 1 coin, 2 actions to get 3 coins or 3 actions to get 6 coins.

Completing a Building

When you send a Worker to a Building, if the total Resources of all the Workers you have sent to that Building now equal or exceed the requirements for that Building, the Building is Complete.

The Workers you had sent there are returned to you, available for future actions. You receive the coin and point rewards indicated on the Building card.

Machines: Machines are special types of Buildings. They do not grant you coins. Instead, when they are completed, they can be treated as a worker and sent to work, at no coin cost.

End of the game

If you end your turn with 17 or more points on your completed Buildings (and machines), the game will end. Any player who had yet to play the same number of turns (players between the one triggering the endgame and the first player) take a final turn.

Each player can free their slave (at a cost of 5 coins per slave) and pay back loans (at a cost of 15 coins per loan). If you are unable to pay, you lose 1 point per slave and 2 points per debt. You then add your Building and Machine points, plus 1 point per 10 coins still in your possession.

Whoever has the highest score is the winner. In case of a tie, whoever has the most unscored coins wins.