Clash of Cultures: Monumental Edition FAQ
215 questions players ask · Updated Nov 8, 2026 · Full rulebook
Game Flow
- What happens when a player has no cities?
- Is there a free advance or event card at the end of the last Age?
- What do I get when I lose a city?
- Does a civilization keep its Civ advance when it changes government?
- How do Ages, Rounds and turns fit together?
- Must I perform all three Main Actions each turn?
- When can I take a Free Action, and how often?
- Do unhappy cities still score their buildings?
- Does the game start with a Happy city?
- Do civilization starting region tiles replace the normal starting tile?
- What are the steps of the Status Phase?
- What does the X1 icon mean?
Combat
- Does an army entering an undefended enemy city capture it without a combat roll?
- Does moving into an undefended enemy city count as a battle for objectives?
- Does a Routing combat card trigger when neither side eliminated any units?
- Can I choose the order in which Clash icons resolve, for example re-rolling a Leader icon before using an Elephant?
- Must I activate a Clash icon I rolled, such as an Elephant's, if I have the matching unit?
- How does the Elephant Clash icon work: does it add to combat value or cancel a hit?
- Do caps on combat value, such as Hannibal's or the Elephants advance's +2, apply to the total of all modifiers?
- Can Cyrus the Great play any Action card as a +2 combat card in land battle?
- Does an Archers removal before melee count as eliminating a unit in the battle?
- Do land units, including Leaders, roll dice or add strength in naval battles?
- If Ships carrying land units enter a sea space with enemy Ships, must the naval battle happen before the units land?
- What happens to land units aboard Ships that are destroyed in a naval battle?
- Where do Ships or disembarked land units retreat to?
- When does Persia's Immortals ability resolve in combat?
- Can an attacker without the Tactics advance play an Action card in battle, and can Barbarians?
- How many hits does a combat roll inflict?
- Do I pay for Steel Weapons once per battle or every combat round?
- Does Metallurgy make Steel Weapons free against every opponent?
- In a battle, who decides first on Steel Weapons and Siegecraft, and can the defender use Steel Weapons if the attacker didn't?
- Can I pay Gold instead of Ore for Steel Weapons?
- Is Siegecraft paid once per battle or each combat round?
- Can I use Siegecraft when attacking from a Ship?
- How does a Fortress work when the city has no army units, and who wins?
- Who wins if both sides lose all units in the same round, or if the attacker retreats?
- After an attack using Roads, how far does the army retreat?
- Do Leaders count as Army Units, and who picks casualties?
- Who chooses which Barbarian units are removed as casualties?
- What happens to enemy Settlers when my army moves into their space?
- What do I gain when I capture a city, and in what order?
- How much Gold do I get for capturing a Barbarian city?
- What if I capture a city but have no spare city-pieces to replace its buildings?
- What happens to buildings under another player's Cultural Influence when a city is captured?
- Can I destroy or raze an enemy city instead of capturing it?
- Does a city's size make it harder to conquer?
- Who gets the Fortress benefit when I attack a city Barbarians have conquered?
- Does the High Ground tactic card stop Steel Weapons?
- Does Attila's Horse Master let me choose the Clash icon after rolling?
- How does the Leader Clash icon re-roll work?
- How is a naval battle resolved?
- If my units fought during an opponent's turn, can they still move on my turn?
- Do naval Leader abilities work only when the Leader is on a Ship in the battle?
- How is the Combat Value computed after rolling?
Movement
- How many units or groups can one Move action move, and what counts as a group?
- Can a unit that already moved join a new group and move again in the same Move action?
- Do I choose all groups in a Move action first, or can I resolve one group's battle before choosing the next?
- Can I move Army units without the Tactics advance?
- If one Move action sends two forces to different spaces and the first reveals a tile making the second destination sea, can the second still move?
- What is the stacking limit for units in a space?
- How long do forest, mountain and battle movement restrictions last?
- What does the Roads advance do and what does it cost?
- Do Roads cancel terrain penalties from an earlier Move action, or for the rest of the turn?
- Can Roads be used to move through my city, through enemy units, or onto a ship?
- Can gold gained mid-move pay for Roads on a later group in the same Move action?
- Do Roman Imperial Roads need to start and end in my own cities?
- Can units board a ship and disembark in the same Move action, or disembark after the ship moves?
- Can land units disembark straight onto an enemy city or enemy units from a ship?
- Can ships move more than once in a turn?
- Is there a stacking limit on Ships in a sea space?
- How far does Navigation move a ship, and can it enter landlocked seas?
- When does Cartography pay out, and does a free Move action like Hanno's count?
- Does Maya's Terracing let an army moving with a Leader ignore mountain penalties?
- Does founding a city on a mountain cancel the mountain movement penalty?
- After capturing a city, can I move my other units later in the same turn?
- How can a military unit move more than one space?
- Is there a limit on units on a sea space?
Activate City
- Can I activate the same city more than once in a turn, and what happens to its mood?
- How many resources does a city collect, and from where?
- Can two of my cities collect from the same open space in one turn?
- Can a city with Fishing collect food from every adjacent sea space?
- How does a Port change collecting, and can it give resources from more than one sea space?
- Can a city collect from sea if an enemy ship sits on the Port's sea space?
- Does Animal Husbandry give an extra collection, and can it collect Ore or Wood?
- How can I collect two Ore in one Collect action?
- Does Public Education's extra Idea count toward the Collect limit?
- Does collecting through Economic Liberty or another free action activate the city?
- What are the limits on constructing buildings?
- What if I lose cities and a city is now larger than my number of cities?
- What does State Religion do?
- How many units can I recruit in one Recruit action, and do I have to recruit the maximum?
- Do units recruited with Sanitation or Draft count toward the recruit limit, and can an Angry city buy a second unit?
- What if I have no more of a unit type left to recruit?
- Can a unit recruited in a just-captured city move and attack the same turn?
- Do Viking Marauders and a Market trade resolve in a particular order?
- Does Japan's Draft or Shogunate let a city recruit more than its size allows?
Happiness and Founding
Influence Culture
- How does Influence Culture work, and which buildings can it convert?
- Can an influenced city boost a roll, or a city boost a roll aimed at itself?
- How do I remove another player's Cultural Influence, or change a building already influenced?
- If an influenced city is captured, do I keep the Cultural Influence, and what about an Obelisk?
- Does Conversion's +1 still apply when political advances block boosts, and can I combine it with Culture token boosts?
Exploration
Advances
- What does an Advance cost, and can I buy more than one per action?
- Must I buy the top advance of a category before the others, e.g. Bartering before Trade Routes?
- When a card or ability gives a free advance, does its cube come from the Event track or my supply?
- Can I have two governments at once, and what happens to cubes when I change government?
- Can Free Education convert an Idea from Philosophy in the same action, and does it trigger when buying itself?
- Do Civilization advances count as regular advances for scoring, and when are they gained?
Civilizations and Advances
- What does the Observatory do in Monumental Edition?
- Can Carthage pay a Culture token instead of a resource to buy an Elephant, even without a Market?
- Do I need a Market to recruit the Elephants or Cavalry my civilization's own tech unlocks?
- Can Indian Elephants recruit Elephants without a Market?
- Can Banking (Persia) give gold without any trade routes?
- Can Aztec Gold's resource swap be used on the space a city is built on?
- Do the Huns' trade-route blocking and Viking Marauders interact?
- Can Settlers within two spaces of a Hun army found cities or make trade routes?
- Do I need to build a ship first to use Viking Shipcraft?
- Do Phoenicia's Ports count for City Independence in another player's city?
- Can Phoenician Alphabet and Currency combine on one trade route?
- Does Attila's size bonus apply to the Recruit action that recruits him, and does it stack with Mounted Archers?
- Do the Huns need a Market for Cavalry in a size 1 city, and can the new Cavalry move?
- Can Rome spend several Mood tokens as resources under Slavery?
- Do Babylonia's event bonuses apply to events drawn by other players?
- How do China's Rice Paddies and Fireworks work?
- How do Aztec Expansionist, Tribute Empire and Spread of Fear work?
- Can Carthage make pirate ships allies by moving land units onto them?
- How do Druidic Influence and Tribal Allies work for the Celts?
- Does Japan's Draft count toward the recruit limit?
- Does Cultural Awe's Settlement replacement trigger Maya's bonus?
- Does the attacking-from-a-ship bonus (Warships, Vikings) last all turn?
- Can a size 1 Hun city that moves as a unit explore?
- Does Fighting Bands exchange any number of Settlers and Infantry?
- Where does the replacement unit come from when I've run out and use a captive?
- Can Taxation be paid with a mix of resource types, and does Forced Labor use an action?
Leaders
- Do Imhotep's Physician and Hammurabi's Guardian make buildings cost only Ore?
- What counts as a Leader's city for abilities?
- Does Hanno's free move trigger Cartography?
- Is the Culture paid to attack Cleopatra's Beloved city spent if the attack fails?
- Does a city's mood change how many tokens Cyrus the Great gives?
- What does Augustus's Princeps discard?
- Which buildings does Go-Toba's ability refer to?
- Can Caesar's Proconsul Infantry be used in the same Move action, and does it trigger Nationalism?
Wonders
- How many victory points is a Wonder worth, and what about the Pyramids?
- Do Wonders count toward city size?
- What happens to a Wonder when its city is destroyed or captured?
- How do I get Wonder cards and are they random?
- How often can the Great Arena add +1 CV?
- Does the Great Library let me use an advance's building I don't own?
- Does the Great Wall pay out when Barbarians attack the walled city?
Key Concepts
- When a rule says to count spaces, do sea and unrevealed spaces count?
- Can Gold replace any resource, including Ideas, for costs like Steel Weapons or Roads?
- What does Medicine return: the Gold I spent, a Mood token, or the resource it replaced?
- Can Bartering discard or use a Leader card?
- Where do Mood tokens go when I spend them or a city becomes neutral?
- How do Trade Routes work?
Events
- Do Famine, Volcano and similar events affect only the player who drew them, or everyone?
- In what order does an Event resolve: icon or card text?
- When are Event cards drawn, and are they the only way Barbarians appear or move?
- Can Barbarians wreck my early game in this edition?
- Where exactly does a Barbarian Settlement spawn?
- When Barbarians spawn, where does the second unit go, and can it be Cavalry or an Elephant?
- Can Barbarians be placed on undiscovered tiles, or explore?
- How does a Barbarians Move event work?
- Can Barbarians moved by an event enter a space with another player's units?
- Who controls Barbarians in a battle?
- What happens when Barbarians capture a city?
- How does the Earthquake event work: how many pieces, which cities, and do they come back?
- Who scores VP for a building under another player's Cultural Influence destroyed by Earthquake or Volcano?
- What if an Event tells me to do something I can't, such as placing an Exhausted Land marker with no legal space?
- What does an Exhausted Land marker block?
- What does the Revolution "Et tu, Brute?" event do if I have no Leader on the map?
- Where do Pirate ships spawn and what do they do?
- What do I get for defeating Pirate Ships?
- What happens with the Trojan Horse card, and who scores?
- Who can keep an Event card that is passed on?
- Does the Solar Eclipse restriction on Armies apply in naval battles?
- Can Markzen return units lost to the Black Death?
Action Cards
- Does an Action card with a red A cost an action, and what about green A cards?
- Can tactic and Action cards be played in battles against Barbarians, and does the culture cost apply to the combat side?
- Can an Action card that triggers after a battle be played after a battle the opponent started on their turn?
- Does the Great Mausoleum change the order Action cards are discarded in combat, and is a cancelled card still discarded?
- How does Tech Synergy work: two advances, payment, and cubes?
- When two Action cards are played together, does Scouts resolve before Martyr?
- How does the Martyr Action card resolve?
- When both Action cards have 'on reveal' effects, which resolves first?
- If Mercenaries makes Barbarians kill an opponent's Leader, do I get the VP or loot?
- Who can discard the Great Diplomat card?
- Can I play Exchange of Technology if the opponent has nothing to copy, or copy a tech without having its top advance?
- Does Inspiration let me skip an advance category's top advance or prerequisites?
- Can Heroic General be played on a city I just captured?
- Does Negotiations stop me from attacking an undefended city?
- Must units an Action card removes come from the battle it was played in?
- Does Focused Collection allow several resources from one hex?
- If Cultural Awe's Influence Culture attempt fails, can I try again with the card?
- Does a Ship count as an Army for Action cards?
- Can Subterfuge cancel a Great Person event card?
Objective Cards
- Can I play the Monumental Culture objective immediately after building the Great Statue?
- Does 'more than any other player' on an objective mean more than every other player?
- Can I keep a completed objective hidden and score it later?
- Can one capture complete two objectives, or two with the same name?
- How many objectives can one card complete and what are they worth?
- Do Daring and Against All Odds differ, and what does 'fewest units' mean?
- Do my own eliminated units count toward the Warlord objective?
- Does King Slayer need the Leader and two Army units eliminated in the same battle?
- How is the Focused objective scored?
- Do enemy-influenced buildings in my cities count for objectives like most Markets or Ports?
- How do the Wonderful objective's two conditions work?
- Does killing a Settler count for the trade-route objective if its city was unhappy?
- Does water count toward distance on objectives?