Dinosaur Gauge Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Dinosaurs, Everybody!
• Components and Set-Up
• Starting a Game
• Flow of Play
• Take $5
• Place Tile
• Buy Stock
• Take Action
• Build Action
  • Building Bonus
  • Volcano
  • Difficult Builds
  • Destinations
  • Opening Airlines
  • Shipping Builds
• Deliver Action
• Produce Action
• Nest Action
• Recycle Action
• Stomp Market
• End of Game

Dinosaurs, Everybody!

The players will invest in these industries on the Stomp Market and take actions to better their fortunes. The player with the most money at the end of the game wins!

Components and Set-Up

The game is played with a mapsheet, two countersheets and 160 wood bits.

The map is made up of four kinds of hexes: Clear, Mountain, Swamp and Water.

Illustrations within a type of hex vary, but the background color remains consistent. So, for example, all four contiguous hexes in the example are mountains (one with a city-style circle, one blank, one with a mountain picture, and so on).

These hexes might also contain: a city, a town, two towns, a factory, or an airport (nest).

One of the two countersheets consists of hex tiles that over the course of the game will replace the water hexes. In addition to the types of hexes listed previously, there is also a Volcano!

(1) Place all 32 tiles in a bag or opaque container. If playing with three or five players, draw and place one tile of each of the two hexes with an asterisk. If you draw a City or a Factory tile for one of these asterisked hexes, return it to the bag and draw a replacement.

Let's look at the other countersheet.

Circular City counters come in three colors, indicating which kind of good they're interested in receiving.

(2) Randomly place one City counter in each City hex.

Factory tokens are used to place new Factories for one of the game's two manufacturing firms.

(3) Place one of the appropriate Factories in their starting locations. Place one token for each company on its first space of the Factory Track. Place the other two in a stack in the space above their dino's noggin.

Most of the remaining tokens are shares of Stock.

(4) Make a stack for each company, with the lowest numbered share on top, and the highest numbered on the bottom. Place each stack in the space next to its company's name.

(Example: Rex Express shares numbered 3, 6, 12, 18 and 24, the 18 share marked with one dot and the 24 share with two dots, stacked with the 3 on top beside the company name.)

(5) Give each player an Engineer Bonus token.

We'll explain how it works later. Now, let's take a look at all those wood bits.

Each railroad has 30 cubes representing its rail network.

(6) Place one cube in each railroad's starting hex.

(7) Place one cube in its space on the Stomp Market.

(8) Divide the rest among the five spaces to the right of the company's stack of Stock tokens, placing a number of cubes equal to what's printed on the space.

There are 3 types of Goods in the game, each wanted by Cities of that color. Each type of Good has 6 discs.

(9) Place these discs in the Market in the appropriate column. Take the top disc from each column and randomize them. Place one on each Factory, and one in the "Waste" space.

Finally, each Airline has 6 Nests.

(10) Place one in each company's starting location. Place the others in the space next to its Stocks.

One last thing you'll need that is not provided is play money. Or, if you wanna make it interesting, real money.

Starting a Game

Arrange some of the Stocks into sets determined by the number of players.

3 players: Each set has one of these (a REX 3, an NDL 4 and a TRI 5 share, one per set), a random one of these (the three $8 shares: SPINO A, LIOPL B, LIOPL C), and a random one of these (the $9 THERZ T, the $9 UTAH U and the $6 BRC shares). Give each player $25.

4 players: Each set has one of these (a REX 3, an NDL 4, a TRI 5 and a BRC 6 share, one per set), plus a random share from the pool (the pool holds LIOPL B, SPINO A, UTAH U, THERZ T and LIOPL C shares). In a 4 player game, return the leftover pool share to its stack.

5 players: The same as with 4, except form a fifth set, using the REX 6 share.

For both 4 and 5 player games, give each player $20.

Randomly determine a player to buy the first set; they pay an amount of their starting cash equal to the sum of the Shares. Take the Stocks into your possession, along with the rail cubes in that company's first space (second for the $6 REX share at 5P). In clockwise fashion, each player buys one of the remaining sets. The player with the least amount of money has the first actual turn of the game.

Tie for least money: that can only happen with five players if both the BRC and the REX are paired with a Factory. In that case the player who buys the BRC set should go first (because it starts with B).

Flow of Play

On a player's turn, they perform the following steps in order:

1. Take $5
2. Place Tile
3. Buy Stock
4. Take Action

Then, play passes clockwise. The game will end after the turn of the player who places the last tile.

This means each player will get 10 turns in a 3 player game, 8 for 4, and 6 for 5.

Take $5

At the start of your turn, take $5 from the bank.

Place Tile

Next, randomly draw a tile from the bag and place it on any uncovered water hex.

(Examples: one player places a two-town tile on a water hex, cutting off a shipping route and creating an island; another places a mountain tile along the coast, connecting a two-town island to the mainland.)

Buy Stock

Next, you may – but are not required to – buy ONE share of Stock. You may only buy the top share of the stack. When you buy a share, you get a bonus:

Railroad: Take the rail cubes from its next available space. If the space has one or two Stomp symbols on it, advance its Share Value that number of spaces (see Stomp Market later in these rules).

Shipping: If you have at least one cube in your possession, place one of your cubes (any color) in that company's box. (The rulebook notes that shipping is explained a couple of pages later.)

Factory: Take a Factory token and place it in any Clear, Mountain, or Swamp hex that does not contain a City, Town, Nest, or Factory. (And by "any", we do mean "any". As far as placement goes, distance from other Factories doesn't matter, it doesn't need any kind of "connection".)

Airline: Take one Nest. Note that you cannot buy an Airline Stock until that Airline has been opened (for more on this, see page 8).

Take Action

Finally, you must take one (and only one) of the following actions:

• Build
• Deliver
• Produce
• Nest
• Recycle

Each action has certain requirements which we'll cover in greater detail in the pages that follow. If you don't meet the requirement for an action, you cannot perform it. It is not possible to "pass", or to choose an action and then not perform it.

Build Action

This action expands a railroad's track network, which is represented by cubes placed in non-water hexes. To take this action, you must possess at least one cube, and be able to place at least one cube.

Choose one color of cube, and then place them, one hex at a time. You may place as many cubes as you like and have of that color. Generally, a new cube must be placed in a hex adjacent to another cube of that same color. (The exception is building via Shipping, which we'll get to in a moment.)

Each hex can contain at most three cubes, and each railroad may only have one cube in a hex.

Building Bonus

If you use up all the cubes that you currently have of a given color, you get a $5 bonus.

Volcano

You may never Build into a Volcano tile; you'll have to go around it.

Difficult Builds

The first time a cube is placed in a Mountain hex, you must spend a second cube of the same color to build a tunnel. Subsequent builds into that hex do not pay this additional cost; the tunnel is already there!

Every time a cube is placed in a Swamp hex, you must spend a second cube of the same color.

Any time you spend a cube on one of these Difficult Builds, you place the spent cube in an area indicated by your Engineer Bonus token, where it will earn you some extra money at the end of the game. It is important to note that cubes in this area are no longer in your possession, and cannot be used to Build further track.

Destinations

If you are the first one to build into a hex containing a Stomp Market symbol, the railroad company you're building for advances one space on the Stomp Market.

Opening Airlines

If you are the first player to build into a hex containing an Airline Nest, that Airline is opened. Take the first Stock of that Airline for free, along with a Nest. Place another Nest on the Stomp Market in the lowest-numbered space that is adjacent to a railroad's cube. Opening an Airline makes its Stock available for purchase.

Shipping Builds

Shipping routes are printed on the map, and indicated by a letter – A, B, or C – that is tied to one of the three Shipping companies. When a Shipping route runs into a hex or tile, that hex or tile is called a Port.

When taking a Build action for a railroad, you may Build from one Port to another Port that is connected via the same Shipping route. To do so, you must pay one cube of that color to that Shipping company's box.

You don't need to keep track of which route you've used or anything like that. The game has no "memory", and neither do the dinosaurs.

The point is, every time you do a Shipping build, you look at it anew, tracing a route from one Port to another.

Example: There are only three ports in the pictured example, all connected to each other by the A route. Yellow could build from Port #1 to Port #2 by paying a cube to the box for Spinosaurus Shipping (A). They could also build to Port #3 via Shipping, paying that extra cube, if they really wanted to!

Deliver Action

This action moves a Good from a Factory to a City of the matching color. To take this action, you must have at least one Stock in a rail company – "the acting company" – that can move the Good.

Choose a hex that contains a Factory, a Good, and a rail cube from the acting company. Trace a contiguous line of hexes containing the acting company's cubes ending in a City of the same color as the Good. Each hex may only be passed through once. You may use any Shipping route without penalty while tracing your Delivery, so long as every non-water hex entered contains one of the acting company's cubes.

When making a Delivery, you are normally required to stop at the first City that matches the Good. You can move past the first City of that color if you can Devour another good (any color): The Devoured Good must come from a Factory belonging to the same Factory company; that hex must contain a cube from the acting company. You must be able to trace a separate line from this second Factory to the City you wish to move past. Place the Devoured Good in the Waste box.

If you can Devour a second Good, you can move past a second City of that color.

As you move the original Good to its final destination, count every City or Town that the line passes through, including the final City. Yes, hexes containing two Towns naturally count as two. Note that Cities containing a Nest count as two.

Multiply this total by the lowest-numbered uncovered space in that Good's column of the Market. The resulting product is the Dividend paid by the acting company. Divide the total by the number of Stocks in player hands, and pay each Stock's owner that amount, rounding any fractions up.

Move the Good to the Waste box.

Next, advance the acting company's Stomp Market cube by a number of spaces equal to the number of Stocks in player hands. Finally, the Factory company that provided the good also benefits: advance its marker on the Factory Track one space toward the rival company.

Example: the solid line shows a delivery route with six stops, ending in the first purple city. If there was another T factory with another good (of any type), you could continue along the dotted line, hitting four more stops, for a total multiplier of 10!

Produce Action

This action places new Goods on a company's Factories. To take this action, you must hold a Stock in a Factory company, and at least one of that company's Factories must not have a Good on it.

For each Factory without a Good, take a Good from the Market (any color) and place it on the Factory. Goods are taken from the topmost occupied space in the column for that type. When Producing, you must place a Good on every one of that company's empty Factories; if you can't do this, you can't take the action. When placing Goods for multiple Factories, you can mix and match colors of Goods.

Then, each Stock for that Factory pays money to its owner. This money per share is equal to the number on that Factory's current space of the Factory Track.

You'll recall that every time a Deliver Action is performed using a Factory's Goods, that Factory's marker on the Factory Track is advanced one space toward the rival company. If the next space is occupied by the rival's token, the rival token is moved back one space to allow for the advancement. You cannot advance into the rival's $4 space.

Each space of the Factory Track has a symbol associated with it: these are Factory Bonuses. As part of performing a Produce Action, after resolving the payout, the acting player may (but is not required to) choose one Bonus associated with the Factory's current space or lower.

Example: Utahraptor Unlimited produces two purple and one red Good. Each Utahraptor share pays its owner $12. The acting player then gets to choose one of the first three Factory Bonuses to resolve.

(The Factory Track shows: $4: Place a Rail Cube; $8: +2 spaces on Stomp Market; $12: Recycle Action; $16: Nest Action; $20: Buy a Stock.)

• $4 Bonus: You may place a single rail cube that you possess, following the normal rules for a Build Action.* (* Yes, you may spend a cube to make it a Shipping Build and/or a Difficult Build. Yes, if you exhaust your supply of a color, you get $5.)
• $8 Bonus: You may advance any rail company two spaces on the Stomp Market.
• $12 Bonus: You may perform a Recycle Action.
• $16 Bonus: You may perform a Nest Action.
• $20 Bonus: You may buy a share of Stock. This is the only way to get two shares in a single turn.

Nest Action

This action places a new Nest in any City on the map that doesn't have one. To take this action, you must possess a Nest, and you must pay $20.

When you place your Nest for an airline, that airline advances on the Stomp Market. Unlike railroads, Airlines do not advance into the next space, but into the next empty space, "flying" over any markers in-between.

The benefit of a Nest is that a City with a Nest counts as two stops when making a Delivery.

Recycle Action

This action returns Goods to the market from the Waste box. You can always take this action.

Choose a color of Good, and return all of its Goods in the Waste box to the Market, filling empty spaces of its column from the bottom up. Then, gain some money. The number of goods returned determines the amount of money you gain.

• 0-1: $2
• 2: $4
• 3: $9
• 4: $16
• 5: $25
• 6: $36

Stomp Market

Let's recap how railroads advance on the Stomp Market, then we'll get to the fun part – the stomping!

Railroads will advance one space on the Stomp Market when they build into a Destination hex, or when shares of Stock with a Stomp Market symbol on their cube space are sold.

They will advance two spaces on the Stomp Market when the $8 Factory Bonus is used, or when shares with two symbols on their cube space are sold.

They will advance somewhere between one and five spaces on the Stomp Market when they make a Delivery – the number is equal to the number of Stocks in player hands.

After resolving this movement completely, if the railroad's cube has landed in a space containing one or more other railroad cubes, those cubes get STOMPED! Move each of the stomped cubes back one space.

Note that stomped cubes do not themselves Stomp cubes – it's only an advance that causes a Stomping. Airlines do not Stomp, and cannot be Stomped. A company cannot move past the final $50 space.

Example: Red advances two spaces, landing in blue's space! Blue gets STOMPED! The stomped cube is moved back one space. This does not effect the cube already there!

End of Game

Once all tiles have been laid, each player will have had an equal number of turns. After the last player has completed their turn, the game ends, and players will cash out their shares of Stock.

Railroad Shares: Each Stock is worth the company's current value on the Stomp Market.

Factory Shares: Each Stock is worth the company's current space on the Factory Track.

Shipping Shares: Determine which Shipping company has the most cubes. Multiply its number of cubes by 5. This is the payout for each Stock. The company with the second-most cubes multiplies its cubes by 4, and the company with the least by 3. If there is a tie for most cubes, the tied companies each multiply by 4. If there is a tie for second-most, the tied companies each multiply by 3.

Airline Shares: Each Stock is worth the company's current value on the Stomp Market multiplied by the number of its Nests on the map.

Engineer Bonus: Each player multiplies the number of cubes they spent for Difficult Builds by the number of distinct colors of cubes they spent (naturally, a maximum of x 4). They collect this amount of money as their Engineer Bonus.

Add it all up, and the player with the most money wins! If there is a tie, the tied players celebrate their shared victory!