Endeavor: Age of Sail Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Overview
• Components
• The Four Asset Tracks
• Setup
• Round Structure
  • Phase 1 — Build
  • Phase 2 — Growth
  • Phase 3 — Payment (Salary)
  • Phase 4 — Action
• Actions
  • Ship (Sail)
  • Occupy
  • Attack
  • Draw
  • Payment (as an action)
  • Pass
• Hand Limit and Discarding
• End of Round
• End of Game and Scoring
• Regions Reference
• Building Reference

Overview

The board is a world map divided into seven color-coded regions: Europe & the Mediterranean, Africa, the Caribbean, North America, South America, India, and the Far East. Each region contains a cluster of cities, the connections (links) running between them, a Shipping Track, and a stack of Asset Cards.

At the start of the game only Europe & the Mediterranean is open; every other region is closed and must be opened by shipping before you may occupy its cities or draw its cards. You expand your influence by spending Population Markers (small wooden discs), which flow from your Harbor into your Buildings to power them and out onto the map as your presence in the world.

You track your progress on four Asset Tracks, each capped at 15. These four attributes govern the four phases of every round:

• Industry — determines the highest Building Level you may construct.
• Culture — determines how many Population Markers you gain each round.
• Finance — determines how many Payments (marker returns) you may make each round.
• Politics — determines how many Asset Cards you may keep in hand.

You raise these tracks by acquiring Buildings, Asset Cards, and Trade tokens that display the matching attribute icons.

Components

• 1 double-sided game board (an "A" side tuned for 2–3 players with more conflict; a "B" side for larger groups)
• 48 Asset Cards, arranged in region stacks
• 95 Trade tokens (glory value printed on the reverse)
• 26 large Glory scoring chips
• 5 player boards
• 45 Building tiles
• 150 Population Markers (wooden discs), 30 per player
• 20 status-track markers (wooden cubes), 4 per player
• 1 first-player marker (a wooden crown)

The Four Asset Tracks

Every player board has four tracks—Industry, Culture, Finance, and Politics—each running from 0 up to 15. A track marker never advances above 15; if you would gain icons beyond 15 they are simply wasted, and if you lose icons you slide the marker back down to match the icons you actually hold.

Whenever you take a Building, Asset Card, or Trade token bearing an attribute icon, immediately advance that track. Some spaces on each track show a number in a small shield or box: those are the Glory values used in end-game scoring. Blank spaces score nothing on their own.

Setup

1. Board. Place the board in the middle of the table, choosing the side that suits your player count.
2. Trade tokens. Shuffle all Trade tokens and distribute them glory-side-down at random: one onto each space of every Shipping Track, each city, and each connection that shows a token spot. These are the rewards claimed by shipping, occupying, and controlling.
3. Asset Card stacks. For each region, order its Asset Card stack by value from the bottom up: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and the Governor card on top. (Europe & the Mediterranean and its associated Slavery deck have no Governor; those run 5 down to 0.) Higher-value cards are stronger and require more presence to draw, so they sit at the bottom and surface late.
4. Building stockpile. Sort the 45 Building tiles into shared face-up supplies by level:
   • Level 1 (5 each): Market, Shipyard, Workshop
   • Level 2 (4 each): Bank, Barracks, Guild Hall
   • Level 3 (3 each): Docks, Fortress, Theater
   • Level 4 (2 each): Cartographer, Trade Office, University
   • Level 5 (1 each): Exchange, Museum, Parliament
5. Player materials. Give each player a player board, four track cubes (placed on the 0 space of each Asset Track), and 30 Population Markers of their color kept in a personal supply beside the Harbor.
6. First player. Choose a starting player at random and give them the first-player crown.

Round Structure

The game lasts seven rounds. Each round runs through four phases in this fixed order, and within each phase players act in turn order starting from the first player and proceeding clockwise:

1. Build Phase
2. Growth Phase
3. Payment (Salary) Phase
4. Action Phase

At the end of each round the crown passes one seat to the left, and a new round begins—unless it was round seven, which ends the game.

Phase 1 — Build

In turn order, each player constructs exactly one Building. Choose any available tile from the shared stockpile whose Level is no higher than your current Industry rank, and place it on an empty Building space of your player board. (You may never take a second Level-5 Building once you already hold one.)

Placing a Building immediately advances any Asset Tracks matching the icons printed on it, and it grants your player board a new action (its icon) that you can power during the Action Phase. Duplicate copies of the same Building are allowed.

Player boards have a fixed number of Building spaces. When every player's Building spaces are full, the round in which that happens is the seventh and final round.

Phase 2 — Growth

In turn order, each player moves Population Markers from their personal supply into their Harbor. The number gained equals the amount shown at your current Culture level. If the general supply of your markers is short, take only what is available.

Phase 3 — Payment (Salary)

In turn order, each player may make Payments up to the amount shown at their current Finance level. Each Payment returns one Population Marker from a Building's activation space back to the Harbor, freeing that Building to be used again.

A marker still sitting on a Building keeps that Building "occupied" and unusable, so Payments are how you recycle your workforce. In the first round this phase does nothing, since no Buildings have been used yet.

Phase 4 — Action

Beginning with the first player and going clockwise, each player takes a single action on their turn; play continues around the table until all players have passed. You may pass at any time; once you pass you are out for the rest of the phase.

To take most actions you either:

• Activate a Building: move one Population Marker from your Harbor onto an empty Building on your board, then perform that Building's action; or
• Spend a Trade token: some Trade tokens have a blue background and may be spent to perform the action they show.

The available action types are described below.

Actions

Ship (Sail)

Move a Population Marker from your Harbor onto the Shipping Track of any region, taking the open space farthest from that region's card stack. Claim the Trade token resting on that space and place it face-up in your Harbor, immediately gaining its icons.

If a Shipping Track is already full, you may still ship: place your marker beside the track without a token reward.

Claiming the last space of a region's Shipping Track opens that region. When a region opens, its Governor card is awarded to the player with the most markers on that region's Shipping Track (ties are broken in favor of the most recently placed marker). Once open, a region's cities may be occupied and its Asset Cards drawn.

Occupy

Move a Population Marker from your Harbor to an unoccupied city in an open region, and claim that city's Trade token. You must already have presence in that region—at least one marker on its Shipping Track or in one of its cities. (Europe & the Mediterranean is always open, and you may occupy there from the start.)

When you occupy both cities at the ends of a connection, you control that connection. The first player to control a given connection immediately claims its Trade token; the connection then remains worth 1 Glory at game end for whoever controls it.

Attack

Attacking lets you take a city already occupied by an opponent. It costs two Population Markers: return one marker to your supply as the cost of the assault, then place the second marker on the target city, returning the defender's marker to their supply. You must have presence in the region to attack there. Attacks can flip control of connections just as occupation does.

Draw

Take the top Asset Card from an open region's stack and place it face-up in a card slot on your player board, immediately gaining its icons. To draw a card you must have presence in that region of at least the card's value—count all your markers in that region's cities and Shipping Track.

Europe & the Mediterranean has two stacks (a regional deck and the Slavery deck), with values 0–5; markers in that region count toward drawing from either. There is no limit on how many cards you may draw in a phase, beyond having the presence to do so.

Abolition of Slavery. The value-5 card of the Europe & the Mediterranean deck triggers abolition, which happens only once in the game. When it is drawn, every player immediately sets aside all Slavery cards they hold, losing the corresponding icons (slide the affected tracks down). Set-aside Slavery cards are kept face-down beside the player board and each cost 1 Glory at game end. Any remaining Slavery cards in the deck are removed from the game.

Payment (as an action)

You may also make a Payment on your turn: return a Population Marker from a Building's activation space back to your Harbor, freeing both the marker and the Building. A Building may not pay for itself.

Pass

When you can no longer act or choose to stop, pass. Once every player has passed, the Action Phase ends.

Hand Limit and Discarding

Your Politics track sets your card limit (up to a maximum of 5 normal card slots). When you pass, you must discard down to your limit. A few exceptions do not count toward it: an extra Slavery card is tolerated only insofar as it does not push you past 5 total, and a Governor card kept in the special free Governor space sits outside the limit entirely (a Governor placed in a normal slot does count).

Discarded region cards return to the bottom of their stack, keeping stacks ordered by ascending value. Discarded Governor cards are removed from the game. Discarded Slavery cards stay face-down beside your board as end-game penalties. You may rearrange your cards freely while discarding, as long as you finish within your limits.

End of Round

After all players pass, recount the icons on every asset you hold—cards, tokens, and Buildings—and correct each Asset Track marker to match. Then pass the first-player crown one seat clockwise and begin the next round. When round seven ends, proceed to scoring.

End of Game and Scoring

The game ends after the seventh round, which is signaled by every player's Building spaces being full. Each player now totals their Glory:

• Cities: Take Glory tokens equal to the Glory icons on every city you occupy (most cities show 1 icon; a few show 2).
• Connections: 1 Glory for each connection you control.
• Asset Tracks: For each of the four tracks, score the Glory value where your marker sits. A marker on a blank space slides down to the nearest space below it that shows a value, and scores that.
• Asset Cards: Sum the Glory icons printed on the Asset Cards you hold.
• Governor space: Any player whose free Governor space is empty (no Governor card kept there) takes 3 Glory.
• Universities: 3 Glory for each University you own.
• Leftover Population: 1 Glory for every 3 Population Markers still in your Harbor.
• Slavery penalty: Lose 1 Glory for each set-aside Slavery card beside your board.

The player with the most Glory wins. If players tie, they share the victory.

Regions Reference

• Europe & the Mediterranean — always open from the start; home to two card stacks, including the Slavery deck, and the launching point for your first ships.
• Africa, the Caribbean, North America, South America, India, the Far East — each begins closed and must be opened by shipping before its cities can be occupied or its cards drawn. Opening a region awards its Governor card to whoever dominates its Shipping Track.

Building Reference

Buildings are gained in the Build Phase and provide both an immediate track advance (from their icons) and a repeatable action you power with Population Markers during the Action Phase. They come in five levels; your Industry rank sets the highest level you may build.

• Level 1: Market, Shipyard, Workshop
• Level 2: Bank, Barracks, Guild Hall
• Level 3: Docks, Fortress, Theater
• Level 4: Cartographer, Trade Office, University
• Level 5: Exchange, Museum, Parliament

Higher-level Buildings combine stronger actions with larger track boosts. The University is additionally worth 3 Glory apiece at game end.