Endless Winter: Paleoamericans FAQ
164 questions players ask · Updated Nov 11, 2026 · Full rulebook
Setup
- Where do you shuffle the Yeti and Squirrel & Nut promo animals in a two-player game?
- How many camps does each player start with, and does a setup card that adds a camp give an extra one?
- What extra resources does each turn-order seat get at setup?
- Are the Glacier and Rest modules in the base box, and should a first game use them?
- Can you use all the expansions and modules together in one game?
- How many mega-fauna animal types are used in one game?
- Where does the third worker come from in Endless Winter: Paleoamericans?
- Does the starting deck include Culture cards, and can you play one in the first round?
- Are my starting cards with the tribe symbol part of my starting deck?
- Why do I only find 7 starting cards during setup when the rules say 9?
- Do I get the whole stack of starting animal cards or only one?
Playing the Game
- Are benefits and rewards optional, or must you take them?
- Are Culture card rewards and abilities mandatory?
- Can you take a lesser benefit instead of the one you are gaining?
- Does your food limit go up or down when you remove a camp from your player board?
- If you spend Food for Labor, can you use it later or spend it twice?
- Do you have to discard to play Tribe cards, or only Culture cards?
- Is there a lesser benefit lower than food?
Action Phase
- How many turns does each player get in a game of Endless Winter?
- Can you play Tribe cards between repeats of the same action in one turn?
- How many Culture cards can you play in one turn, and what does each extra one cost?
- Can you play a Culture card you gained from another Culture card's effect in the same turn?
- When can you play a Culture card you took earlier in the round?
- Do the cards you played stay in front of you from turn to turn?
- Must you finish one action before starting another, such as with a Trailblazer character?
- Do you have to play a card to take an action, or can you pay with food and tools only?
- Can you delay a Culture card's cost and benefits until after placing your remaining figure?
Action Columns
- Can an Initiate action take a card from a deck and also gain the empty-deck point for that same deck?
- Is tipping an animal card mandatory?
- Can you play Tribe cards for Labor one at a time during an action?
- Can Tribe cards gained through Initiate be used to gain more Tribe cards in the same turn?
- Can a second worker use an action column that already holds another figure?
- Must you place a camp before moving one when a card gives both?
- What is the cap on animal cards in the Hunting Grounds?
- Is Labor pooled when you initiate several tribespeople or repeat one action?
- Can you pay for Added Labor with Food?
- What if there is no empty space on the Food track for returned camps?
- If a Tribe card's bonus is used on its matching action spot, how much Labor does it give?
- Can you bury your starting cards, including the Brave, with the bury action?
- Does the bonus camp placement and move in the Migrate action cost Labor?
- Can an action that lets you choose an animal draw from the animal deck?
- When a camp move applies, must you move the camp you just placed?
- When you tip a Woolly Rhino, do you add the Food shown or fill your Food track?
Preparation Phase
- In the Preparation phase, do you discard leftover animal cards, and how many should the Hunting Grounds hold?
- When is the Culture display refilled if all its cards are taken in one turn?
- When is the Ritual pile formed, and can you change it once it is placed?
- Can a Tribe card you gained during the round, such as through Initiate, go into your Ritual pile?
Eclipse Phase
- During the Eclipse phase, which Labor counts toward the total, and can card abilities or Food add more?
- Do half Labor points count when comparing totals in the Eclipse phase, for example 7.5 versus 7?
- What are the steps of the Eclipse phase, and can you choose the order within them?
- Is the Eclipse phase resolved one player at a time in turn order?
- How does the turn order change in a three-way Eclipse tie?
- Can you bury cards during the Eclipse phase, and from where?
- Do several villages on one terrain hex give that hex's Eclipse benefit more than once?
- Who gets the benefit when two players are tied for the most influence on a terrain tile in the Eclipse phase?
- Does the first player get the turn order benefit in round one?
Megaliths
- How many megaliths can one action place from a starting space, and where can the bonus one go?
- Can a megalith be placed on top of a spot already covered by another megalith?
- How does megalith stacking work, and how many megaliths must an upper-level megalith cover?
- Must your first megaliths be grey, and can the first one go off a starting space?
- Can a neutral (grey) megalith be placed on top of other megaliths?
- If a megalith benefit comes up but you have no megaliths left, what do you get?
Final Scoring
- Can you split several Argentavis cards across different animal sets during final scoring?
- How many points is an animal set worth at the end of the game?
- How do stacked megaliths score when a lower level has no stones?
- How do you score villages that touch several hexes of the scoring terrain type?
- Does the Honor track score when you reach a level, and how are buried cards counted at the end?
- How are ties for the most points at game end broken?
- Can you have two sets of the same kind of animal?
Chief Cards
Card Details
- Is burying a card mandatory when a Culture card shows the burial icon?
- Why do the Stag Moose and other animals show different card counts and scoring thresholds?
- Is there a limit to how many different animal types you can collect?
- Can you reassign an Argentavis to a different column?
- In what order are a Culture card's effects resolved?
- If a Tribe card's action-phase ability gives Food and you need no discount, do you still get the Food?
- Do tapped animals ever untap?
Iconography
Sacred Stone Tiles
- Do you pay a Sacred Stone's cost to take it, and what do the icons under the cost give you?
- Can you replace a Sacred Stone already on your player board with a newer one?
- Can you still buy an Era I Sacred Stone during Era II?
- How does the Sacred Stone that scores megalith tiles work?
- When are Sacred Stones scored, and do they score at the end of the game?
- Are the bonuses for placing a Sacred Stone optional?
- Does the Sacred Stone icon on a slot's bonus give you an extra Sacred Stone?
- Do villages count as tents for Sacred Stone goals that require tents, or for the stone that scores per land type?
- Can a tipped Argentavis count as a Wild animal, or toward other tipped-animal goals, on a Sacred Stone?
- What do the two Megalith icons on a Sacred Stone tile mean?
- How many points does a megalith on a higher level score for the second-epoch Sacred Stone?
Modules and promo cards
- Does a village built on a juncture occupied by a Mammoth count as legal?
- Does the Ceremonial Grounds 'ignore Bury effects' rule stop buried cards from counting for the end-game Idol track?
- After taking a Ceremonial Grounds card, can you still use the Bear Aurora Borealis card's other effect?
- How many cards does a Glacier token's village bonus give when several villages touch the tile?
- Can you build a village on a Glacier tile?
- Which Rest token does a player take when using the Rest action?
Solo play: setup and rules
- Can the expansions be played in solo mode?
- Which megalith board layout should be used in solo play?
- Are solo setup glacier tokens revealed when the bot places tents on them?
- Does the solo Nomad start with any food or tools?
- Does the solo Nomad get a Chief, a setup card, or a starting deck at setup?
- Does the solo Nomad start with its settlements on its player board, and what happens when all three are placed?
- What does the Nomad token do in solo mode?
- Can a Warrior eclipse ability move the Nomad's camps?
Solo play: Nomad turns and cards
- What does the solo Nomad gain on its eclipse draw when it has no card to bury?
- When does the solo Nomad get a Place Camp or Move Camp icon that triggers a Build Village or Relocate Camp action?
- Will the solo Nomad keep collecting Mammoths or Argentavis past two copies?
- In the Migration column, does the solo Nomad get one or two Build Village or Relocate Camp actions when the column shows two icons?
- What does the solo Nomad do if it cannot place an eclipse card?
- Which Nomad camps move when a Map card says to move the three outer-ring camps?
- Does the solo Nomad stack non-grey megaliths when a legal stack exists?
- How does the solo Nomad place megaliths?
- How does the solo Nomad choose a card when its target is no longer available?
- How many build actions does the Nomad get from the two icons on a Glacier token?
- What forms the solo Nomad's Eclipse pile?
- What does the solo Nomad take when it cannot gain a benefit, such as an animal when none are left?
- How many cards does the solo Nomad bury, and what does it take when it cannot bury?
- Does the solo Nomad get a bonus for placing a figure or its Chief worker?
- Does the solo Nomad need food and tools, or are they just points for it?
- Which Nomad card decides where the Nomad places a megalith during the Eclipse phase?
- How do the Nomad's animal sets score in solo, and does Argentavis act as a wild card?
- Does the solo Nomad score culture cards it gains but does not bury?
- Which Nomad cards are reshuffled after each Eclipse phase, and what happens to the sacrifice pile?
- Does the solo Nomad gain food from a glacier token up to its maximum, like a player?
Solo play: AI
- Does the solo AI build villages even in poor spots, such as between glaciers?
- How does the solo AI get Idols when it has no villages left to build?
- Does the solo AI's raft return to the Headwaters after it builds a village?
- When the solo AI's preferred action spaces are both taken, does it wrap around the action board?
Endless Winter: AncestorsExpansion
- In the Eclipse phase, do Ancestors animal sets give only the highest reward, or every reward up to the highest count?
- Can a Tribe card supply the Labor that activates its own benefit?
- Does Bison Aurora trigger when Chief Thunderpaw's ability discards Culture cards?
- Can you mix base game and Ancestors tribe and animal cards, by colour or card type, in the setup piles or in one game?
- Which Ancestors cards replace which base game cards?
- Can you mix base game animals with Ancestors animals?
- How does the Ancestors Healer's Eclipse ability work?
Endless Winter: Cave PaintingsExpansion
- When do you pay the costs on the Cave Painting board, or the paint cost on a Culture card?
- If a Cave Painting benefit gives you a free dot, must you fill only the dot of that colour?
- How does the Cave Painting action work, and how is it scored?
- Do you score the pre-painted neck line in Cave Paintings if you painted nothing?
- How is the Cave Painting network scored at the end: per dot or per line section?
- Can you use the extra Megalith tile without the Cave Paintings expansion?
- What is the difference between the two Sacred Stone icons in Cave Paintings?
- How many lines can a tribesman draw in Cave Paintings?
- Do you need to enclose each area separately to get Cave Painting bonuses for several areas?
Endless Winter: Rivers & RaftsExpansion
- Can the Rivers & Rafts river tiles be arranged in any shape during setup?
- Must the steps of the Migrate action be done in the printed order when moving a canoe and placing a camp?
- With a card that says put one tent then move two tents, can you place a tent and then move that tent?
- Where do you place the Glacier tokens when setting up Rivers & Rafts with the Glacier module?
- How do you set up the river with two Landmarks in Rivers & Rafts?
- Is the snowy hex on the starting River tile a Glacier hex?
- How many Glacier hexes do you add when building the Rivers & Rafts map?
- In Rivers & Rafts setup, which Land Terrain tiles do you draw for the map?
- How many fish do you draw in the Eclipse phase in Rivers & Rafts, and do rafts take fish too?
- Can you place a camp from your player board onto the same hex as your raft?
- Must you move both your camp and an opponent's camp with the Warrior eclipse ability?
- Do villages count when scoring the Monolith landmark?
- Do you score a raft in the Eclipse phase if no raft has moved?
- Can camps move across river hexes?
- What happens when there are not enough round 1-2 Sacred Stones for the board?