EVE: Conquests Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Introduction
  • The Premise of the Game
• Component Overview
  • The Game Board
  • The Time Wheel
  • 4 Empire Cards
  • 4 Headquarters
  • 240 Units
  • 60 Outposts
  • 60 Resource Tokens
  • 12 National Seals
  • 99 Project Cards
  • 63 Region Cards
  • 9 Region Markers
  • Empire Markers and EVE Marker
  • 30 Combat Dice and 2 Dice Pouches
• This Rulebook
• Game Preparation
• Sequence of Play Overview
• The Game
  • Star Map
    • Headquarters
    • Units
    • Outposts
    • Region Markers
  • Political Landscape
  • Empire Cards
  • Calendar
  • Victory Point Tracker
    • End-Game Condition: Trinity
    • End-Game Condition: Revelation
    • Optional Rule: Impending Doom
• Setup Round
• A Game Turn
• Development Turn
  • Expand Your Empire
  • Plant an Agent
• Production Turn
  • Produce Units
• Logistics Turn
  • Draw Cards
  • Move Units
  • Attack
    • Step One: Decide offence power and defense power
    • Step Two: Compare agents
    • Step Three: Choose and roll dice
    • Step Four: Resolve the battle
    • Step Five: Attack aftermath
• Project Cards
  • Drawing and Discarding Cards
  • Using Project Cards
  • Using Cards During Combat
• Games with Two or Three Players
  • 3-Player Games
  • 2-Player Games
    • Game Preparation for 2 Players
    • Setup Round for 2 Players

Introduction

The Premise of the Game

EVE: Conquests is a strategy board game for 2-4 players set in the EVE Universe. Players assume the roles of the four major empires in EVE and set out to prove their superiority by means of planetary domination. Their conquests require them to play the political landscape in EVE, an effort that often leads them to make war on those who defy them. Garnering the influence necessary requires tact and strategic management of resources in all spheres of operations.

Component Overview

The Game Board

The board has five main physical areas. The map of the EVE universe depicts all its regions and shows how they are interconnected by stargates. The Victory Point Tracker, with numbers ranging from zero to thirty, is used to keep track of the game's progress. The large circle is the calendar, used to keep track of the turn sequence. The formation of nine squares is called the "political landscape" and acts as the goal-setter in the game. Lastly, there is an area for the three decks of project cards and their respective discard piles.

The Time Wheel

The time wheel goes in the center of the calendar, and its arrow tracks the current game month. As the game progresses, the time wheel is rotated on the calendar.

4 Empire Cards

Your Empire card is the center of your resource management and turn schedules (development, production, and logistics schedules).

4 Headquarters

Your headquarters goes on one of the green regions on the star map and marks your empire's starting region.

240 Units

Each empire gets 60 units.

60 Outposts

Outposts yield one resource token each that you use to generate more actions to accomplish your goals and win the game.

60 Resource Tokens

Use resource tokens to upgrade the schedules on your Empire card and to play project cards that require them. There are development, production, and logistics resource tokens.

12 National Seals

For the remainder of this rulebook, National Seals are simply called "Seals." Each Empire owns three seals, one for each turn schedule (development, production, logistics).

99 Project Cards

There are three 33-card decks: A development deck, a production deck, and a logistics deck. These cards are commonly called Project Cards.

63 Region Cards

There is one Region card for every region in EVE. Every Region card you own at the end of the game yields you 1 to 4 victory points, and the player with most victory points wins the game.

The back of every Region card shows one of the three nebulas that are in the background of the game board. To locate the region on the card, simply search the area on the map where the matching nebula is.

Separate the cards into three decks of 21 cards with matching backs.

9 Region Markers

The Region markers are used on the star map to mark the regions shown by Region cards on the political landscape. Each square on the political landscape has its own Region marker; it shares the nebula color and the letter of the column that it's in (A, B, or C). The game also comes with three spare Region markers; if one of the others gets lost, you can write the correct letter on one of these to replace it.

Empire Markers and EVE Marker

Every player has an Empire marker that he or she uses to track victory points on the victory point tracker. The EVE marker is used in accordance with the rules for the end game condition that the players decide on at the start of the game (see End-Game Conditions).

30 Combat Dice and 2 Dice Pouches

Roll the dice to resolve combat and when cards call for dice rolls. Each pouch holds 15 dice, 5 of each color. The red dice are "damage dice," the blue are "shield dice," and white "tactics dice."

This Rulebook

For the purpose of explaining the rules, the rulebook teaches a 4-player game. While the game rules are practically the same for the 3-player game, there are a couple of exceptions regarding the game preparation and setup round in the 2-player game. Those rules are found under Games with Two or Three Players.

Game Preparation

1. Lay out the game board.
2. Place the time wheel in the center of the calendar with the arrow pointing at January.
3. Shuffle the three project decks separately and place them on their designated areas.
4. Put 5 dice of each type, 15 total, into each dice pouch.
5. Players take turns choosing which empire to play and then gather all the matching components. A full player set includes the following:
   • 1 Empire card
   • 1 Headquarter
   • 60 unit chips
   • 3 Seals (blue, orange, and bronze)
6. Shuffle each of the three Region card decks separately (21 cards each). Then take the first deck and deal seven face-down cards on each of the three squares on the political landscape that match the nebula color on those cards. Then do the same for the other two decks.
7. Flip over the top cards of three of the decks on the political landscape: A in the top row, B in the middle row, and C in the bottom row. Then place the respective Region markers on the map in accordance with the Region cards that have been revealed.

Sequence of Play Overview

When the setup round is over (see Setup Round), players alternate turns in accordance with the Seals on the calendar until the game concludes. Seals are used on the calendar to track the turn sequence. Every Seal represents a single turn, taken individually by its owner. When a turn is over, its Seal is moved a number of months forward on the calendar in accordance with the respective schedule on its owner's Empire card.

The time wheel that rotates at the center of the calendar is used to keep track of the current game month, and players resolve their turns according to the Seal order, one month at a time, radiating outward from the center.

Every player has three Seals on the calendar at all times. A Seal's shape determines whose turn it is, and the Seal's color indicates what type of turn it is: development turn, production turn, or logistics turn.

When the last turn in the month has been resolved, rotate the time wheel clockwise until the arrow points at a month that has one or more Seals.

Every turn yields a number of actions that the player may use to accomplish her goals. The amount of resource tokens one has allocated to the schedule on the Empire card determines the month interval between turns and the number of actions that the player gets. The turn type determines how the player may spend the actions.

As the game progresses, players gain, lose, and reallocate resources, and therefore the turn sequence continues to develop throughout the game.

The Game

The game has five main physical areas: the star map, the political landscape, the Empire cards, the calendar, and the victory point tracker.

Star Map

The EVE world is divided into regions. The star map shows how they are interconnected with stargates (white lines). The colors of the regions, green at the center and radiating outward through blue, orange, and red, indicate their worth in victory points; note that these colors are not related to the empire colors in any way.

Regions are referred to as either owned or empty. Empty regions are claimed with headquarters and units as described soon. It is also important to understand the difference between adjacent regions and linked regions.

• Two regions that are connected with a stargate are, regardless of their ownership, considered adjacent; and
• any two regions that are owned by the same player are considered linked, as long as there is an unbroken string of regions between them that he or she either owns or has agents in.

The game pieces that go on the star map are headquarters, units, outposts, and region markers.

Headquarters

• Headquarters are placed by their owners on any of the green regions during the setup round. The headquarters are the starting points from which players expand their empires.
• Headquarters can be attacked for the purpose of destroying the units in the region, but headquarters themselves are never destroyed, nor their regions conquered. Unlike outposts, which you will read about in a moment, headquarters yield no resources, and you are never required to have any units at your headquarters.

Units

• A region that has one or more units on it is owned by the player whose units are at the bottom of the stack. All units she produces in that region, or units she moves to it, go to the bottom of the stack as well. If another player also has units in the same region, his units are considered agents, and they have a different function from the owner's units (see Plant an Agent).
• New units can enter play in one of three ways:
  • During your development turn, you may use an action to expand your empire into an empty region by placing a new unit on it;
  • during your development turn, you may use an action to plant an agent in an enemy region by placing a new unit on top of your enemy's units; or
  • during your production turn, you use your actions to produce units in your outposts and headquarters.

Outposts

• You can build an outpost in every region you own (except the one with your headquarters). An outpost goes on the top of the unit stack in its region.
• Before you can build an outpost in your region, you must own or have agents in every region adjacent to it (i.e. you must have at least one unit in every adjacent region).
• During any of your turns, you may build outposts of any type at no cost in any of your regions that have qualified for an outpost.
• An outpost immediately gives you a resource token of the same type (development, production or logistics). Put all new resource tokens in your reserves area.
• When your outpost is attacked, it grants you one extra defense power (see Attack).
• Once built, the outpost stays in play indefinitely, unless you lose the last unit in its region during an attack, in which case the outpost is destroyed. When you lose an outpost, follow the rules described in the "Attack Aftermath" section under Attack.
• Even though you need to have units in all adjacent regions to build the outpost, it is not destroyed if you start losing those same regions.
• You can never voluntarily give up an outpost that you have already built.

Region Markers

Region markers go on the map to keep track of the regions that are revealed on the political landscape throughout the game. Their use is explained in the next chapter, "Political Landscape."

Political Landscape

The nine-square formation on the board is called the political landscape. When you have gone through the game preparation, there will be a seven-card deck on each of those squares. Three of the decks will have their top card face-up, while the rest are all face-down.

Once you go through the setup round, players will flip over five more cards, for a total of eight revealed cards (a total of seven cards are revealed in a 3-player game and six cards in a 2-player game).

When a card is flipped over, the Region marker associated with that square is immediately placed on the respective region on the map (i.e., the marker with the same nebula color as the Region card and the letter of the column that the card is in: A, B or C).

Once during each of your development turns, if you have outposts (or headquarters) on two regions that have Region markers of either the matching nebula color or with matching letters, you may collect the respective Region cards from the political landscape. Place them face-up in front of you, and remove the Region markers from the board.

When you have collected Region cards in this way, sum up their victory points value and advance your Empire marker accordingly. Then choose two region decks whose top cards are face-down and flip those cards over. You may look at the first card before choosing the second. Immediately place the correct Region markers on the regions shown on the new Region cards.

You can only collect two Region cards, no more, during each of your development turns, so even if there are more Region cards you could legally collect, you must wait for your next development turn.

The alternative way to gather Region cards is to steal cards your enemies have already claimed by destroying their outposts as described under Attack Aftermath.

For instance, the highlighted Region card in the rulebook's image can be matched with either of the other two cards in the C column or either of the two cards in the middle row.

Example: You are playing Minmatar and it's your development turn. You have just finished building outposts in Tenerifis, Omist, and Esoteria (and you are also about to build outposts in Feythabolis and Impass). The Region markers on Tenerifis and Omist are the same color, and the Region markers on Omist and Esoteria have matching letters (B on both). Since you may claim only two Region cards every development turn, you decide to claim the Omist and Esoteria cards from the political landscape because they give you 4 points each. You then advance your Empire marker by 8 points on the victory point tracker and remove the Region markers from Omist and Esoteria. Finally, flip over the top card of two of the three decks that have their top card face down, and place the respective Region markers on the regions shown on the new cards.

Empire Cards

Your Empire card is the center of your resource management. When you get new resource tokens, they are placed in your reserves area. They stay there until you have allocated them either to one of the schedules or to play a project card that requires a resource token (see Project Cards).

Resource tokens are never spent, but can be used for as long as you have the outpost that yields them to you.

There are three types of game turns: development turns, production turns, and logistics turns. Each turn type has its own schedule of three varying levels, and each schedule level has two varying factors: number of actions and months in completion. If you have not allocated any resources to a schedule, it defaults to the first level. One resource upgrades a schedule of the same type to the second level, and the second resource upgrades it to the third and final level.

(Empire card layout: Level 3 (Second Resource), Level 2 (First Resource), Level 1 (Default), and Reserves, with the number of actions and the months in completion shown for each level.)

At the end of your turn, you must start a new schedule of the same type and move the Seal accordingly on the calendar. You can choose to upgrade or downgrade the schedule from last time by moving resource tokens between it and your reserves area, but once you have started a schedule, it must run its full course unchanged. (The only exception to this would be when you lose resources from being attacked; see Attack Aftermath.)

Calendar

The time wheel that rests at the center of the calendar is used to keep track of what month it is, and the Seals that are moved around the calendar determine the turn sequence.

When a Seal is placed in a new month, it goes on the innermost space available in that month. In the rare event that all the spaces are full, the Seal is still placed in that month, but on the outside of the last Seal in the month. Theoretically, all twelve seals can end up in the same month, but it's important to retain the correct order.

When a player owns two Seals that are placed one after the other in the same month, he can choose which of the turns to take first.

Example: You are playing Amarr and you have just finished your production turn. You have chosen to upgrade your production schedule to the second level by allocating one production resource to it. The second-level production schedule takes four months to complete and yields five actions. In other words, after four months, you get another production turn in which you produce five units (see Production Turn). (Image A)

You move the Seal forward by four months and place it on the innermost space available in its new month. The next Seal is the Minmatar development Seal. The Minmatar player takes her development turn and then moves her Seal. Since this was the last Seal of the month, the time wheel is rotated clockwise. There is no Seal in the next month, so the time wheel is rotated again. (Image B)

The Caldari's production Seal and logistics Seal are the first two of the month. Since they are one after the other within the same month, the Caldari player may resolve them in the order she wants. She must finish her first turn completely and move her Seal before starting her next turn. (Image C)

Victory Point Tracker

The Empire markers are used on the victory point tracker to keep track of players' total victory points. The player with the greatest number of victory points at the end of the game wins (a player can gain more than 30 victory points). If two or more players have the same number of victory points, the game is a tie.

Before the start of every game, players need to agree upon two things: the condition that ends the game and whether to include the "Impending Doom" rule option. There are two end-game conditions, Trinity and Revelation, and each comes in three lengths (as chosen by the players): normal (2 hours), long (3 hours), or epic (4+ hours).

End-Game Condition: Trinity

The game ends when a certain number of in-game years have passed. The players decide if they are going to play for two, three, or four in-game years, and then place the EVE marker on that number on the victory point tracker.

Every time a full year has passed on the calendar (i.e., when the time wheel passes December), move the EVE marker down one number. When the EVE marker reaches 0, the game ends.

End-Game Condition: Revelation

The game ends when the first player reaches a predetermined victory point value. Before the game, determine this arbitrary value and place the EVE marker accordingly on the victory point tracker. When the first Empire marker meets or passes the EVE marker on the victory point tracker, the game ends.

Suggested victory point values (normal / long / epic):

• 4 players: the game ends when the first player reaches 15, 20, or 25 points.
• 3 players: the game ends when the first player reaches 20, 25, or 30 points.
• 2 players: the game ends when the first player reaches 10, 15, or 20 points (players get less victory points in the 2-player game, as described under 2-Player Games).

Optional Rule: Impending Doom

When the end-game condition has been met, instead of ending the game, place the EVE marker at the end of next month on the calendar and continue playing as normal. Every time the EVE marker is next in the turn sequence, one player rolls a tactics die. For every tactic rolled, advance the EVE marker one month. If you roll a blank, the game ends immediately and the player with greatest number of victory points wins.

Setup Round

Before starting the setup round, make sure that you have completed the game preparation as described above.

1. Decide the end-game condition in EVE: Players decide before the game starts which condition must be met to end it and whether they opt to use the Impending Doom rule (as explained in the last chapter).

2. Reveal Region cards and place your headquarters: Use a random method to decide who goes first and then continue clockwise around the table throughout the setup round. The same player goes first during every step; in some steps it is beneficial to go first and in others it's not.

   Players take turns flipping over the top card of one of the Region card decks and then placing their headquarters on any green region of their choice. The player who acts first flips the top card of two decks, instead of just one, before placing his headquarters. When he is done, the second player flips over one Region card and places her headquarters on any green region, and so on.

   Example: The Amarr player goes first and flips over the top cards of two decks, in columns A and B, and then places the Region markers accordingly on the map. Three cards were already revealed during game preparation, so now five cards have been revealed and the respective Region markers placed on the board. The Amarr player places his headquarters in Verge Vendor, and then the player on his left, the Caldari player, can act.

   The Caldari player flips over the top card of one of the Region decks and then places her headquarters on a green region of her choice. When Gallente and Minmatar have done the same, all four headquarters are on the map and eight out of nine Region decks have had their top card revealed.

3. Place units: Players go through eight rounds of placing units on the map. Each may place only one unit at a time, eight units total. Units can be placed on any of the following:

   • an empty region that is adjacent to a region you own or have an agent on;
   • an enemy region that is adjacent to your region, on top of enemy units. This top unit is called an "agent" (see Plant an Agent); or
   • one of your own regions.

A Game Turn

When the setup round is over, players start resolving their turns in accordance with the turn sequence on the calendar.

When it's your turn, look at the schedule on your Empire card that matches the Seal on the calendar to find out how many actions are available to you that turn. These actions count only toward the ones that are depicted on the respective schedule on your Empire card. For instance, if it's your development turn and you've got three actions, you may spend each of them either to expand into a new region or to plant an agent. The different actions for each turn type are explained in detail in the next three chapters.

• During any of your turns and without spending an action, you may build outposts and gather resource tokens for them.
• Once in each of your development turns, you may claim two Region cards from the political landscape, as long as you have linked the respective regions together and built outposts in them (headquarters count as outposts in this respect).
• At the end of your turn, you must advance the Seal you just resolved. But first, decide if you wish to upgrade its schedule or not (see Empire Cards and Calendar).

Development Turn

At the beginning of your development turn, you may discard one Development card from your hand. If you do, you get one extra action during that turn. For instance, if you were supposed to get three development actions, you now get four.

A development action can be used to do one of two things:

Expand Your Empire

Place a new unit on an empty region that is adjacent to a region you owned or had an agent on at the beginning of the development turn.

Note that you may expand into a region that is not adjacent to one of your regions as long as it's adjacent to a region with one of your agents. For instance, as shown in the example above, you can expand your empire "beyond enemy lines" as long as the regions in question are bridged via one of your agents.

Plant an Agent

Your agents are units embedded in your enemies' regions. Agents don't grant you ownership of the region they're in, but they give you strategic advantages in battle (see Attack). Agents also contribute to your resource gathering, for to be able to build an outpost on your region you must own or have agents in every region adjacent to it. Agents go on top of enemy units. If your enemy moves or builds more units in that region, his units go to the bottom of the stack.

• You may plant agents in enemy regions that are adjacent to regions you own.
• You may plant only one agent per region in a given development turn, but over time you may accumulate multiple agents in the same region.
• If the region already has agents from other players, your agent goes on top.
• You can place agents in regions where your enemy's headquarters are. If your enemy doesn't have any units in the region, your agent simply rests on the board beneath the headquarters, as an agent. Headquarter regions can never be conquered.
• Agents can't move.
• If you no longer own a region adjacent to one of your agents, that agent is immediately dispatched and removed from the board.
• When an agent is planted in a region that has an outpost (or headquarters), he gets stacked between the outpost and the chips beneath.

(Illustration: Caldari can't place an agent here because he doesn't own any adjacent regions. Caldari agent in Gallente region.)

Note that, unlike in the expand your empire action, you may not plant an agent on a region that is merely adjacent to a region where you have another agent. Agents must always be adjacent to a region you actually own (i.e., one on which you have units that are not agents).

Production Turn

At the beginning of your production turn, you may discard one Production card from your hand. If you do, you get one extra action during that turn.

Production actions are used to produce new units in your outposts and headquarters.

Produce Units

• Every action in your production turn allows you to build one unit in any of your outposts or headquarters.
• You may build a maximum of three new units in the same outpost or at your headquarters during any one production turn.
• If you build new units in a region that has enemy agents in it, your units always go to the bottom of the stack.
• Every empire has a fixed limit of 60 unit chips. If you run out of chips, you can't make more units until some have been removed from the board.

Logistics Turn

At the beginning of your logistics turn, you may discard one Logistics card from your hand. If you do, you get one extra action during that turn.

Every logistics action can be used to draw a card, move units or attack a region.

Draw Cards

Draw a Project card from any of the three decks: development, production, or logistics. Note that since the turn has already started, you can't discard a Logistics card to get an extra action in the same turn you drew it. Discarding a card for a free action can only be done at the beginning of a turn.

Move Units

When you use an action to move your units, you may move any number of units from one region and distribute them among your other regions as you wish, as long as they are all linked together.

You can never move the last unit from a region, unless it's your headquarter's region.

In regions to or from which you have just moved units, those units or other units in those regions cannot act later in the same turn (they cannot attack or move), but you can move more units onto them from elsewhere.

Example: The Gallente player plans to defend his borders with the Caldari empire; he moves 5 units from Sing Laison and divides them between Lonetrek and Placid. For the rest of the turn, the Gallente player may neither attack from nor move units from Sing Laison, Lonetrek, or Placid, but he may reinforce the regions further by moving other units in from elsewhere. During his next logistics turn, he will be allowed to attack from Lonetrek, or Placid if he wishes. (Images D and E)

Attack

When you attack, all your units in one region battle all units in an adjacent enemy region, agents excluded (an agent's effect on battle is explained in "Step Two" below). Headquarter regions can be attacked for the purpose of destroying the units in them, but they cannot be conquered.

• You may attack the same region multiple times in the same logistics turn, but you may launch an attack from a particular region only once per turn. However, you can attack a region from more than one adjacent region, one attack after the other.
• Every attack counts as an action.
• If you have attacked from a particular region, units in that region cannot act again in the same turn (they cannot attack or move again later in the same turn).

When you attack, follow these steps:

Step One: Decide offence power and defense power

• Your offence power equals the number of units you have in your region.
• The enemy's defense power is the number of units he or she has in his region.
• If the enemy has an outpost or headquarters in that attacked region, he gets +1 to his defense power.

Step Two: Compare agents

• Compare the number of agents you have in the defender's region with the number of agents he has in yours. If either player has more agents in the other player's region, it will affect how you resolve the next step.

Step Three: Choose and roll dice

• Both you and the defender take one of the dice pouches each and simultaneously choose, in secret, a number of dice up to your offence or defense power. For example, if you have 4 units in the battle, you may choose from 0 to 4 of each type of dice, tactics, damage, and shield, but to a maximum of 4 dice total. The dice can be of any color combination. Each bag has only five dice of each color; consequently, you can never choose more than five dice of any given color.
• If one player has more agents than the other player (see Step Two), he waits until his opponent has chosen his dice. Before the player with the agent advantage chooses her dice, she gets to ask her opponent one of the following questions, to which he must answer truthfully:
  • How many damage dice did you pick?
  • How many shield dice did you pick?
  • How many tactics dice did you pick?
• When both players are done, reveal the dice and roll all of them at once.

Step Four: Resolve the battle

First, compare your tactics dice (if any) to your enemy's tactics dice. If either player rolled higher tactics than the other, he spends his tactical actions as explained below. If you roll five tactics dice and your enemy rolls only one, you get to take four tactical actions since that's how many tactics you rolled in excess of him.

Use combat dice to resolve battles. There are three types of combat dice:

• White dice are tactics dice. If you roll a lower tactics result than the enemy's, he has the tactical advantage and you get no tactical action. If you roll a higher tactics result than the enemy, every tactic rolled in excess of your enemy can be used to take one of the following tactical actions:
  • Withdraw one of your units to any of your linked regions before damage is dealt. Units in the region you withdraw to cannot attack or move later in the turn.
  • Absorb 1 point of your opponent's damage.
  • Lower your opponent's shields by 1.
• Red dice are damage dice. Every point of damage destroys one enemy unit.
• Blue dice are shield dice. Every point of shield absorbs 1 point of enemy damage.

Damage is dealt to units on both sides. Every point of damage that is not absorbed by shields destroys one unit. Destroyed units go to their owner's stack of un-played units. Agents can't be destroyed in combat.

Step Five: Attack aftermath

When you lose the last unit in your region, the region is lost and the following things may happen:

• If the region had an outpost, the outpost is destroyed. When you lose an outpost, you also lose a resource token that matches it from your reserves area. If you don't have one in your reserves area, the player who destroyed your outpost gets to choose where the token is taken from. If he chooses a resource token from your schedule, the Seal on the calendar remains where it is, but you get fewer actions in that turn. If he chooses a resource token from one of your Project cards, that Project card is discarded.
• If your outpost is destroyed, your opponent may steal one of your Region cards that shares a color value with the region the outpost was in (i.e. green, blue, orange, or red). If you don't have a Region card of that color, he may steal a Region card of the next available value below it if you have any.
• Your opponent may invade the region you lost by moving any number of units into it from the other region that participated in the battle, whether he was the attacker or not. He may not move the last unit from his region.
• If your opponent has an agent in the region, the agent becomes a normal unit. This way, even if your opponent also lost his region in the battle, he is able to claim yours.
• If your opponent neither invades the region nor has an agent in it to claim it, and if one or both of the other players had agents in it, then the agent at the bottom of the stack becomes a regular unit and claims the region.

Example: The Gallente player in Tenerifis attacks an Amarr outpost in Omist. Gallente's six units give an attack power of 6 and Amarr's four units and outpost give a defense power of 5. Gallente has more agents than Amarr, so the Gallente player gets to ask the Amarr player one question regarding his choice of dice before picking his own. When the Amarr player has picked his dice the Gallente asks him,

Gallente: "How many damage dice did you pick?" Amarr: "I'm using 2 damage dice."

The Gallente player then selects his six dice, and both players roll simultaneously.

Amarr rolls 2 damage dice and 3 shield dice. Gallente rolls 5 damage dice and 1 tactics die.

Since only three of Gallente's 8 points of damage are going to be absorbed, Gallente decides to use the tactical action to absorb 1 damage from the Amarr player. Damage is dealt, and Gallente loses 2 units from Tenerifis; Amarr loses all units in Omist and the outpost is destroyed. The Gallente agents become units, and the Gallente player decides to invade Omist with all but his last unit from Tenerifis.

Since the Gallente player destroyed an Amarr outpost in a red region, he now gets to steal one of the Amarr player's red Region cards, which are worth 4 victory points each. Since the Amarr player doesn't have any red or yellow Region cards, the Gallente player gets only one of Amarr's blue region cards instead.

Project Cards

There are three 33-card decks: development deck, production deck, and logistics deck. Development cards help you to expand your empire and manipulate the political landscape; Production cards assist you in combat; and Logistics cards allow you to manipulate the pace of the game or alter the turn sequence.

Card examples: "This card does not require a resource token to be played." / "This card needs one logistics resource token to be played. It stays in play for as long as that token is on top of it."

Drawing and Discarding Cards

Project cards are acquired by spending logistic actions during your logistics turn.

At the beginning of your turn, you may discard one of your un-played cards to get one additional action that turn. The turn type and the card type must be the same; you can't discard a Development card at the beginning of your production turn.

Project cards are kept secret until they are played.

Using Project Cards

Most of the cards need no resource tokens to be played and can be played at any time by simply announcing your intent and revealing the card. When such a card has been resolved, it is placed in its discard pile.

Some of the cards need a resource token to be played. These cards can be played at any time, as long as you have the required resource token available in your reserves area. When you play a card with a resource token, place the card in front of you with the resource token on top. The card immediately takes effect and stays in effect for as long as the resource token remains atop it. Whenever it is your turn, you may choose to return the resource token back to your reserves area, but when you do the card goes to its discard pile.

Using Cards During Combat

All combat cards need to be played before dice are chosen and rolled, unless they say otherwise. The attacker must play his cards first, followed by the defender. If, for instance, the attacker passes and then the defender plays a card, the attacker is not allowed to respond by playing a card.

Games with Two or Three Players

3-Player Games

The rules for the 3-player game are exactly the same as for four players.

Only seven cards are revealed at a time on the political landscape in a 3-player game. Three Region cards are revealed during game preparation, then two by the player who goes first in the setup round, one by the player who goes second, and finally one by the player who goes last.

2-Player Games

The rules for the 2-player game are also exactly the same as for 4 players, with the caveat that you only use the green and blue regions of the map. For the purpose of the 2-player game, the yellow and red regions and all stargates that lead to them do not exist. Thus, to build an outpost, you do not have to have a unit on any yellow regions connected to it. Changes are as follows:

Game Preparation for 2 Players

Take out all red and orange Region cards and put them in the game box. Then shuffle each deck as normal, and divide each of them onto their respective squares on the political landscape. Instead of seven cards on each square, there will be only four cards on each.

Use chips from one of the two empires that are not being used to cover up all the red and orange regions on the game board (place one unit on each of them). These units function only to serve as reminders that those regions are not being used; advanced players may find them unnecessary.

Setup Round for 2 Players

The setup round remains the same except that headquarters can also be placed on blue regions.

Only six cards are revealed at a time on the political landscape in a 2-player game. Three Region cards are revealed during game preparation, then two by the player who goes first in the setup round, and finally one by the player who goes second.