Foundations of Rome: Gardens of Ceres

Expansion for Foundations of Rome

Foundations of Rome: Gardens of Ceres Rulebook

Table of Contents

Components

1 Bag to hold Garden tiles
1 Solo Player Aid
18 Ceres action cards
32 Garden tiles

Setup

Set up a 2-player game of Foundations of Rome as normal, except you will not need the second player's Buildings or Player tray. However, you will still need a second set of Lot markers for Ceres (A). Give 6 Deed cards to Ceres the same way you would a human opponent (B). Keep Ceres' Deed cards in a face-down pile to form her Deed deck.
You are the first player – give yourself 5 Silver as usual for the first player (C). Do not give Ceres starting Silver (she does not use Silver the same way you do).
Put all Garden tiles in the bag (D).
Flip the top three cards from Ceres' Deed deck. For each card, draw a Garden tile from the bag and place it on the revealed location (E). Place the 3 flipped cards into a Deed discard pile (F).
Shuffle the 18 Ceres cards to form her face-down Action deck (G).
Draw 4 cards from her Action deck and lay them out face-up in a row (H).

Select a Difficulty Level

Normal: All of Ceres' Residential and Commercial Garden tiles count as just one Population or Silver.
Hard: Some of Ceres' Residential and Commercial Garden tiles count as two Population or Silver.
Challenge: Ceres gains additional advantages and bonus Victory Points. Only for the most experienced architects to challenge their skills – see Challenge Mode rules on page 8.

Rules of Play

You play your turn as normal using the core rules of Foundations of Rome. The only change is during the player's Buy a Deed action: some cards will have Silver placed on them by Ceres' Bribe action. The price of a Deed card is the value printed above it on the board, plus the Silver on the card itself. The Silver on the card is returned to the bank when you (or Ceres) purchase the Deed. When shifting Deed cards on the "for sale" area, shift their Silver as well.

Gardens and Parks: Ceres does not construct Buildings. Instead, she places Garden tiles that bear icons similar to those on your Buildings. One or more (orthogonally) contiguous Garden tiles form a Park.

On Ceres' Turn

After you have taken your turn, it is Ceres' time to act. Flip up the top card of her Action deck and look at the number shown on that card.

Resolve the action (A) on the corresponding face-up Ceres card, then place the resolved card face-down on the bottom of the draw deck (B). Finally, shift the cards left to fill any holes created in her row (C) and place the card that was flipped up at the start of Ceres' turn to refill the last slot (D).

Player Aid and Garden Tiles

Refer to the front of your Solo Player Aid card for information about Ceres' three different card types. Refer to the back of the card for a breakdown of Ceres' Garden tile types and their effects.

The chart below is an additional reference for Garden tile types.

Garden tile type	Effect
Residential	Each tile adds one to Ceres' Population. Double icons count as two for Hard/Challenge mode and one for Normal mode.
Commercial	Each tile adds one Silver for the Bribe action and 1 Victory Point for scoring. Double icons count as two for Hard/Challenge mode and one for Normal mode.
Civic (Residential)	Ceres gains 2 Victory Points per your adjacent Residential Buildings.
Civic (Commercial)	Ceres gains 2 Victory Points per your adjacent Commercial Buildings.
Civic (Civic)	Ceres gains 2 Victory Points per your adjacent Civic Buildings.
Civic (Any Building)	Ceres gains 2 Victory Points per your adjacent Buildings (of any type).

Claim Deed Action

There are three types of Ceres cards instructing to perform a Claim Deed action:

If the card specifies 3 priority letters, and there is a Deed card matching the leftmost letter, Ceres takes the card (discarding any Silver from the card), places it on her Deed discard pile, and marks the Lot ownership as usual.
- If there are multiple matching Deed cards to select from, she takes the deed whose Lot is closest to any of her existing plots.
  - If there are multiple Deed cards with the same letter that are equally close to her existing Lots, she takes the cheapest one. (Silver on the card does affect the price for her, same as it does for you.) In case of yet another tie, she takes the leftmost one.
- If there are no Deed cards matching the first letter, repeat the above procedure with the second letter, then the third letter if necessary.
If the card shows Cheapest, she always takes the cheapest Deed instead (tiebreaker: leftmost).
If the card shows Most Expensive, she always takes the most expensive Deed instead (tiebreaker: rightmost).

If there are no available Deed cards that match the instructions on Ceres' card, OR if Ceres has no spare Lot markers, she builds one time:

Flip the top card of her Deed deck face-up; draw one random Garden tile and place it face-up on the Lot shown.
If there are no Deed cards available to draw, it is considered a failed action and Ceres gains 1 Victory Point.

Enlarge Park Action

When Ceres wishes to enlarge her Parks, she will build three times, using the following procedure:

If she owns at least one empty Lot, draw a random Garden tile. Find the largest Park she owns with at least one of her empty Lots adjacent to it. Place the tile on that space.
- If there are multiple Parks of the same size, or multiple Lots adjacent to the same Park, you may choose as you see fit.
- If Ceres has no empty Lots orthogonally adjacent to a Park, place the Garden on a diagonally adjacent Lot she owns.
- If Ceres owns no Lots adjacent to her Parks, place the Garden tile as close as possible to her largest Park, and as far as possible from any of her Buildings. If two or more of her Lots satisfy these requirements equally, you may choose which Lot she builds on.
If she does NOT own any empty Lots, Ceres instead immediately scores 1 Victory Point per tile she was unable to place.
Repeat the above procedure two more times.

Running Out of Garden Tiles: In the unlikely event that Ceres runs out of Garden tiles when she needs to place one, simply return the Lot marker from the Lot to her supply. Upon doing this, Ceres gains 4 Victory Points per Lot she controls adjacent to the Lot in question.

Bribe Action

Count the number of Silver on Garden tiles on the board. Using that much Silver +1 from the bank and place one Silver on each face-up Deed card, from left to right, until you either run out of Silver to place, or all Deeds have had a Silver placed on them during this action. Any remaining Silver should be returned to the bank.

End of Round

After the last Deed has been purchased, Ceres will take an Enlarge Park as her last action of the round. Do not flip a card.

Scoring - End of an Era

Residential Building / Garden Scoring

Each Population icon on face-up Garden tiles counts toward Ceres' Population total.

On Normal difficulty: Any Garden tile with an icon of two people (one large and one small) counts as one Population.
On Hard / Challenge difficulty: Any Garden tile with two people counts as two Population.

Record your Population and Ceres' Population on the Population track. Both you and Ceres earn Victory Points based on normal Population scoring rules, as if Ceres was a human opponent.

Commercial Building / Garden Scoring

Commercial Buildings provide Silver and Victory Points as normal for you. For Ceres, each Commercial Garden tile in play provides 1 Victory Point.

Civic Building / Garden Scoring

Your Civic Buildings score Victory Points for your adjacent Buildings and adjacent Garden tiles. Ceres' Civic Garden tiles score 2 Victory Points for each of your adjacent Buildings with matching icons (the value of the icon on each Building does not matter). Ceres' Civic Garden tiles do not score for her other adjacent Garden tiles.

Ceres Bonus Scoring: Parks

Each square grid of Garden tiles rewards Ceres with bonus Victory Points. A Garden tile may only be part of one grid (the highest scoring).

Grid	Bonus
2 x 2	4 VP
3 x 3	18 VP
4 x 4	48 VP

Scoring - End of the Game

Final scoring is performed the same as end of Era scoring, except that Ceres gains an additional 1 Victory Point per Commercial Garden tile, for a total of 2 Victory Points each.

At the end of the game, if you have more Victory Points than Ceres, you have won the game and built the beautiful city King Romulus desired. Otherwise, you have lost, and nature reclaims the lands of Rome.

Increasing Difficulty: Challenge Mode

Flip all six of Ceres' Deed cards (dealt at the start of the game) and place Garden tiles on each of the revealed Lots.
Ceres' Civic Garden tiles now reward 3 Victory Points per your adjacent Buildings.
Garden tiles with two Population / Silver icons (one large, one small) count as 2, just like Hard difficulty mode.
Commercial Garden tiles with 2 Silver icons score 2 Victory Points for Ceres' Commercial Building scoring (instead of 1 Victory Point).
If her Claim a Deed action fails, Ceres gains 2 Victory Ponts [sic] (instead of 1 Victory Point).

Incorporating the Monuments Expansion

The Gardens of Ceres expansion is not compatible with any Foundations of Rome gameplay modules, with the exception of the Monuments Expansion. If you wish to incorporate the Monuments Expansion into your solo experience, follow the instructions below:

Setup

Remove the Temple of Minerva and the Temple of Vulcan from the Monument deck. Shuffle and draw cards from the Monument deck until you have 3 Monuments of different sizes. Return all other Monument cards to the box and place the 3 selected Monument cards nearby. Place Monument markers matching the color used for Ceres' Lot markers in her play area.

Rules of Play

You build Monuments normally.

When Ceres activates a card with a construct Monument icon, perform the normal action, then count the number of Population and Commercial Garden tiles Ceres has in play. Ceres will build one Monument that takes up fewer Lots than the combined number of her Population and Commercial Garden tiles Ceres has in play. Note that on Hard & Challenge difficulty modes, all Population and Commercial tiles count as one tile, even if they feature two icons.

Ceres ignores restrictions and requirements on Monuments. If there are multiple Monuments available, then Ceres will take the smallest Monument first. Place the Monument card for this Building near Ceres' Deed discard pile. When choosing a Lot to build Ceres' Monument, follow the same building rules as her Garden tiles.

Scoring

Commercial and Residential Monuments are scored as typical Garden tiles of that type.