Guatavita Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Goal
• Components
• Board Setup
• Player's Setup
• Game Round
  • A. Planning Phase
    • Passing
    • Minimum workers at Camp
    • Minimum Gold
    • Sabotage and Re-exploration Actions
    • Exploring the lake
    • Insurance
    • Rental
  • B. Execution Phase
    • Resolving Lake Spaces
    • Excess Gold
    • Head explorers
    • Special Terrains
    • Resolving Saboteurs
    • Resolving the Action Spaces
      • Camp Upgrade
      • Pump Upgrade and Re-exploration
      • Harvest
      • Pioneer
      • Commerce
      • Recruitment
      • Loan
• End of the Game
• Scoring
• Playing with "La Balsa" mini-expansion

Goal

The goal of the game is to obtain as many prestige points as possible. These are earned in several ways: mainly by exploring the lake, followed by creating camps, pipelines and machinery, by resting workers on camp, and by gathering resources and the workers for the end of the game.

Components

• 4 pieces of the Main Board
• 38 Terrain Hexagons (Tiles)
  • 18 First Depth Level (Phase 1)
  • 12 Second Depth Level (Phase 2)
  • 6 Third Depth Level
  • 3 Deepest Level (Centre of the Lake)
• 4 Individual Resources Boards (1 per Player)
• 25 Emeralds
• 1 Pioneer Marker
• Game Tokens (4 colors)
  • 1 Gold Marker
  • 1 Food Marker
  • 1 Water Pump
  • 1 Camp Marker
  • 1 Loan marker
  • 1 Score marker
  • 9 Workers
  • 12 Pipelines
  • 4 Machine Tokens
  • 1 "balsa" (Boat)

Board Setup

Lake Tiles are separated by type and then each stack is shuffled.

1. The board frame is assembled and the terrain tiles are placed inside. The lake's shore is filled with randomly placed phase 1 tiles. The next depth level is filled with phase 2 tiles placed randomly.
2. Afterwards, you must place all 6 phase 3 tiles. Then choose randomly one Centre tile and finish building the lake. Don't see what's beneath the remaining tiles and place them in the box.

Player's Setup

Give the Pioneer Marker to a player by any means you prefer.

Then, each player must receive:

• 3 Workers
• 3 Pipelines
• 1 Water Pump
• 10 Prestige Points (The score marker must be placed on the corresponding track)
• 1 Individual resources board.

Each player must place his Loan Marker on the first space of the Loan Track.

Each player will place their water pumps in the following spots according to the number of players. The setup diagram on page 3 of the rulebook shows the spots: with 3 players, each player's pump goes on one of the three blue-marked spots; with 2 or 4 players, each player's pump goes on one of the four white-marked spots around the lake. Each player must place his workers and pipelines in the nearest corner of the board (his camp).

All players start the game with 5 gold bars and without any food in their storage. Therefore, the gold marker must be placed on 5 and the food maker on 0 in the individual Resources Board.

On the board, all players must place the Camp Marker on the starting position indicating that each player starts the game with one camp, in which his current 3 workers can be lodged.

Game Round

A game round comprises two phases: one for planning and one for execution. In the planning phase players will place workers, pipes and machines on the action and lake spaces. In the execution phase, all actions will be paid and resolved in order.

A. Planning Phase

During the planning phase, players will take turns placing his workers, pipes and machines on the board. Starting with the Pioneer player (the one with the Pioneer Marker) and taking turns in a counter-clockwise fashion, each player will select an available action or lake space and will place the needed workers, pipes and or machines to make the action once. A player can only choose one action, and only can choose it if he has the available pieces in his camp. A player can only choose the same action twice in the same planning phase.

For example, the red player wants to make a Camp Upgrade Action, so he places 2 workers and 1 machine. Then, blue places a worker in the Harvest Action, and yellow in the Pioneer Action. It is now red's turn again, so he can choose to do a Camp Upgrade Action again, as he can select it twice, but prefers to Recruit a worker.

That is the location of workers and machines on the action boxes needed to perform each action once.

Passing

If a player can't or won't place more pieces in the actions or lake spaces, he must pass. The planning phase round will continue until all players have passed. A player that passes cannot take further actions this planning phase.

Minimum workers at Camp

If at the beginning of a planning phase a player has no workers at camp, he must retrieve 1 of his head explorers from the lake to camp. If he has no workers whatsoever, he must pay either 1 gold piece or 4 emeralds to buy 2 workers before selecting his first action. If he has no gold or emerald pieces, this will trigger an automatic Loan Action and, even possibly, the end of game (see Loan Action).

Minimum Gold

If a player begins a planning phase without gold, he must, as his first planning action, place a worker in the Loan Action. If all the action slots are taken, he won't have to take this action this turn as an exception.

Sabotage and Re-exploration Actions

The Sabotage Action requires the player to place a worker in a Sabotage Action slot and a second worker on tile that is going to be explored by another player. The Re-exploration Action requires a player to place a worker on the action slot and a machine in a Damp Terrain owned by the player (see Re-exploration below).

Yellow places a worker in a Sabotage Action slot and a second worker in a tile that will be explored by Blue.

Exploring the lake

In order to explore a terrain, a player must place at once all required workers (circle spaces) and machines (square spaces) in the tile. A player can only place workers on a tile that is connected to the player's Pump or adjacent to another lake tile that has already been explored by the player (is connected by one of his pipes). In the second case, the player will also have to connect the unexplored tile with an explored tile by placing a pipe connecting them (or two if it is connecting to a damp terrain). At the end, all of the tiles explored by a player must be connected to his Pump by his pipeline system.

Phase 3 and 4 lake tiles require a level 2 Water Pump to be explored.

Red wants to explore two tiles this round. One requires 3 workers and one pipe to plan the action, while the other requires 3 workers and 1 machine, as well as two pipes due to the Damp Terrain. Red cannot explore a phase 3 lake tile because the red Water Pump is still level 1 and, the tile is not connected to the Pump.

Insurance

When planning an exploration action, the player that is performing the action can choose to insure the machinery against landslides by placing an emerald on each of his machine(s). This helps to avoid losing the machine in case of a landslide (see landslide below). Only machines can be insured, not workers. Emeralds are lost in the execution of the tile even if there wasn't a landslide.

Red is worried that the phase 2 lake tile might be a landslide, so he decides to place one emerald over his machine to insure it.

Rental

If a player wishes to cross a terrain that has already been explored by another player, he must pay 1 gold for the installation of his pipe to each of the players that own the terrain (has a pipe of his color on the tile), claiming only the prestige points marked on the tile. After placing the pipe and claiming the points, the player can immediately place a second pipe to explore an adjacent space, placing all required workers and machines as always.

Red wishes to cross a terrain tile that belongs to Blue in order to continue exploring. Therefore, he must pay 1 gold to Blue for the rights to install his pipe and be able to explore the next tile. He then claims the points (1) and uses a second pipe to start exploring the next terrain.

B. Execution Phase

After all players have passed, the execution phase begins and all actions on the board are resolved in the corresponding order. The order of resolution goes like this:

1. Resting workers: for every 3 unused workers in camp, a player will win 1 prestige point.
2. Lake spaces: all lake spaces are resolved in any order. If a saboteur is in the lake, it will be resolved when the lake tile is revealed.
3. Action spaces 1: Resolve them from left to right, beginning with the Camp Upgrade Action and finishing with the Commerce Action.
4. Action spaces 2: Resolve the Recruitment Action and then the Loan Action space. Saboteurs should have already been resolved.

First, check for workers resting in camp and award 1 point for every 3. Then, resolve the exploration action of the red and blue player. When revealing the tile explored by Blue, resolve the yellow saboteur (Sabotage Action). Then resolve Red's Upgrade Camp Action, the Blue's Pioneer Action, then Yellow and Red Commerce Actions, and then Blue Recruitment Action. Actions without workers are not resolved.

Resolving Lake Spaces

To resolve a Lake Tile, set aside the workers and machines and flip the terrain to reveal its drained side. After resolving the tile, return all surviving workers and machines back to camp. A regular tile contains the following information:

After Red flips the tile, he receives 1 emerald, 2 gold pieces and 3 prestige points. He takes the emeralds from the supply and moves his Score and Gold Markers.

Excess Gold

A player can't have more than 8 gold pieces. The surplus acquired will be given as Prestige Points. So, if a player has 7 gold pieces and gets 2 more, he will get 1 gold piece and 1 Prestige Point.

Head explorers

A head explorer is a worker that is left in each of the ends of a player's pipeline. If the explored tile is connected to a pipeline that already has a head explorer, it is moved to the newly drained tile. If not, a new head explorer must be left in the newly drained tile. If two pipeline paths from the same player get connected, a player can send one of the head explorers to the camp. The first head explorer is placed as soon as the first tile is drained in the lagoon.

Yellow explores his first tile and leaves a head explorer in the lake (1, 2). In the next round, he explores an adjacent tile to the one with the head explorer, so he moves it to the newly drained tile (3, 4). In a following round, he decides to explore in a new direction from a tile without a head explorer, so he must leave a new head explorer there (5, 6).

Special Terrains

Some terrains might have additional effects for the player.

1. Famine

If a tile has the corn icon, a Famine event takes place after all lake tiles have been resolved and all surviving workers have been moved back to camp. If more than one corn icon appears on the same execution phase, only resolve the famine once. In this case, each player must count the number of workers they currently have in camp and in the action spaces and feed them by paying 1 food per worker. If you can't feed all of your workers, remove 1 worker from camp to the supply for each food not paid. If after removing the workers you are still in debt, remove 1 prestige point for each food you still owe.

After resolving all the lake tiles, a famine must be resolved because a tile with the famine icon was revealed. Blue has 2 workers in camp and 3 in the action spaces, so he must remove 5 food from his supply. Unfortunately, he only has 2, so he spends them but must lose 3 workers from camp. He only has two, so he loses them and must also lose 1 prestige point. Red on the other hand had 5 workers and 6 foods, so he ends with one food in the supply and his workers safe.

2. Landslide

Machines and workers used to explore the tile are lost due to the landslide and are returned to the supply. However, the bank gives back 1 gold per machine lost as insurance to the player.

If a machine was insured with an emerald, it is returned to the camp, but the bank will not give the gold piece, as the machine was not lost. The pipeline connected to this tile remains in the board and a player will have to leave a head explorer as usual in the landslide tile. He will be able to explore from this tile as usual in the next rounds.

3. Damp Terrain

The blue shadow with the blue dot marks a damp terrain. In order to leave this terrain a player must use two pipes instead of one, due to the added difficulty to drain the water.

The box on the center, if any, indicates that the terrain can be re-explored (Re-exploration action) to obtain the prestige points marked inside the box.

Resolving Saboteurs

If a player has a saboteur in play, before the player exploring the tile flips it, he must pay 1 emerald and declare if he wants to sabotage either the prestige points, the emeralds or the gold pieces from a tile. If the player has no emeralds, he retrieves the worker to his camp with no effect.

The tile is then revealed. If the declared resources are present on the tile he can do the following before returning the worker to the camp (as well as the worker in the Sabotage Action slot):

1. Declared emeralds: take all the emeralds from the tile. The explorer will take none.
2. Declared gold: take 1 gold piece from the tile. The explorer will take the remaining pieces if any.
3. Declared prestige: both the saboteur and the explorer score the prestige points in the tile.

If the declared resources are not present, the saboteur was spotted and killed. Return it to the supply instead of the camp. If there is a landslide, the worker is also lost.

Yellow declares he wants to take gold and the tile is flipped. The tile has gold, so he takes 1 gold and Blue takes the second gold. In the case no gold was found, Yellow would have lost his worker to the supply.

Resolving the Action Spaces

To resolve an action space, the player will pay the specified price and return his workers and machines to camp. Skip actions with no workers.

Camp Upgrade

Two workers and one machine must be placed during the planning phase to perform this action. During execution, a player needs to pay 2 gold pieces to advance the camp marker one square to the right. The white points on the top of the camp box indicate how many workers a player can house in his camp (3-9). Camps will award points at the end of the game (see Scoring).

Yellow can have up to 8 workers in his camp. If he upgrades his camp, he could accommodate up to 9.

Pump Upgrade and Re-exploration

A player with a worker in this space can choose between these two actions.

1. Pump Upgrade

During execution, a player can pay 2 gold pieces to move the worker assigned to this action to the top of his Water Pump. This upgrade (level 2 pump) will allow a player to drain phase 3 and 4 lake tiles.

The worker over the water pump counts to the worker limit for camp level. This worker cannot be moved again for the remainder of the game nor lost to famine.

2. Re-exploration

During the planning phase, a player must place a worker in the action box and a machine in a damp terrain owned by the player (with a pipe of his color over the tile). During execution, a player has to pay 1 emerald to acquire the prestige points shown in the squared box of the damp terrain tile. A damp terrain may be re-explored as many times as a player wants.

Yellow placed a worker in the re-exploration action and a machine in a damp terrain owned by him. He can pay 1 emerald to win the points marked in the box on the terrain.

Harvest

Players will harvest food through this action. If he placed 1 worker, he'll get 2 foods, if he placed two, he'll get 3 foods. If the player has the Pioneer Marker, he will get 2 extra foods in total (not per worker). A player can't have more than 8 foods in his supply: the excess is lost.

Pioneer

The player performing this action will take the initial player marker (Pioneer) for the following turns. In addition, he may exchange 1 gold for 4 emeralds or the other way around.

The Pioneer marker shows who the first player is. It only changes hands when using the Pioneer action. The player with this marker begins the planning phase next turn and can get extra food from the Harvest Action.

Commerce

Each worker on this action space will allow its owner to pay the corresponding value to place a machine or pipe from his supply to his camp. Machines cost 2 gold each; pipes cost 1. Although the Commerce square is one action, the slots to buy machines and pipes are separate and can be filled so other players won't be able to buy a particular type of asset. Only two workers of the same color can be in the Commerce Action at any time.

The number of machines and pipes a player can have is limited by the quantity of pieces that come with the game.

Recruitment

The player performing this action will receive a new worker from the supply to be placed in his camp, per worker assigned. Each new worker costs 2 food. Remember a player cannot house more workers than his camp level allows him to.

Loan

The bank sponsors the expedition, but each loan will reduce the prestige of the player. Each time a player uses this action, he will advance his loan marker one square to the right, taking the gold shown below (positive numbers), but losing the points shown above (negative numbers). If the marker reaches the end, the game will end after this execution phase.

Yellow makes a loan action and takes 4 gold, but loses 5 prestige points.

End of the Game

The game finishes as soon as the current execution phase ends, when any of the following events occur:

1. When a player successfully drains the center of the lake.
2. When the loan marker of any player reaches the end space (bankruptcy).
3. If any player places his last pipe (12) in the lake.

Scoring

At the end of the game, players score additional points for the following:

1. The number beneath his camp level. In this case, Red fully upgraded his camp so he receives 12 points.

2. The player with the camp most upgraded receives 9 points, the next receives 7 and the third, 4. In case of a tie, add the points of the next position and divide them rounded down among the tied players. Example: 3 players tied for the first position will be awarded 5 points (9+7 divided by 3); two players are tied for second position and will be awarded 5 points (7+4 divided by 2). 2 players are tied in third position and are awarded 2 points (4 divided by 2).

3. Each player sums up the quantity of pipes he has in the lake. These are scored the same as camps (the player with most pipes receive 9 points, the next 7, and the next 4).

4. Each machine in camp awards 3 points.

5. Every two workers in camp award 1 point.

6. Every pipe in camp awards 2 points.

7. Every 5 emeralds awards 1 point.

8. Every gold piece awards 1 point.

9. Every head explorer awards 3 points.

In case of a tie, the player with the most pipes in the lake wins. If there's still a tie, the player with the most gold pieces wins.

Playing with "La Balsa" mini-expansion

1. Game Setup

After the normal setup, each player will place his "balsa" in a Phase 1 shore tile at a maximum distance of three tiles from the player's water pump.

2. Planning Phase

During planning phase, a player may assign two workers to the "Balsa" to activate it during execution.

4. Execution phase

After all explored tiles have been flipped, but before resolving the upgrade camp action, if a player has two workers in his "Balsa", he may move it up to 2 tiles away, regarding he can move it through not-drained tiles (water side up). If there are no available movements, the "Balsa" must remain in its place. This is resolved clockwise beginning with the player with the Pioneer marker.

If a "Balsa" enters a space occupied by a non-protected "Balsa" (no emeralds over the "Balsa"), it will move it to an adjacent not-drained tile (the owner of the "Balsa" chooses). A protected "Balsa" cannot be moved, and thus, another "Balsa" cannot enter its tile. After moving the "Balsa", a player may do one of the following actions:

5. Inspect

The player may pay 2 emeralds to inspect a tile adjacent to where the "Balsa" is. The player will secretly view the other side of the tile and will place it again on the lake with the water side face up.

A player may never inspect the center tile of the lake.

6. Protect

The player may place two of his emeralds over the "Balsa" after retrieving his workers. As long as the "Balsa" remains in that tile and no new workers are assigned to it, this tile may not be explored by any player, unless the player uses an additional machine. If the player assigns workers to the "Balsa" again, the emeralds are returned to the supply and it will no longer be protected. Example: a player protects a phase 2 tile. If another player wants to explore it, he or she will need 3 workers and 2 machines (one more than normally needed).

• A protected "Balsa" cannot be "moved" by other players so it blocks all "Balsa" movements through this tile.
• A player cannot protect the center tile of the lake.

7. Destroying a "Balsa"

If at any time a player explores a tile in which a "Balsa" is in, it will be destroyed and returned to the supply. This happens even if the "Balsa" is protected. A "Balsa" cannot be rebuilt.

8. Scoring

If a "Balsa" remains in the lake by the end of the game, it will be scored like this: the player will be awarded the number of the phase of the tile the "Balsa" is in multiplied by 2. If it ended in the center of the lake, it will score 8 points; in a phase 3 tile it will score 6 points; in a phase 2 tile, 4 points; and in a phase 1 tile, 2 points.