Indus
Indus Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Game Material
- 64 game pieces: four different research teams, 16 per team, in the colors blue, yellow, green and red. Each team has:
- Workers: thin wood disks
- Assistants: middle wood disks
- Professors: fat wood disks
- 1 die
- 1 game instructions
- 7 big and 7 small board pieces, showing 6 different types of ruins: Buildings, Graveyards, Canals, Wooden paths, Stone alleys, and City walls. A ruin consists of connected segments of the same type, possibly stretching over several game fields.
- Each game board component consists of 8 (for the big) or 4 (for the small) game fields. These are lightly marked on the pieces.
- 8 framework pieces, showing the 24 start spaces and holding the game board together. (See the figure on page 2 in the German rules.)
- 83 discovery pieces. These are also portrayed on the ruins on the board. The number declares how many points each discovery piece is worth.
Before playing for the first time, the stickers should be applied to the matching color pieces. Thin disks are workers, who have 1 star. Mid-sized disks are assistants, with 2 stars. Fat disks are professors, with 3 stars. There is only 1 sticker for each game piece: the other side is left blank.
Game Objective
During the game players try to earn points for each of the various ruins by having the most researchers on each of those ruins. Game fields showing multiple ruins are particularly interesting, because a researcher on that space can contribute to scoring many points.
Once all researchers have been brought into play, the discovery pieces are awarded. Each ruin contains the discovery pieces shown; the player with the most researchers on that ruins takes those discovery pieces. The player with the highest score is discovery pieces wins.
Game field with 1 ruin:
- Graveyard
Game field with 2 ruins:
- Wooden path
- Stone alley
Game field with 3 ruins:
- Building
- Canal
- City wall
Board Preparation
Before the first game, you must punch out all the components from the counter sheets carefully.
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Everyone chooses a research team in one color. Depending upon the number of players, each player receives:
- With 4 players: 2 professors, 4 assistants and 6 workers (12 pieces).
- With 3 players: 3 professors, 5 assistants and 8 workers (16 pieces).
- With 2 players, each player has 2 teams: 2 professors, 4 assistants and 6 workers per color (24 pieces).
These pieces are placed openly in front of the players. The remaining pieces are put back in the box.
Comment: We recommend putting the empty counter sheets under the black tray in the box. (This lifts the tray, so that the game pieces don't get mixed up in the box.)
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The discovery pieces are sorted by value and are placed out so that they are readily available, along with the die.
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Then the board is built: first a square center piece is chosen, then four matching corner pieces. Keep an eye that all transitions match for canals, stone alleys, wooden paths, and city walls.
You always have to create the parts of the game board that have the same transitions as the center piece.
The framework pieces, which show the 24 start spaces, are placed around the playfield to complete the board. The fourteen playfield pieces offer a large variety of possible boards.
Once familiar with the game, other boards can be built using the variable setup rules included later.
Game Setup
The recommended first game set-up for 2 or 4 players:
- Select the parts of the game board shown on the right and set the plan according to the picture. Then place the first pieces on the edge of the field.
- With 2 players: Everyone plays with 2 colors of his choice. 1 assistant and 1 worker in each color are placed as indicated in the illustration.
- With 4 players: Everyone chooses a color and places 1 assistant and 1 worker as indicated in the illustration.
- With 3 players: Everyone chooses a color and places 1 assistant and 2 workers as indicated in the illustration.
There are 19 ruins on the board:
- 2 buildings (one 3 fields large and one 4 fields large),
- 4 graveyards (two 1 field large, one 2 fields large, and one 3 fields large),
- 1 canal (11 fields large),
- 4 wooden paths,
- 4 stone alleys,
- 4 city walls.
A round is played clockwise, beginning with the start player. On a turn players complete three actions in the following order:
- Add a researcher on an unoccupied start space
- Roll the die
- Move a researcher onto a game field
Once a player has finished his turn, the player on his left proceeds.
- Add a researcher on an unoccupied start space
One can place any researcher (workers, assistant or professor) of his on an unoccupied start space around the edge of the board. Once all pieces have been placed, this action is skipped.
Hint: One should distribute his pieces so as to maximize the number of useful die rolls.
Illustration captions: 3 varieties of researchers can be placed. Yellow decides to put a professor here.
- Roll the die
Now the player rolls the die so as to bring one of his researchers onto the playing field. If the roll doesn't please, the active player may choose to roll again, with a maximum of three rolls. However, once the die has been rolled additional times, the active player has a more limited choice of which researcher to move:
- Workers may only be moved with the first roll.
- Assistants may be moved with either the first or second roll.
- Professors may be move with the first, second, or third roll.
Illustration: Workers have 1 star. Assistants have 2 stars. Professors have 3 stars.
For example: If the active player rolls a third time, he must bring a professor onto a playing field.
Note that once a player has decided to roll again, the previous roll may no longer be used.
- Move a researcher onto a game field
The active player now moves one of his pieces onto a game field in accordance with the die roll. A piece is always moved in a single straight horizontal or vertical line. Each game field corresponds to 1 die pip.
The piece is put directly on the corresponding field, on top of other pieces currently present. The last game piece to arrive is always placed on top.
Securing a field / capturing pieces
If a player manages to place a second piece of his color on the same field, he has secured this field for the rest of the game. The pieces of all other players on this field are caught and are removed from the game. The player gets discovery pieces from the general reserve based upon the value of his prisoners: each worker scores 1 point, each assistant 2 points, and each professor 3 points.
Any enemy pieces landing on the space later in the game are immediately captured in the same fashion; the player who has secured the field may add more pieces to the field.
Illustration caption: Capture stone bring a reward.
Scoring
As soon as all game pieces have been moved onto game fields, the game is finished, and the appraisal of all ruins occurs.
To help with the appraisal, each ruin shows one or more discovery pieces; the score for that ruin is the sum of those pieces. In each case, the player with the most pieces scores: the type of piece has no effect on scoring.
The different ruin types are assessed one after the other: 1. Buildings, 2. Graveyards, 3. Canals, 4. Wood paths, 5. Stone alleys, 6. City walls.
Game pieces should be left on the board until scoring is complete, since pieces count for all ruins on their game field.
Scoring is determined as follows:
Buildings
All researchers on the fields of the buildings count towards determining the majority, regardless of their position in the stack. The player with most researchers receives the higher value discovery piece (see the illustration on the board), and the player with the second most researches receives the lower value discovery piece. In case of a tie for first, the tied players sum the first and second place points and divide them equally, rounding down. If there is a tie for second place, those points are divided equally among the tied players, rounding down.
If there are only researchers of one player in a building ruin, this player receives both the first place and second place discovery pieces.
The green stone counts for the Building and the Wooden path.
Example: The building (highlighted in red): yellow and green have most researchers (2 each). They share the sum of the points for first and second place [6+3]. The yellow and green players each receive discovery pieces with a value of 4 points.
Graveyards, Canals, Wood paths, Stone alleys, City walls
Only researchers on the top of the corresponding game fields count, and only the player with the most researchers scores. If several players tie for the most researchers, the points are divided equally among the tied players, rounding down.
Example: The graveyard (highlighted in purple): red receives 4 points.
Example: The stone alley (highlighted in yellow): blue receives 2 points (the green researcher doesn't count, because it is covered).
Example: The wood path (highlighted in brown): yellow and green each receive 1 point (splitting the 2 points available).
Comment: The values of the discovery pieces in the ruins follow a certain scheme:
- Buildings: Twice the number of the game fields for first place; the number of the game fields for second place.
- Graveyard: 3, 4 or 6 points.
- Canals: The number of the game fields.
- Stone alleys, wood paths, and city walls: always 2 points.
Example: This graveyard worth 6 points for the player with the most researchers.
Finally, players sum up the points on their discovery pieces. The player with the highest sum wins.
Variable Setup
In order to provide some variability, one can combine various game board parts for each game. It is important to start with the square middle piece and then find four matching corner pieces, making certain that all the wood paths, stone alleys, and canals are matched up.
- Before the game starts, the start player places one of his researchers on any free start space. Other players follow in order. After all players have placed 2 researchers (3 with 3 players, 2 for each color with 2 players), the game can begin.
Hint: With the variable game setup, each game is different. Additionally, starting position are freely selectable. It is important to look carefully at the game board, as some small ruins cover only a single game field and thus will automatically score for the player holding that field.
The transitions must always fit: Wood paths to Wood paths, Stone alleys to Stone alleys, Canals to Canals.
Particularities for 2 players
The players choose 2 colors. Everyone therefore leads two research team. For each team, the majorities are examined, and the ruins scored separately.
- Variable game setup: the players take turns placing researchers until two of each color have been played. Player may place pieces of their colors in any sequence.
- Game course: each turn the current player chooses which color to play, adds a researcher of that color, and then must move a piece of that color onto a game field.
- Capturing pieces: players may capture pieces of their other color. When this occurs, the player doing so may either score points as usual or bring the captured piece back into his reserve.
- Consecutive turns: it can occur, due to capturing, that only one player has pieces remaining. Should this occur, this player continues to play until all pieces have been moved to game fields.
- Scoring: colors are scored separately for each color. The player who scored the most total points with his two research teams has won.
Example: Wolfgang has chosen the colors red and yellow. Only yellow pieces are in his reserve. However, 2 red pieces still remain on the start spaces. In order to move a red piece, he skips action one (there being no red pieces left to bring in), but then must move a red piece onto a game field.