Jenseits von Theben
Jenseits von Theben Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Idea of the game
Being an archeologist, each player travels trough Europe, obtains knowledge about ancient cultures, and makes excavations at historical regions. The players gain reputation (=victory points) for the artefacts found during these excavations. The player with the most reputation wins the game. Beside this the players can also obtain items for better excavation and travel conditions, can attend congresses, and can present artefacts at exhibitions.
Contents
- 1 game board
- 4 playing figures, one per color
- 4 time marker, one per color
- 1 year marker
- 150 excavation cards
- 87 city cards
- 4 excavation tables
- 20 excavation permissions
- 1 die
- 1 rule book
- 1 transparent excavation overlay
The game board
The game board shows a map of parts of Europe, northern Africa, and the near East, a times scale dividing the year in 52 week, 3 marks for years, seven cities, and the five excavation regions Greece, Crete, Egypt, Palestine, and Mesopotamia.
The cards
There are 3 kinds of cards: city cards, excavation cards, and excavation permissions.
City Cards
These have a gray-black-gray rhomb pattern on the back. There are two types of city cards: items and exhibitions.
Items have a grey background. At the bottom of the card there is a name of a city and a duration (in weeks) printed inside a black and white rectangle. Items can be acquired by the players in the stated city with the stated effort (in weeks).
Exhibitions have a yellow background. They are events which occur at the stated city at the stated time.
Excavation Cards
The corresponding symbol of each region is printed at the back of the excavation cards. For each excavation region there are 3 different kinds of cards: artefacts, blanks, and knowledge.
Each excavation card belongs to one of the five excavation regions (Crete, Greece, Egypt, Palestine, Mesopotamia). The number in the upper right corner of the artefact cards represents the value of the card, i.e. the reputation for the finder.
Excavation Permissions
In order to make an excavation it is necessary to possess an excavation permission for the corresponding region.
Comment about 2nd edition
This 2nd edition of Jenseits von Theben differs from its 1st edition only in some minor graphical changes on the cards, corrections of some errors, minor rule enhancements, and some optional rules in order to reduce the luck factor.
Start of Game
The city cards are shuffled and the pile is put faced down beside the game board. Four cards are drawn and are put face up onto the marked places on the game board. If one of these cards is an exhibition card, it will be shuffled back into the pile and another card is drawn to replace it.
The excavation cards are sorted according to the back (=region), so that there are 5 piles with 30 cards each. Each of these 5 piles is shuffled separately and 7 cards are drawn secretly and put out of the game. Nobody is allowed to look at these cards. The remaining piles (consisting of 23 cards each) are put face down beside the game board.
Every player gets five different excavation permissions (one for each region), a playing figure and a time marker (chip) of his color. The playing figures are put onto the field Warsaw (Warschau).
The first player is the one who carries the oldest item with him. Beginning with the player to his left and proceeding clockwise around the table, each player puts his time marker on square "1" of the time scale – on square "17" if there are 3 players – such that the time marker of the first player is on top.
In a 2 or 3 player game the year marker is placed on the year 1900. In a 4 player game, the year marker is place on the year 1901.
The Game Flow
The game is played according to the time scale. Every action of a player costs time (weeks). For each week spent the time marker of the player moves one square. For the movement of the time markers the following rules apply:
- The current player is always the player whose time marker is the furtherst behind (i.e. the player who spent the least time).
- If more than one time markers shares the same square, the player whose time marker is on top goes first.
- If a time marker moves on a square occupied by one or more other time markers, this time marker is placed on top of the other markers.
Example
Player A is in week 5. It's his turn since he is last. Player A places an action which costs 3 weeks. Thus his time marker lands in week 8. Since the time marker of Player A lies on top of the time markers of Player B and Player C it is again Player A's turn.
Player A places an action which costs 4 weeks and his time marker lands in week 12. Now it's Player B's turn, afterwards its Player C's turn. Player D's turn won't start before his time marker is passed by all other time markers.
At the beginning of the game all players are in the same week. Since the time marker of the first player is on top he starts the game.
Possible Actions
On his turn a player can take the following actions:
- (a) Travelling
- (b) Obtaining items (knowledge, actions)
- (c) Conduct an excavation
- (d) Waiting (doing nothing)
(a) Travelling
The players move their playing pieces on the game board on the 12 spaces (7 cities, 5 excavation regions). The effort to go from one space to an adjacent space is one week. That means, that a player who travels from Vienna (Wien) to Egypt (pyramids) must move his time marker 3 squares on the time scale.
After a travel action a player can always make an additional action afterwards (even if he is not last on the time scale anymore).
(b) Obtaining of knowledge and items
One of the 4 city cards which are placed face up on the game board can be taken by the player. In order to do so, the player has to be in the corresponding city (Rom, London, Vienna (Wien), Paris, Moscow (Moskau), or Berlin) and has to invest the stated time (weeks). When a players has obtained a card, he places it face up in front of himself.
The card is then replaced by a new card from the pile, so that there are always 4 city cards on the game board. (If no card can be drawn, then there might be less than 4 cards available.)
Example
A player wants to obtain the herein shown knowledge of Egypt (Ägypten). For that he must travel to Moscow (Moskau) and spend 4 weeks as printed on the card. If the player is for example in Vienna (Wien) he has to spent additional 2 weeks for traveling, i.e. he moves his figure to Moscow (Moskau) from Vienna (Wien), moves his time marker forward 6 weeks (= 2 + 4 weeks), takes the card, and puts the card face up in front of him on the table. Now a new card is drawn and it's now the players turn who is the latest (furthest back) on the time scale.
Remark
If the newly drawn card is an exhibition card, an exhibition is announced (see below) and a new card is drawn.
(c) Conduct an excavation
Excavations are carried out in order to find archeological artefacts. To make an excavation the following things are necessary:
- The player must be at (or travel to) the corresponding region of excavation;
- the player must possess at least one special knowledge card of the corresponding region; and
- the player did not perform an excavation in this region in this year, i.e. the player still possesses an excavation permission of this region. (exception see faked excavation permission later in the rules)
The excavation goes as follows:
-
The player determines his special knowledge of this region adds his general knowledge (Allgemeinwissen) and obtains the overall "knowledge-value" for this excavation.
Attention! The general knowledge value cannot exceed the special knowledge value. If a player has more general knowledge than special knowledge, then the general knowledge value will be the same as the special knowledge. i.e. the special knowledge can only ever be doubled by the general knowledge.
-
The player decides how many weeks he will spend for the excavation; that's the "week-value".
-
The intersection of the "knowledge-value" (column) and the "week-value" (row) on the excavation table shows a number. This number is the number of cards which the player can draw from the excavation cards of the corresponding region.
-
The player now takes the pile of excavation cards, shuffles it, and draws as many cards as determined on the excavation table. The player keeps the artefacts and knowledge cards, i.e. places them face up in front of him on the table. The artefacts increases his reputation (points) and the knowledge cards increase his special knowledge for that region.
-
At the end of the excavation the blanks are shuffled back in the pile of excavation cards.
After the excavation, the player discards the excavation permission for the corresponding region. The player must not perform another excavation in that region in this year!
Example 1
Eve's playing figure is in Paris. She has the following knowledge cards (The knowledge values – roman numbers – is printed in the upper right corner).
Her knowledge for Egypt (Ägypten) is 6 points (3+1 special knowledge + 2 general knowledge (Allgemeinwissen)). Eve decides to spend 6 weeks for the excavation!
According to the excavation table, 6 knowledge points and 6 week points results in a value of 4 cards to draw.
Eve moves her playing figure from Paris to Egypt (Ägypten), which cost 3 weeks, and moves her time marker for 9 squares (9 weeks = 3 weeks travel + 6 weeks excavation).
Now she takes the pile of Egypt (Ägypten), shuffles it, and draws 4 cards and turns them face up.
The blank is put back into the pile and the pile is shuffled. Eve puts the other 3 cards face up in front of her. Eve gained 6 points of reputation for the two artefacts and increased her special knowledge of Mesopotamia (Mesopotamien) by one point.
Example 2
David starts an excavation in Crete (Kreta). He has the following cards: two general knowledge (Allgemeinwissen) cards of value II each, and one Crete (Kreta) card of value I.
Although David possesses 4 points of general knowledge, his overall knowledge of Crete (Kreta) is just 2 points. This is due to the fact that the general knowledge can only double the special knowledge. Since the special knowledge is just 1 point, the 4 points general knowledge just counts as 1 point.
(d) Wait
If a player does not want to perform an action he just moves his time marker an arbitrary amount of squares.
Turn of the year
In a 2 or 3 players game there are two turns of the year; in a 4 players game just one.
The turn of the year takes places as soon as the last player crosses the year border (i.e. the line between week 52 and week 1) and finishes his turn. With the turn of the year the following things happen:
- All players get back their excavation permissions, such that every player possesses all 5 excavation cards.
- The 4 city cards which lay on the game board and all discarded cards are shuffled back into the city card pile. 4 new cards are drawn and placed face up on the game board.
- The year marker is advanced 1 year.
Attention! The game ends with the end of the year 1902. That means, that no player is allowed to moves his time marker further than week 1 of the year 1903. Thus every player ends his game in week 1 of the year 1903.
Exhibitions (Ausstellung)
An exhibition card has four attributes:
- Location of the exhibition
- Time of the exhibition
- Which artefacts can be exposed and
- The number of points which can be gained by the "winner" of the exhibition.
Announcement of an exhibition
Whenever an exhibition card is drawn, the exhibition will be announced and a new city card will be drawn.
The exhibition card is put beside the game board such that the arrow of the exhibition card points to the time (week) when the exhibition will take place. The time is counted according to the player latest (furthest back) on the time scale. The week value on the exhibition card is added to the value of this square (week) on the time scale. This result is the time when the exhibition will take place.
Example
Eve's time marker is in week 19. The other players are in week 24 and 26. The illustrated exhibition card is drawn. The exhibition card is placed beside the game board such that the arrow points to week 36 (=19+17) of the time scale.
Holding the exhibition
As soon as the last player (according to the time scale) reaches or passes the week of the exhibition, the exhibition will take place. All players, 1) whose time marker is in the week of the exhibition, 2) whose playing figure is in the place (city) of the exhibition, and 3) who have at least one artefact from one of the corresponding regions can participate the exhibition.
Each participant of the exhibition counts his number of artefacts from regions of the exhibition, rolls the die and adds both values. The player with the highest number "wins" the exhibition, i.e. gets the exhibition card and the corresponding reputation (points) (upper right corner). If it's a draw, the die rolls of the tied players are repeated.
Attention! Only the number of artefacts count, not the values.
If no players participate in the exhibition, the exhibition card will be discarded.
Example
Exhibition "Artefacts from Greece, Egypt, and Crete" (Griechenland, Ägypten und Kreta) will take place in week 8 in London. Player A places an action which lasts 6 weeks and therefore cannot participate the exhibition. Player D waits 1 week.
Since no time marker is behind week 8, the exhibition now takes place. Player B is not in London and can not participate. Player C and Player D are both in London.
Player C has 3 artefacts form Greece (Griechenland) and rolls a 2 with the die; this results in a total of 5.
Player D has 1 artefact from Crete (Kreta), 1 artifact from Greece (Griechenland) and rolls a 4; this leads to a total of 6.
Player D takes the card and has 5 additional reputation points for the final rating.
Attention! In order to participate in an exhibition, a player must have at least one artefact from any of the corresponding regions on the card.
Remarks
Exhibitions which are announced on a date after the first week of year 1903, i.e. after the end of the game, will take place in the first week of year 1903. For that reason, a typical game will end up with one or more exhibitions.
Exhibitions can also be announced at a turn of the year.
End of the game
As soon as the last player passes the last week of the year 1902 and reaches week 1 of the year 1903 (and some exhibitions probably have to be evaluated) the final conference starts. Now the players get additional points for their special knowledge.
The Final Conference
For scoring the final conference, only special knowledge counts, i.e. neither general knowledge (Allgemeinwissen), nor assistants (Assistenten) or spades (Schaufeln). Points are distributed to the players in 6 ways:
- The player having the most knowledge about the single regions Egypt, Palestine, Mesopotamia, Crete, and Greece gets 4 points each. If there is a tie between two or more players each player gets 2 points.
- 7 points are awarded to the player who has the most knowledge points in his weakest field of knowledge (i.e. the field of knowledge where the player has the least knowledge). If there is a tie between two or more players each player gets 4 points.
Remark: Players should now use the time-scale as the victory points scoring track.
Example
The following table shows the players Klaus, Julia, and Eve and their amount of special knowledge at the end of the game:
| Egypt | Crete | Palestine | Mesopotamia | Greece | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eve | 5 | 5 | – | 6 | 5 |
| Klaus | 2 | 3 | 5 | 6 | 4 |
| Julia | 6 | 3 | 8 | 4 | 3 |
Eve gets 10 points: in each case 4 points for the most knowledge of Crete and Greece, and 2 points for tieing for most knowledge in Mesopotamia as Klaus. Klaus gets just 2 points for knowledge in Mesopotamia. Julia get 15 points: in each case 4 points for the most knowledge of Egypt and Palestine, and 7 points since she has 3 points of knowledge in Greece and Crete, her weakest fields of knowledge. The weakest field of knowledge for Klaus is Egypt (2 points) and the weakest field of knowledge of Eve is Palestine (0 points).
After the final conference is scored, the players will add their points from excavations, exhibitions and congresses.
The player with the most points is the winner.
Further City Cards
Congress (Kongress)
These cards give the owners victory points. The more of these cards a player owns the more points they score. The table below shows how many points a player gets for their congresses:
| Congresses | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Points | 1 | 3 | 6 | 10 | 15 | 21 | 28 | 36 |
Example: Eve has 4 congresses at the end of the game. This gives her 10 additional points.
Horse (Pferd)
A horse accelerates the travelling of a player in such a way, that a journey which lasts longer than 2 weeks is reduced by one week. That means that a journey of 3 steps will last just 2 weeks and a journey of 4 steps will just last 3 weeks.
A player may only possess one horse. A player keeps the horse for the whole game.
Spade (Schaufel)
Spades allow the players to draw additional cards during an excavation. If a player possesses one spade it's of no use. If a player possesses two spades, he can draw one additional card during every excavation. If a player possesses three spades, he can draw two additional cards during every excavation.
A player must not possess more than 3 spades. A player keeps his spades for the whole game.
Assistant (Assistent)
Assistants increase the special knowledge of all regions. If a player possesses one assistant its of no use. If a player possesses two assistants, the special knowledge of each region is increased by one. If a player possesses three assistants, the special knowledge of each region is increased by two.
A player must not possess more than 3 assistants. A player keeps his assistants for the whole game.
Attention! The assistants only increase the knowledge for excavations and not for the final conference!
Faked Excavation Permission (Gefälschte Grabungserlaubnis)
Using a faked excavation permission a player may perform one additional excavation in one region where the player has no excavation permission remaining. The card is discarded after use.
Airship (Luftschiff)
Using the airship card a player can travel once to any destination without moving the time marker on the time scale. The card is discarded after use.
Optional rules
This section provides some optional rules which help to reduce the luck factor of the game. These rules can be used individually or in combination with each other.
'Hard' Excavation Table
The author has recommended the use of a tougher excavation located at the back of the German rules. More details and the 'hard' table can also be downloaded from: http://www.prinzspiele.de/theben/rules2.html
Alternate Excavation Rules
At the beginning of the game one does not remove 7 cards out of each excavation pile. For each excavation pile, all 12 artifacts will be shuffled together with the 2 knowledge cards and 6 blank cards. The remaining 10 blank cards are put aside for later use. Each artifact or knowledge card drawn during an excavation will be replaced with a blank card. Thus every excavation pile will always contain 20 cards (as long as there are enough blanks available).
This rule reduces the luck factor during excavations.
Frequent Cards Changing
After each exhibition, the four city cards lying on the board are put on the discard pile and four new cards are drawn.
If the pile is empty, the discard pile is shuffled and becomes the new pile.
Changing City Cards
As an additional action, a player can discard all four city cards on the board and draw four new cards. The costs of this action is 2 weeks.
If the pile is empty, the discard pile is shuffled and becomes the new pile.
More Exhibitions
After each exhibition, a card is drawn from the pile. If this card is an exhibition, this exhibition will be announced. Otherwise the card will be discarded.
If the pile is empty, the discard pile is shuffled and becomes the new pile.
City Cards Preview
The two top cards of the City Cards pile are played faced up. Thus each player knows what the next two city cards are.
Closing words
This game is one of 300 copies of the 2nd edition of "Jenseits von Theben" (East of Thebes). Since this edition was mainly produced by hand, any irregularities in its workmanship shows that this is a unique copy.
Thanks
Thanks to all who play tested the game. Without their help, it would have been impossible to produce this game. They are many members of the Spielekreis Wien and Gerd Libiseller, Andreas Timel, Thomas Luzer, Irmgard Hajszan-Libiseller, Klaus Libiseller, Claudia Hajszan-Rauch, Barbara Prinz, Thomas Weber, Johannes Werderitsch, Linus, Aaron, Ruben and Edith.
Special thanks to Alan How for editing 1st edition rules and Shawn Low for work on the 2nd edition.
© 2004 Prinz Spiele — www.prinzspiele.de — Autor: Peter Prinz — Illustration: Stephan Pöhnlein