Journey of the Emperor
Journey of the Emperor Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
- 45 Festival cards:
- 20 Castle Cards
- 20 Ship Cards
- 5 Path Cards
- 42 Emperor's Favorite Cards
The game uses four animal tokens, shown on the components page: Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird and Black Turtle.
Glossary
- Journey: A sequence of festival cards, beginning with a Castle on the left, and ending with a Ship on the right. Each completed Journey includes one Castle, one Ship, and any number of Paths between them.
- Path Area: The part of a festival card containing animals and lanterns.
- Score Area: The portion of a Castle card or Ship card that indicates how Animals will score for that Journey.
- Animal: Animals that can be seen along the path are used for scoring.
- Banner: Banners that can be seen from the Castle or Ship are used for scoring certain Emperor's Favorites.
- Lantern: Lanterns that can be seen along the path are used for scoring certain Emperor's Favorites.
Festival Cards
There are three types of Festival cards in the game:
- Ship cards depict a Path on the left and a Score Area (the ship) on the right.
- Castle cards depict a Score Area (the castle) on the left, and a Path on the right.
- Path cards depict only a Path.
Setup
- Shuffle the Festival deck, and place it face-down in the center of the table.
- Each player draws cards according to the table below.
- Flip 6 cards from the deck face-up to form the Supply.
- Shuffle the Emperor's Favorites deck.
- Each player draws 4 Emperor's Favorites cards and keeps 2. Keep these secret until the end of the game!
| Number of Players | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cards Drawn at Game Start | 4 | 3 | 2 | 2 |
| Turns / Cards Played During Game | 12 | 10 | 8 | 6 |
| Minimum Number of Journeys to Win | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 |
The player who most recently attended a festival takes the box as a reminder that they are the first player, which can matter for breaking ties at the end of the game.
Sequence of Play
On your turn, you must do the following three easy steps:
- Take a Festival card of your choice from the face-up Supply, and add it to your hand.
- Flip a new card face-up from the Festival deck to replace the one you took.
- Play a Festival card from your hand.
Playing a Festival Card
You can play a Festival card by itself to start a new Journey, or you can add it to an existing Journey in order to extend it. Keep in mind that each Journey must have a Castle and a Ship in order to be considered complete, and score at the end of the game.
Extending a Journey
In order to add a Festival card to an existing Journey, you always add the new card to one end of the Journey or the other — never the middle. Thus, you will always play Castle cards on the left end, Ship cards on the right end, and Path cards can go on either end. As a rule of thumb, never cover a Path Area. Thus, there are two possibilities for playing your card:
- The Journey currently has a Path Area on that end: Play the new card beside the old card.
- The Journey currently has a Score Area on that end: Place the new card so the Path Area of the new card covers the Score Area of the old card. Remember not to cover any part of the old card's Path Area.
At the end of the game, only the visible areas on cards in complete Journeys will score.
Remember: Because the Path cards have no Score Area, playing a Path card will make that Journey incomplete until you add a new Castle card (if it's on the left) or Ship card (if it's on the right) to that Journey.
Game End & Scoring
Once each player has had the number of turns indicated in the table below (because you never completely cover any of your cards, you can simply count the cards in front of you to see how many turns you've had), the game is over, and the scoring begins.
| Number of Players | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Turns / Cards Played During Game | 12 | 10 | 8 | 6 |
Incomplete Journeys
Turn any incomplete Journeys (i.e. with a path at one or both ends) face-down: They are not scored in any way. Remember, a Journey is only complete if it starts with a Castle and ends with a Ship.
Because this Journey has no Ship on the right, it is incomplete, and will score no points.
Minimum Journeys
| Number of Players | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Minimum Number of Journeys to Win | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 |
If you do not have at least as many complete journeys as indicated in the table above, the guests are displeased by your lack of planning; you score 0 points, and are out of the game.
Because this Journey has both a Castle on the left and a Ship on the right, it is complete.
Scoring
Score each of your Journeys separately. For ease of scoring, start with your longest Journey first. Score each Journey as follows:
- Count the sets of Animals that match your Castle card, and score them according to the Score Area on the Castle card.
- Count the sets of Animals that match your Ship card, and score them according to the Score Area on the Ship card.
Leave your cards undisturbed until you have scored your Emperor's Favorites cards.
In the example below, the Castle card earns 4 points for each Vermilion Bird. There are six Vermilion Birds in this journey, so the Castle card is worth 24 points. The Ship card earns 22 points for each combination of Azure Dragon, White Tiger, and Vermilion Bird. While there are multiple birds and tigers, there is only one dragon, so the Ship card is worth 22 points.
This Journey of the Emperor is worth a total of 46 VP.
Emperor's Favorites
Reveal your Emperor's Favorite cards. Each Emperor's Favorite indicates the requirements to score it at the top, and the points it is worth at the bottom.
- Emperor's Favorites requiring banners will score for each of your Journeys that have those 2 banner colors in them.
- Emperor's Favorites requiring lanterns will score for each set of those lanterns in your entire Festival (all completed Journeys).
- Some Emperor's Favorites will require that you have a certain set of banners or lanterns in your hand at the end of the game. These will only score once as long as you meet the requirements.
Add the point values for any completed Emperor's Favorites cards to your score.
Determining a Winner
The player with the highest score wins. Ties are broken in reverse turn order, so, for example, the last player in turn order always wins in a tie.