Lords of Worlds Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Content
• Setup
• Goal of the Game and Gameplay
  • Hire Assistants
  • Move your Cart and Collect a tile
  • Collecting rules
• Place a Terrain tile on your Planet
• Magic Portal
• Special Terrain tiles
  • The Architect
  • Mix
  • Sage Tree
  • Viewpoint
• End of the game
• Final Scoring
  • The Scoring Table
• Strategic Variant
• Setup summary

Content

• 100 Assistant cards in 7 colors (blue, red, green, cyan, violet 3 each, values 1 to 5) and 10 white Wild cards (5 x value 3 and 5 x value 4)
• 1 Scoring Table
• 60 Basic Terrain tiles: 10 x 6 different types: Water, Desert, Lowlands, Forest, Hills, Mountains
• 16 Special Terrain tiles: 2 x 4 different types: Architect, Sage Tree, Viewpoint, Mix
• 4 Game boards (double-sided: front and back)
• 4 Player Planets, with a scoring track (1 per player)
• 4 Player Carts, in 4 colors
• 4 Score trackers, in 4 colors
• 8 Scoring tokens, 2 per player color, with values 50/100 and 150/200

Setup

1. Assemble the game board. In a:

   • 2 players game: use 1 large board and the 2 small boards;
   • 3 players game: use the 2 large boards and 1 small board;
   • 4 players game: use all 4 boards.

   You can assemble the boards as you prefer, and the portals can be either on the edge of the playing area or in the middle. For your first game, use these suggested combinations: 2 Players, 3 Players, 4 Players (shown in the rulebook as board diagrams).

2. Shuffle the Assistant cards to create a face-down deck beside the game board. Draw cards one by one to create separate groups of the same color, stacking them so that cards within each group overlap slightly. Once a group reaches a total value of 8 or more, stop adding cards to it. If another card of the same color is drawn, begin a new group. If this deck ever runs empty, shuffle its discard pile to form a new one.

   Setup example, with Red and Blue (2 players): In this setup example, after the second 5, the green group had a value of 10, so it was completed. Therefore, the green 2 that was drawn later had to be placed to form a new group. If the green 2 had been the first green card drawn, both green 5s would have been placed in the same group, because 2+5 = 7, and you must add a card to a group until it reaches 8. (Group totals shown in the example: 1, 3, 5, 10, 11, 14.)

3. Draw cards from the Assistants deck until the total value of the cards in your hand exceeds 13. Once reached this threshold, your starting hand is ready and you don't draw further cards. Other players do the same, in turn.

4. Prepare the Terrain and Special Terrain tiles. In a:

   • 2 players game: use 4 Terrain types (e.g. Water, Desert, Lowlands, Forest);
   • 3 players game: use 5 Terrain types;
   • 4 players game: use all 6 Terrain types.

   Regardless of the number of players, add all the 16 Special Terrain tiles to the Basic Terrains. Thus:

You are now ready to play!

Goal of the Game and Gameplay

In Lords of Worlds, you collect Terrain tiles and add them to your Planet trying to create chains of tiles of the same type: the longer a chain is, the more points it will be worth at the end of the game. Have the most points to win the game!

We'll use points when referring to victory points!

You play the game in rounds. Once all players have had a turn, a round is over. The starting player begins. On your turn, you can either:

• Hire Assistants, adding cards to your hand

OR

• Play cards you have in your hand and use them to Move your Cart and/or Collect a tile.

Hire Assistants

If you decide to Hire Assistants, take all the cards of any available group. Then, replenish the available groups to 6, following the Setup instructions at step 2, and end your turn.

Hire Assistants example: These are the available groups to draw, and Red decides to hire the green group made of two 5s, adding both the cards to their hand (A).

Before ending their turn, Red must replenish the available groups back to six, so they draw cards from the Assistants deck, one at a time, checking whether a new group can be formed or not.

First, they draw a violet 5, that goes in the same group with the violet 3 (B). Then, they draw a violet 2: the first violet group has already a value of 8, so this forms a new one (C).

Move your Cart and Collect a tile

You can Move your Cart and/or Collect a tile.

Moving from one hexagon to an adjacent one costs 1, while Collecting a Terrain tile costs as much as the value printed on it.

You pay these costs by playing Assistant cards in the same color from your hand.

Rules on how to Move and Collect:

• You can Move and Collect, Move only, or Collect only.
• You can only play cards in one color. Wild cards (depicting a winged cat) can be used as substitutes for any color. If you only play Wild cards, you can choose which color you are using them as.
• Only face-up tiles can be Collected.
• When you Collect a Terrain tile, flip and reveal each face-down tile adjacent to the one you just Collected.

Collecting rules

• To Collect a Terrain tile covering a colored hexagon, you must play Assistant cards in the same color as that hexagon. Important: When you collect a Terrain tile covering a colored hexagon, immediately score 5 points by moving your Tracker accordingly on your scoring track.
• You can Collect Terrain tiles covering neutral hexagons with Assistant cards in any one color.
• You can only Collect once per turn. You may be able to Collect for free afterwards (see Place a Terrain tile on your Planet).
• There can be more than one Cart on a hexagon.
• Assistant cards you play go to a common discard pile, by the face-down Assistant deck. If the Assistant deck runs out, shuffle the Assistant discard pile to form a new one.

Move and Collect example: Blue plays two cyan Assistant cards with a combined value of 7 (A), and moves their Cart to the cyan square where the 5 Desert tile is (B). Being a 2-spaces movement, it costs them 2, and they can use the remaining 5 to Collect the Terrain tile they are currently on. They do so, and uncover the two adjacent tiles that were still face-down (C). Since they collected a Terrain tile covering a colored hexagon, Blue immediately scores 5 points, moving their Score tracker on their board accordingly (D). They finally discard the two Assistant cards they just spent, by adding them to the Assistants' discard pile.

Place a Terrain tile on your Planet

After you collect a Terrain tile, you place it in one of the hexagons that form the grid on your Planet.

On your Planet, hexagons can either:

• show an Architect (image on the right), or
• be Empty.

If you place the Terrain tile on an Architect, you are somehow following the suggestions of your helpers on how to build your world, so you immediately score an amount of points equal to the value written on the Terrain tile. Move your Score tracker accordingly on your scoring track to conclude your turn.

If you place the Terrain tile on an Empty space, you can collect another Terrain tile for free.

Free collection: When collecting a tile for free, you can choose to take a tile either from the open supply (assuming there are tiles available, and replenishing then the supply back to 6, if possible), or from any non-colored hexagon adjacent to where your Cart currently is. You can then place the new tile you just collected for free wherever you want on your Planet. However, you can collect a Terrain tile for free only once per turn!

Place a Terrain tile on your Planet example: Blue places the Terrain tile (5 Desert) they just collected on an empty hexagon (A). Therefore, they may collect another tile for free. They decide to collect a tile from the game board. Among the five adjacent to their Cart, all on non-colored hexagons, Blue chooses the 4 Forest: they move their Cart to that hexagon (C), take the Terrain tile and reveal the adjacent face-down tiles (only one, in this case) (D). Finally, they place the 4 Forest on one of the Architects in their Planet to score the 4 points of the Forest tile, move their Scoring tracker accordingly and end their turn (E).

Remember that you want to place Terrain tiles of the same kind on your Planet so that they are adjacent to each other! They will be worth points at the end of the game!

Magic Portal

If you enter a Magic Portal (a hexagon showing the Magic Portal symbol), you may move your Cart to any hexagon on the Game board at the cost of 1 movement. You can then collect the tile there, provided you played enough Assistant cards.

Special Terrain tiles

In the game there are 16 Special Terrain tiles with some unique properties. There are four types of them: Mix (values 10 and 11), Sage Tree (values 6 and 7), Architect (values 8 and 9), and Viewpoint (values 8 and 9).

The Architect

Like any other tile, the Architect can be placed either in an Empty hexagon, or on top of another Architect:

• If you place it in an Empty hexagon, you are effectively adding one Architect to your Planet, that has the same effect of those already printed on it.
• If you place it on top of another Architect, you score its value in points, but you do not get to add an extra space with an Architect, because you just covered one.

Architect tile example 1 - Architect is placed on an Empty hexagon: Blue places the Architect on an Empty hexagon (A), effectively creating an additional Architect space where to place tiles they want to score in future turns. Then, since this was their first tile Collection on their current turn, they get to Collect a second tile for free (the 10 Desert, in this case), which they place on top of the Architect tile (B) and score immediately.

Architect tile example 2 - Architect is placed on another Architect: Blue covers the Architect on the middle of their Planet with a 9 Architect tile. This means that they immediately score the value of the tile they just collected (9, in this case), as usual. Later, they can place another tile on top of this Architect tile they just placed to score that too.

Mix

This tile acts as wild. It means that if placed adjacent to a chain of consecutive tiles, you can treat the Mix as one of them, effectively adding 1 tile to that chain and increasing its value when scoring it (see Final Scoring).

Important: You can use the Mix only for one type of Terrain tile. During the Final Scoring, once you score it, flip it face-down as a reminder.

Mix tile example: On the left figure, Blue placed an 11 Mix on an Architect in their Planet, thus scoring immediately 11 points. In addition, the Mix is placed adjacent both to the Desert chain and to the Water chain. During the Final Scoring, Blue can decide to which of the two chains add the Mix (they'll probably choose the Desert, as it is the longer one and will provide them even more points, as shown on the Scoring Table!).

Sage Tree

When you collect and place a Sage Tree tile in your Planet, it will provide you 3 points per adjacent tile it has. You score it immediately. If later in the game you place a new tile adjacent to an already existing Sage Tree, you do not score any extra points.

Sage Tree tile example: On the left figure, Blue placed the 7 Sage Tree so that it has 5 tiles adjacent (three Water tiles and 2 Forest tiles), so they immediately score 3 x 5 = 15 points. Since they placed a tile on an Empty hexagon, they get to collect another tile for free. They could've also played the Sage Tree on top of the Architect on the bottom: in that case, they would have scored 7 points (for placing the tile on an Architect) + 9 points (3 per each adjacent Forest tile), for a total of 16 points. Too late now!

Viewpoint

When you place a Viewpoint tile adjacent to a chain of Terrain tiles of the same type, you get points equal to twice the number of tiles of that chain. You score them immediately. If later in the game you place a new tile adjacent to an already existing Viewpoint, you do not score any extra points.

Viewpoint example: Blue places the 9 Viewpoint on the Architect, as shown in the left image, and immediately scores its value. There are two chains of tiles adjacent: Water and Forest. Since the Forest chain is longer, they score that. They also already declared that the Mix tile will count as a Forest, so they add that to the count and gain 2 points x 5 tiles = 10 points.

End of the game

The game has different ending conditions, depending on the number of players:

• 2 players: as soon as one player fully completes their Planet,
• 3 players: as soon as there is only 1 space left on a player's Planet,
• 4 players: as soon as there are only 4 spaces left on a player's Planet.

When any of the ending conditions is met, conclude the current round, so that each player plays the same amount of turns. Then, carry on with the Final Scoring.

The player with the most points is the winner. In case of a tie between more players, they share the victory.

Final Scoring

In turn, check each chain made of the same Basic Terrain type you have, counting the amount of tiles it contains. Then, score points as indicated on the first row showing points on the Scoring Table.

Important: If you have multiple chains of the same Basic Terrain, you score them separately.

Note: Each time your Score tracker completes a full lap around your Score track, use your 50/100 (or 150/200) Scoring token (taking it from the reserve or flipping it, if you already have the appropriate one) to help you keep track of the points you have!

Final Scoring example (2 players): In a 2-players game, Blue just filled out every hexagon in their Planet. They were the first player, so the other player gets to complete their turn before moving to the Final Scoring.

For each Basic Terrain tile, Blue has to check how long is the chain they form. They have:

• 7 Desert Terrain tiles + 1 Mix Special Terrain, resulting in one 8-tiles Desert chain (A);
• one 5-tiles Forest chain (B);
• one 3-tiles Water chain (C);

That they score as shown on the Scoring table:

• Desert chain (8 tiles) = 36
• Forest chain (5 tiles) = 15
• Water chain (3 tiles) = 6

For a total amount of 57 points. Blue finally adds these 57 points to the 18 they collected during the game and get their final scoring: 75 points. They take their 50/100 Scoring token, and lay it with the 50 side face-up as a reminder (D).

Blue score breakdown: Basic Terrain tile, 36 points to score for 8 tiles; Forest tile, 15 points for 5 tiles; Water tile, 6 points for 3 tiles; total = 57.

The Scoring Table

The Scoring Table has two rows of values:

• Chain row (during the game and at the end): points scored per chain of consecutive tiles of the same type, by chain length. The examples in this rulebook confirm: 3 tiles = 6 points, 4 tiles = 10 points, 5 tiles = 15 points, 7 tiles = 28 points, 8 tiles = 36 points.
• Value row (Strategic Variant only): points scored per value (1 to 10) of which you have three or more tiles.

During the game, the Scoring Table reminds you to score 5 points if you collect a Terrain tile covering a colored hexagon, and reminds you how the Architect, Viewpoint and Sage Tree score. At the end of the game, the Scoring Table gives the points per chain length (see Final Scoring), and the additional variant scoring (see Strategic Variant).

Scoring summary (as printed):

• During the game:
  • Gain 5 points each time you collect a tile covering a colored hexagon.
  • Architect tile: cover it on your Planet to immediately score the value printed on the tile.
  • Viewpoint tile: immediately score points equal to twice the amount of tiles in a chain.
  • Sage Tree tile: immediately score 3 points per tile adjacent to this.
• During the Final Scoring:
  • Score each chain of consecutive tiles of the same type, according to the Score table. If you have multiple chains of the same type of Terrain, score them separately.
• If playing the Strategic Variant:
  • Check how many tiles per value (1 to 10) you have and score each value according to the Score table. You also count the values on the Special Terrain tiles.

Strategic Variant

The Strategic Variant was thought for those who prefer luck to have less impact on the game. If you want to play this variant, just follow these simple changes to the standard rules:

• At step 8 of the Setup, flip and reveal all the Terrain tiles, not only 12. You could do this at step 2, just make sure you place them randomly.
• Entering a Magic Portal with your Cart only allows you to place your Cart in another Magic Portal, and then spend 1 to move from there to an adjacent hexagon.
• You can not have more than 10 cards in your hand at the end of your turn. If it happens, discard down to 10.
• In addition to the type of Terrain tiles, you also score their values, counting how many tiles showing the same number (1 to 10) you have collected. Refer to the Score Table, as indicated on the second row of the table.

Important: In order to be scored, there is no need for tiles having the same value to be adjacent!

Note: When scoring the values, you also take into account those written on the Special Terrain tiles.

Strategic Variant Final Scoring example: Blue just finished scoring the chains they created on their Planet:

• Lowland chain (6 + 1 Mix tiles) = 28
• Water chain (4 tiles) = 10
• Mountain chain (4 tiles) = 10

They score 53 points from the chains and move their Score tracker accordingly (A).

Now they count how many tiles for each value (1 to 10) they have. According to the Score table, you only score a value if you have three or more tiles showing it, so Blue ignores the values 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, and 10 because they do not have enough of them.

They score the values:

• 2 (five tiles, circled in red) = 40
• 5 (three tiles, circled in yellow) = 10
• 8 (three tiles, circled in white) = 10

For a total amount of 60 points. They add it to the 53 they had, reaching a total amount of 113 points. They move their Score tracker to the 13 space, and place the 50/100 token with the 100 side up as a reminder (B).

Setup summary

1. Assemble the game board as you prefer, using:

   • 2 players game: 1 large board and 2 small boards;
   • 3 players game: 2 large boards and 1 small board;
   • 4 players game: all 4 boards.

2. Prepare the Assistant cards open piles: Draw cards one by one to create separate groups of the same color. A group is completed when it reaches a total value of 8 or more.

3. Draw cards from the Assistants deck until the total value of the cards in your hand exceeds 13.

4. Prepare the Terrain and Special Terrain tiles, using:

   • 2 players game: 4 Base Terrain types;
   • 3 players game: 5 Base Terrain types;
   • 4 players game: use all 6 Base Terrain types.

   Add all the 16 Special Terrain tiles to the Basic Terrains. Place 1 tile face down on each hexagon in the game boards, leaving empty only the spaces showing the Magic Portal symbol. Place the remaining tiles in a face-down reserve next to the game board, and reveal 6 of them to form an open supply.

5. Give each player a Planet and its corresponding Cart and Tracker.

6. Place the Scoring table and the Scoring tokens within easy reach.

7. Pick a starting player. They choose on which Magic Portal the Carts will start the game and everyone places their own Pawn there.

8. In turn, beginning with the starting player, uncover any tile on the game board until 12 are face-up.