Mainland

Mainland Rulebook

Table of Contents

Before Starting

Choose your clan

You must choose a clan and take the corresponding deck of cards. Note that there is no benefit in choosing a particular clan.

Clan of the green lands — Worshipped Wild Beast: Giant Boar. Weapon: Short Sword. "Grass and trees will spread all around the world. Your insignificant existence does not interest us."

Clan of the sand lands — Worshipped Wild Beast: Desert Hyena. Weapon: Sandstorm Sabre. "We are not looking for battle, but we urge you not to threaten us. Our warriors cannot be defeated."

Clan of the frozen lands — Worshipped Wild Beast: Colossal Bear. Weapon: Battle Axe. "Our clan will soon dominate the world. Whoever dares to challenge us will be annihilated."

Clan of the arid lands — Worshipped Wild Beast: Mountains Yak. Weapon: Spear of Death. "You are not welcome in the dry steppes of the arid lands. Stay outside our territory or prepare to be destroyed."

Set Up

The board

Identify the limits of the playing surface according to the number of players. Cards must not exceed this limit.

The printed set-up diagram shows the limits: for a 2-player game, for a 3-player game, and for a 4-player game.

Direction of play

The youngest player is the first to play and players take turns in a clockwise direction.

The starting card

The first card you play is your clan's camp. It is easy to find because its back is different from the other cards.

Following the direction of play, place your starting card on the board wherever you wish. You can rotate the card in any direction. The starting cards must not overlap.

The chieftain tokens

You start the game with 6 chieftain tokens. You will lose them as the game progresses. When you run out of tokens, your game is over and you can no longer play.

Your deck

Shuffle your cards and place them in front of you (face-down). Draw the first 5 cards of the pile. You can look at the cards you have in hand, but you must not look at your opponent's cards.

At no time is it permitted to look at the cards in your deck.

How to Play

When it is your turn to play, you must perform the following actions:

Step 1 (optional): Replace a card in hand with the first card of your deck.
Step 2: Place a card on the board.
Step 3: Draw a new card from your deck.

Step 1 (optional): Replace a card in hand with the first card of your deck

Before playing a card on the board, you can discard a card you have in hand and take the first one from your deck. The card that is discarded is put aside in a discard pile.

Step 2: Place a card on the board

A card is divided into 4 tiles. Each tile is represented by an item: a type of terrain, a resource, a construction or a combatant.

Rules. When you play a card, you must respect the following 3 rules:

Your card must overlap one or more cards in play.
Your card must overlap the empty space of the board.
Your card must respect the overlay rules (refer to the Items table).

You can rotate the card.

You can strategically decide to connect your card to your own territory or to an opposing territory (or both, if the position of the cards on the game board allows).

What matters is not the color of the cards involved, but the items appearing on them. An item cannot overlay another one randomly. For example, a plain can be placed only on a plain, on a wheat resource, or on an empty space. Refer to the Items table to see the overlay rules.

Advanced items such as towers and riders are stronger and can overlay many more items.

Example (printed diagram): 1 - The card overlaps a card in play (2 in this example). 2 - The card overlaps an empty space of the board. 3 - The card respects the overlay rules (gold on mountain, plain on plain, plain on plain). This is a legal move!

Advanced items

A card containing an advanced item can only be played if you have the requirement in your territories. For example, before playing a village, you must have 1 wheat resource, 1 wood resource and 1 gold resource.

Advanced items and their requirements:

Village: For every village added to the board, you must have: 1 wheat, 1 wood, 1 gold.
Tower: For every tower added to the board, you must have: 1 village.
Warrior: For every warrior added to the board, you must have: 1 tower.
Rider: For every rider added to the board, you must have: 1 warrior.
Castle: For every castle added to the board, you must have: 1 rider.

Example (printed diagram): To build a village, your lands must produce 1 wheat resource, 1 gold resource and 1 wood resource. To build a second village, your lands must produce 2 wheat resources, 2 wood resources and 2 gold resources. And so on.

Castle card

The castle card can be placed anywhere, as long as the items respect the overlay rules. It doesn't have to overlap the empty space of the board and can be placed entirely over the cards in play.

Step 3: Draw a new card from your deck

After playing a card, you must take the first one from your deck and add it to your hand. Your turn is over and it is now up to the next player. You must have 5 cards in hand at both the beginning and end of your turn.

Unable to place a card?

If you just can't play (this will be inevitable towards the end of the game), you will have to pass your turn. When you do so, you must discard a chieftain token. When you run out of tokens, your game is over. The other players can continue to play until they run out of tokens themselves.

Clan gathering (optional special move)

You don't like the cards you have in your hand?

At the start of your turn, gather all your cards that are not on the board (hand + deck + discarded cards pile), shuffle them and draw 5 new cards. Your turn is immediately over. You are not allowed to place a card on the board. You also have to discard one of your chieftain tokens. This special move can be useful, but remember: when you run out of chieftain tokens, you stop playing.

Items Table

This section reproduces the printed Items table (overlay rules, advanced item requirements, item counts and points).

Advanced items

Village: For every village, you must have 1 wheat, 1 wood, 1 gold.
Tower: For every tower, you must have 1 village.
Warrior: For every warrior, you must have 1 tower.
Rider: For every rider, you must have 1 warrior.
Castle: For every castle, you must have 1 rider.

Overlay rules

For example, a plain can be placed on a plain, on a wheat resource or on an empty space.

Each entry below names an item already on the board, followed by the items that may be placed over it.

Camp: empty space only.
Temple: plain, forest, mountain, empty space.
Plain: plain, wheat, empty space.
Wheat: plain, wheat, empty space.
Forest: forest, wood, empty space.
Wood: forest, wood, empty space.
Mountain: mountain, gold, empty space.
Gold: mountain, gold, empty space.
Village: camp, plain, forest, mountain, empty space.
Tower: camp, plain, wheat, forest, wood, mountain, gold, village, empty space.
Warrior: camp, plain, wheat, forest, wood, mountain, gold, village, tower, empty space.
Rider: camp, temple, plain, wheat, forest, wood, mountain, gold, village, tower, warrior, empty space.
Castle: camp, temple, plain, wheat, forest, wood, mountain, gold, village, tower, warrior, rider, castle, empty space.

Number of items available for each player and points

Item	Items available for each player	Points inside Mainland	Points inside minor territories
Camp	1	2	1
Temple	3	2	1
Plain	(no count printed)	(no points printed)	(no points printed)
Wheat	9	1	(no points printed)
Forest	(no count printed)	(no points printed)	(no points printed)
Wood	9	1	(no points printed)

The printed table also states "+ 1 point per tile in your Mainland". The table prints no count or points for the plain, forest and mountain columns, so those cells are marked as not printed.

End of the Game

As the game progresses, the board will fill with cards. Towards the end of the game, it will be difficult to place new cards on the board, as there is no empty space left. If you can't play, you must skip your turn and discard one chieftain token. When you run out of tokens, you must stop playing.

The game ends when all the players run out of chieftain tokens.

Points Calculation

Before calculating your points, it is essential to locate your Mainland. Your Mainland is your territory that has the largest number of adjacent tiles. Only tiles with touching sides count (2 tiles that touch each other by the corners are not considered as adjacent).

Other territories and isolated tiles are considered minor territories.

If your 2 largest territories have the same number of tiles, your Mainland will be the one with the highest value.

The points are calculated as follows, for each player:

Inside Mainland

1 point for each tile
1 point for each wheat
1 point for each wood
1 point for each gold
2 points for each temple
2 points for the camp
2 points for each village
2 points for each tower
4 points for each warrior
6 points for each rider
10 points for each castle

Inside minor territories

1 point for each temple
1 point for the camp
1 point for each village
1 point for each tower
2 points for each warrior
3 points for each rider
5 points for each castle

Printed example: the example board shows an item's value as two numbers. The first is its value if it is located inside your Mainland, the second is its value if it is located inside a minor territory (the tower shows 2 and 1).

Printed example scores: Mainland tiles 30 points; Mainland items 29 points; minor territory items 7 points; total 66 points. The example's other two players score 47 and 42 points.

Winner

The players add up their points. The player with the highest score wins the game.

Clarification

If you are unable to place a card, you will have to pass your turn and try again next round. Note that you can decide to voluntarily pass your turn at any time. You must discard 1 chieftain token for each turn you skip.
The Clan Gathering special move must be performed at the very start of your turn. You will not be able to perform any other actions during this turn.
The Clan Gathering special move if totally useless if you only have 1 chieftain token.
You can only play 1 card per turn.
An item that has been covered can no longer be used as a requirement for an advanced item. For example, if you put a mountain over a gold resource, that item is no longer valid and cannot be used as a requirement for the construction of a village.
Advanced items and requirements may be in separate territories.
Advanced items and requirements are specific to each player. For example, you cannot place a warrior because an opponent has a tower. You must have the requirement in one of your territories.
You cannot place the card of an advanced item over the required item. For example, if you want to play a village, you cannot place your card over your wheat resource (unless your lands produce more than one wheat. In this case, another wheat would serve as a requirement for the village).
Requirements are exclusively linked to a single advanced item. For example, 1 village cannot be used as a requirement for 2 towers. If you want to place a second tower, you must have 2 villages. Afterward, if a tower is destroyed, one of your villages can be reused for the construction of a new tower.
You cannot remove a card from the game board. If you lose an item that had previously been used as a requirement for an advanced item, this card must remain in place. Let's suppose you build a village. Then an opponent plays a forest on your wood resource to destroy it. Your village card must remain in place. However, to be able to build a 2nd village, you must first make sure to compensate for your loss and you will have to place 2 new wood resources on the board.
Dependency of an advanced item is limited to one level only. This means that you could place a tower even if you no longer have wheat. The important thing is that you still have a village.