Nexum Galaxy Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Introduction to NEXUM
• Game Components
• Victory Conditions
• Technological Relics
  • Relic Types
• Setup
  • 4-Player Game Sector Setup (example)
• How to Play
• Management Phase
  • Extraction
  • Ship Building
• Movement Phase
  • Movement Limits
  • Combat
  • Plunder
• Battle Score (Final Score)
  • Tournament Mode
• Create Your Galactic Sector
  • System Disks
  • Ships & Energy
  • Relics
• Quick Reference
  • Management Phase
  • Movement Phase
  • Relics
  • Movement Cost According to Destination

Introduction to NEXUM

Nexum Galaxy is a game for 1 to 4 players. The core of the game is very simple, with no randomness, a high tactical component, and good game balance, where you will have to think ahead of your rivals, and fight them in epic interplanetary battles to become the dominant civilization of the Galaxy.

"NEXUM GALAXY" is a "3X" type game:

• Territorial eXpansion.
• Resource eXploitation.
• Enemy eXtermination.

The NEXUM Asteroids expansion, which can be acquired separately, incorporates new features that turn it into a "4X" by adding map eXploration, as well as a highly thematic asymmetric mode, new events, technological upgrades for your civilization, and new resources.

Players: 1-4. Playing time: 15'-30' per player. Age: 12+.

Game Components

• 12 Planetary Systems:
  • 4 Starting ("Tann") Systems (double-sided)
  • 4 Minor Systems (double-sided)
  • 4 Major Systems (double-sided)
• 1 Victory Track (double-sided: 1-2 and 3-4 players)
• 16 Phase Cards
• 18 Event Cards
• 172 Tokens:
  • 100 Ship tokens (double-sided = 200): 50 in each of the 4 player colors
  • 8 Relic tokens (double-sided = 16): 4 of each of the two shown sides' types (see Relic Types)
  • 52 Energy tokens: 16 worth 5 and 36 worth 1
  • 8 Forbidden markers (double-sided = 16)
  • 4 Civilization tokens

Victory Conditions

In a scenario (or Galactic Sector), each player will manage one of the four most powerful Civilizations in the Universe, in an attempt to be the first to achieve one of these 2 objectives:

• Victory Points: get 6 points for 1-2 players, or 7 points for 3-4 players. You earn points for every battle you win, and for denying control of a star to an enemy. This is the Combat Victory Score Track, where your goal is to reach the central space.
• Relics: own 4 Relics for 1-2 players or 5 for 3-4 players.

These victory conditions may change for pre-set scenarios.

Technological Relics

Technological relics are derelict ships of an ancient, highly advanced civilization, abandoned long before the events that sent the few remaining survivors throughout the Galaxy back to the Bronze Age. These relics are scattered across the ravaged planets, half-buried or flying out of control in their orbits.

Civilizations have the technology to attach them to their own ships, assembling them to use their capabilities wherever they go.

• Each Relic provides a special skill to the ship it is attached to.
• A Relic prevents the starship using it from entering the gravitational field of stars, so it can only move between planets.
• They cannot be destroyed. If the attached ship is destroyed, the Relic is captured and assembled to one of the winning ships.
• Each ship can assemble one Relic and you cannot abandon it once attached, unless the ship is destroyed.
• It is not possible to occupy an empty planet without assembling its uncontrolled relics.
• When there is more than one Relic of the same type of technology on the same planet, they will interfere with each other and their effects will be cancelled in all the turn phases in which they coincide.

Relic Types

There are 4 types of Relics:

• Military: Increases both the attack and defense values by 1 point, as if it were an additional ship.
• Replicator: Allows the production of an additional ship at a cost of 1 energy. The production limit per planet each turn remains at one ship per planet.
• Extractor: Doubles the energy obtained by Extraction in the Management Phase (each turn), as well as by Plunder in the Movement Phase of the assembled ship when conquering planets. The movement cost for that ship increases by 1.
• Transporter: Reduces the movement energy cost by 1 when traveling between planets for all the ships of a fleet that moves along the relic, as long as they go from the same starting point to the same destination. It has no effect for movements within the same system, which still cost 1 energy per ship.

Setup

Prepare the playing area as follows, according to the number of players (check the 4-player example below):

1. Galactic Sector: you may play a combat scenario with a sector setup of the Advanced Guide, or if you are already a seasoned player, you may create a new one following the instructions of the "Create your own Sector" section. The orientation (rotation) of each individual system tile is not important, but which systems are in contact with each other is, and so are the size of their planets.
2. Starting player: the last player to have flown somewhere will be the starting player. If you don't reach an agreement, choose one at random.
3. Civilizations: each player chooses a color. In case of disagreement between players, they are dealt randomly. The order of the players' turn will be clockwise.
4. Phase Cards: each player has 4 Phase cards to play every turn, as explained in the "How to play" section. The players display these cards face up before them at the start of the game, showing they are available.
5. 1 Civilization Marker: to keep track of your score on the Victory Track.
6. Ships and Energy: each player receives 4 ships to place on their "Tann" planet, the largest one in their starting system, where the Tannhäuser Portal they used to reach the Sector in dispute is located. They also receive 3 Energy units per player.
7. Relics: they are placed as shown in the scenario description.

4-Player Game Sector Setup (example)

Example of starting setup of a 4-player Sector. See the "Create your own Sector" section to create your own scenarios.

• One of the 4 starting Planetary Systems or "Tann" (player's color, with 4 ships).
• Major Planetary System (1 star and 3 large planets).
• Minor Planetary System (1 star and 3 planets: large, medium and small).
• Civilization tokens advance each time a planet is conquered or an enemy is expelled from a star.

How to Play

Every Civilization has 4 Phase cards, placed face up in front of each of them. All these cards are Available (face up) at first, and will be flipped over once Used (face down).

Each card offers one of four options to play Phases. In your turn, choose one Phase card to play, and flip it over face down once Used at the end of your turn. Once all your Phase cards are face down, flip them back face up to show your 4 cards are Available again for the next turn.

The four Phase cards:

• Play "Management Phase"
• Play "Movement Phase"
• Play "Management Phase", then a "Movement Phase"
• Play "Movement Phase", then a "Management Phase"

First Player: at the end of your turn, you may invest Energy to win the Initiative, by placing the desired amount on the card you played. At the end of the Round, once everyone has played their turn, the invested Energy is lost, and the next round's First Player will be whoever invested the most.

In case of a tie, resolve it following the current turn order. If nobody invested, the First Player does not change.

Management Phase

First perform Energy Extraction, and then proceed to Building new ships, always in this order.

Extraction

Collect Energy units in the stars and planets where you have ships:

• Gain 1 Energy Unit per Planet under your control.
• Gain 2 Energy Units per Star under your control.

Keep in mind:

• Limit of 20 Energy units: if you reach the limit at any point, discard any extra energy that exceeds this limit without using it.
• Extractor Relic: double the energy extraction on the planet where it is located. Ships equipped with Relics cannot enter the stars.

Tip: To make this calculation faster, count 5 energy units for every complete system under your control, unless the Relic Extractor is there.

Ship Building

• Limit: you may build up to 3 ships per turn and only one new ship per planet. You need to have at least one ship on a planet to build another one. Remember that there is a limit of 5 ships per planet.
• Cost: 2 Energy units per ship you build plus 1 energy for every additional ship built that turn, that is, 3 Energy for the second ship and 4 Energy for the third one you build.
• The Replicator Relic allows you to manufacture an additional ship on the planet where the ship carrying it is, at a cost of 1 Energy. This ship doesn't count for the limit of 3 ships built per turn. The limit of 5 ships on the planet still applies, as well as the limit of building only 1 ship per planet and turn.
• Ships cannot be built on stars, you can only build them on planets.
• The maximum number of ships per player is 25.

Example: the yellow fleet has a Replicator Relic on the gray planet in system F. After extracting energy on the planets and stars under their control, they could build a new ship for 1 energy on the planet where the Relic is at, and then build up to 3 more ships on other planets.

The blue player collects 5 energy units from their system: 1 from each planet in system A and 2 from the star.

If they had more planets under control, the blue player would extract energy from them as well. Then, they can build up to three ships with their extracted energy. The red fleet controls the Extractor Relic (over the ship on the planet of system I), and they would extract 3 energy from that system: 2 from the planet where the Relic is, and 1 from the other planet under their control. In addition, they collect 5 energy extracted from system D, which is under their control (1x 3 planets + 2x 1 star), for a total of 8 energy. With that energy, they could then build ships as usual.

Movement Phase

In this phase you will move your fleet, fight battles against enemy ships, and then plunder any conquered planets. The cost for ship movement is calculated based on their destination.

• Within the same system: 1 Energy per ship.
• To a nearby system (adjacent): 2 Energy per ship.
• To a faraway system (non-adjacent, regardless of the distance; hyperspace jump): 3 Energy per ship.

Example: you are in system J, on planet 1. Moving ships between planets within the same system would cost you 1 energy. If you want to move to a planet in a nearby System (adjacent), you'd need 2 energy units per ship. And to move to a planet in a faraway System (non-adjacent, regardless of the distance), the hyperspace jump requires 3 energy per ship you want to move there.

• A ship equipped with the Extractor Relic must add 1 to their movement cost.
• A ship equipped with the Transporter Relic reduces by 1 the movement cost of the whole fleet moving along with it to another planetary system, with a minimum cost of 1 Energy per ship.
• Each ship can only move once per Movement Phase.
• You may attack one planet from several different planets in the same turn.

Movement Limits

• There can only be up to a maximum of 5 ships per planet, and 2 per star, owned by only one player. If you start a battle, more ships may be added, but there can only be 5 ships after resolving a battle, any others are eliminated.
• Planets cannot be abandoned. A player who has occupied a planet must keep at least one ship on it at all times.
• Ships on stars cannot move. Due to their gravitational field, any ship occupying a star must remain on it until it is destroyed.
• You cannot move a ship to a star to conquer it unless you already control all the planets in that system, although you may do it in the same turn.
• You can have up to 2 ships on a star, paying the Energy cost to move them there, but only once you have conquered all the planets in the system.

Combat

• Combats are resolved in sequence. That is, you may continue moving and fighting with unused ships once you have resolved a battle.
• If you move your ships to a planet occupied by another player's ships, a Combat begins. This can only be done if the Attacker uses enough ships to win by adding up a higher Attack value than the Defender's Defense value, and with enough ships to take the losses caused by this battle.
• Attacker's casualties: the attacker loses as many ships as half the defense value, rounding down.
• Attack Value: the number of ships that moved to the planet under attack.
• Defense Value: the number of ships defending the planet. Besides the ships on the planet, each ship on that system's star adds 1 to the defense value (maximum 2).
• Military Relic: it adds 1 to the attack and defense values of the ship carrying it. If both the attacker and the defender have military relics ON THE SAME PLANET, the effects are cancelled and neither gains attack nor defense.
• The Defender will lose all their ships on the planet, and any lost Relics are automatically claimed by the surviving attacker ships.
• If the player controlling a system's star loses the majority of planets, then the ships on that star are destroyed and removed.
• Reserve: destroyed ships are returned to the player using that color's reserve.
• Victories: advance your Civilization token one space in the Victory Track towards the center when:
  • You win a battle.
  • You cause another player to lose control of a star by losing control of the majority of planets in that system.

Simple combat example (A): The red player has 1 ship defending a planet and there are no ships on the system's star. The yellow player only needs 2 ships to attack them, since their Attack Value would be 2 and the red player's Defense is 1.

Another combat example (B): The blue player wants to attack a planet defended by the yellow player. The yellow player has 1 single ship equipped with a Military Relic on the planet, as well as 2 ships on the system's star. They have another ship on another planet in that system, and none on the third planet. The blue player needs to defeat a Defense Value of 1 (ship on the planet) + 1 (Military Relic) + 2 (ships in the star) = 4, so they need a higher Attack Value to defeat that Defense.

After this, the blue player will suffer as many casualties as the Defense Value (4) divided by two = 2 ships. Likewise, after removing the 2 blue ships destroyed by the defender, they need at least one ship with no Relic to equip the Military Relic left behind by the yellow player. The 2 yellow ships on the star are also destroyed since the yellow player lost the majority of planets in the system after losing the planet where the Military Relic was, and having only one planet under control left in the system. The blue player gets 2 victory points: 1 for the planet and 1 for the star.

Plunder

• If a ship conquering a planet has the Extractor Relic, it plunders double the Energy as loot. This does not apply to stars, since ships with Relics cannot travel to stars. You can only plunder energy from newly conquered planets or stars, not from the ones that were already under your control.
• Loot from plundering: at the end of the phase, Energy units are obtained as loot from Plundering after conquering a planet or star, regardless if it was protected or not. Depending on its size you plunder: 1 Energy from small planets, 2 from medium, 3 from large planets and 4 from stars.
• During the game, loot from plundering is gained every time a star or planet is conquered by a new player.

Tip: Leave the ships that won a battle outside the conquered planet, as if they were in orbit. Once you have finished all your movements, move the ships to the planet, as you plunder energy from it. This way it is easier to keep count of the energy plundered when you have many deployed ships.

Battle Score (Final Score)

If you want, once the battle for the Sector is over, you can use this table to calculate the final Score obtained:

• 2 points for every battle won.
• 3 points for each Relic owned at the end of the game.
• For winning the Sector's scenario (according to the number of players): 15 points (2 players), 20 points (3 players), 30 points (4 players).

For example, in a 3-player game:

Player 1 wins the game by capturing all 5 Technological Relics. Additionally, they also won 3 battles in the game, and liberated 1 star. Now the final score count begins. The player 1's score is 43 points:

• 20 points for winning the game.
• 5x3=15 points for collecting 5 Relics.
• 4x2=8 points for 4 combat victories on planets and stars.

The second player gets 15 points:

• 1x3=3 points for collecting 1 Relic.
• 6x2=12 points for 6 combat victories on planets and stars.

Player 2 could have won the game if they had won one more battle, since one of the two victory conditions for 3 players is to reach 7 victory points. If that were the case and player 2 won with 7 victory points, their final score would have been 3+14+20=37 points, but since that didn't happen, they only get 3+12=15 points.

The third player's score would be calculated in the same way as the second player.

Tournament Mode

You can keep track of the final scores in your games, making it easy to do tournaments of any type, even small groups free-for-all, where the one who gets the highest scores after a number of games will be the winner.

As an example, if there are 4 members in a family or club, you can play two 4-player games to see who gets the highest score. Or each player can play three 2-player games, i.e. 6 games in total: A vs B, A vs C, A vs D, B vs C, B vs D and C vs D.

Examples of 4-player tournaments:

• "Match & rematch" Tournament (2 games, 4 players, highest score)
• "Parallel Games" Tournament (2 games, 2 players, highest score)
• "Sudden Death" Tournament (2 parallel 2-player games, then the winners against each other)
• "Free-for-all" Tournament (6 parallel 2-player games, highest score)
• "Trios" Tournament (4 games, 3 players, highest score)

Create Your Galactic Sector

NEXUM allows you to create your own scenarios, or Sectors following this section's instructions. Remember that you may also play the scenarios of the Advanced Guide, the expansion, and those shared in social networks by other players.

It is recommended to play the preset scenarios before creating your own Sectors.

System Disks

3 disks are placed per player: 1 Starting System or "Tann System" (colored), 1 Major System (with three large planets) and 1 Minor System (with large-medium-small planets).

The disks are placed freely, allowing you to have different groups of separate systems, or to form a circle, star, spiral, line, cross, etc.

The important thing is to have a symmetrical distribution, equally accessible from any starting system. Also, it is advisable for the smaller systems to be closer to the starting systems, and for the larger systems to be those requiring hyperspace travel (energy cost 3).

Ships & Energy

Set them up as you would for a standard game, but you may change this for any special scenarios you wish to create.

Relics

Relics can be hand-picked or chosen at random to create the Sector. But if you are looking for a more balanced game, follow these rules:

• Select as many Relics as twice the number of players.
• Do not place Relics in the starting systems.
• Both the Extractor and Replicator Relics are each placed on the smallest planets of Minor Systems.
• Both the Military and Transporter Relics are each placed on any planet of Major Systems.
• It is recommended to only include one copy of each type of Relic, and to repeat as many as needed to reach the required number of Relics in the game.

Quick Reference

Management Phase

• Extraction: 1 energy unit per controlled planet; 2 energy units per controlled star.
• Building: max. 3 ships per turn. Cost: 2 energy for the first ship, 3 for the second, and 4 for the third ship built in the same turn.

Movement Phase

• Movement cost: within the same solar system 1; to a nearby system 2; to a faraway system 3.
• Plunder (planets and stars): small planet 1, medium planet 2, large planet 3, star 4.

Relics

• Extractor Relic: doubles the energy gained from Extraction and Plundering; +1 movement cost.
• Military Relic: increases Attack and Defense value by 1 point.
• Replicator Relic: create 1 ship on the Relic's planet at 1 energy cost.
• Transporter Relic: reduces the movement energy cost by 1.

Movement Cost According to Destination

Destination	Energy cost	With Extractor Relic	With Transporter Relic
Within the same system	1	2	1
To a nearby system	2	3	1
To a faraway system	3	4	2