Precognition Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• The Dual Select System
  • Game area of a player
  • Start of the round
• Principle of the Game
• Goal of the Game
• Content
  • Boat description
  • Card distribution per season tile
  • Description of the Expedition cards
• Setup
  • Standard setup
  • Advanced setup
• How to Play
• Decision Phase
  • Draw your cards
  • Choose your cards
• Action Phase
  • Activate your cards
  • The different types of cards
  • The 2 cards in your Action Zone are of the same type
  • Use your powered Machines
    • Machines in a standard setup
    • Machines in an advanced setup
• Maintenance Phase
  • Increase the Bane level
  • Lower your Bane level
  • Lose Humans
  • Heal your Contaminated Humans
  • Sail down the River
• End of the Game
• Different Game Modes
  • The competitive mode
  • The team mode
  • The cooperative mode
• Player Aid
• Credits

The Dual Select System

In Precognition, you must truly see the future to win the game. That comes from understanding a new card mechanism: the Dual Select System. Here is how it works. An explanation applied to the game Precognition is available on page 10 of the printed rulebook (see Decision phase).

You play with 4 cards each round: in your hand, 2 cards that you have drawn, and in your Decision Zone, 2 cards face up given last round by the player sitting on your left.

You must choose 2 cards:

1. 1 of the 4 cards for you. Put this card face up in your Action Zone.
2. AND 1 of the 2 cards face up in your Decision Zone for the player on your left. Put this card face up in their Action Zone.

Put the 2 remaining cards, face up, in the Decision Zone of the player on your right. That means one of those 2 cards will come back to you next round.

You activate the cards in your Action Zone: the card you chose AND the card the player on your right chose for you.

A new round then starts.

Game area of a player

Each player's play area has an Action Zone, a Decision Zone, and a Hand.

Start of the round

The 2 cards in your Decision Zone were given last round by the player on your left.

1. Complete your Hand – Draw 2 cards from your deck and keep them in your hand.

2. Choose and give your cards – Keep 1 of the 4 cards for you. Give 1 of the 2 cards face up in your Decision Zone to the player on your left.

3. Give the remaining cards – Put the 2 remaining cards face up in the Decision Zone of the player on your right. You will get one of them back during the next round.

4. Activate your cards – Play the cards in your Action Zone.

Principle of the Game

You play a Prescient, an Ymune gifted with the power of precognition. As a Prescient, you will have visions of the future. These visions are the Expedition cards that you receive and give to other players with the Dual Select System. You will draw, give and receive Expedition cards. The game's strategy resides in your management of these cards.

You will know which types of cards you will draw in the next turns and will have to adapt your game based on those factors.

The game is played over 12 rounds, representing the 12 steps of the River. Each round, you activate 1 or 2 cards that can be combined together or with the powered Machines. Each player can activate a maximum of 24 cards during the game.

Goal of the Game

Your goal is to have more Healthy Humans than your opponents at the end of the game. To keep the Humans you take in while working your way downstream, you will need Food, Doctors to treat the Humans and Protectors to fight the Banes you'll encounter. Good luck!

Content

• 4 Boat individual boards, each with an Action Zone, a Machine Zone, and a Decision Zone
• 12 Machine Room tiles: Standard face (closed window) and Advanced face (open window)
• 1 Progress pawn, to put on its base
• 3 Island tiles (1 tile for each season)
• 12 River tiles (4 tiles for each season)
• 4 purple Bane cubes
• 4 yellow Food cubes
• 12 tokens worth 10 Foods
• 48 Battery tokens
• 50 blue Human pawns
• 40 green Ymune pawns
• For the cooperative mode: 24 Objective tiles (8 tiles for each season), 3 cooperative River tiles (1 tile for each season), and 20 tokens worth 5 Humans/Ymunes

Boat description

Each Boat board shows:

1. Food gauge
2. Contaminated deck, with Contaminated Humans
3. Infirmary, with Ymune Doctors
4. Cabins, with Healthy Humans
5. Bane gauge
6. Bow, with Ymune Protectors

Card distribution per season tile

The deck totals 112 cards – 28 cards per player:

• 24 Expedition cards (10 cards season 1, 8 cards season 2, and 6 cards season 3)
• 2 Choice cards (Give and Keep)
• 2 Player aid cards (see the last page of these rules)

Description of the Expedition cards

There are 4 different Resources in the game: Food, Batteries, Humans and Ymunes. Each Resource is associated with a type of card.

• Food cards are predominantly yellow and grant you Food.
• Human cards are predominantly blue and grant you Humans.
• Battery cards are predominantly red and grant you Batteries.
• Ymune cards are predominantly green and grant you Ymunes.

Each Expedition card shows: the Resources received, any bonus Resources, a Bane value (only in Seasons 2 and 3), a Cost in Healthy Humans, and the season during which the card appears (1, 2, or 3).

Setup

You can play with a standard setup or an advanced setup offering more strategic choices. We would advise playing with a standard setup for your first game.

Standard setup

For each player:

1. Take a Boat.
2. Put 2 different Machine Room tiles in the Machine Zone, standard face up.
3. Put 1 Food cube on the number 8 of the Food gauge.
4. Put 1 Ymune in the Infirmary.
5. Put 1 Bane cube on the number 0 of the Bane gauge.
6. Put 4 Humans in the Cabins.
7. Choose a Prescient and take the corresponding 28 cards.
8. Take your 2 Choice cards in hand.
9. Keep your Player aid cards close by.
10. Form a deck with the 24 Expedition cards sorted out by seasons (season 1 on top, then 2 and 3) by shuffling the 6 cards for season 3 and putting them face down next to your Boat, then shuffle the 8 cards for season 2 and put them face down on top of the season 3 cards. Finally, shuffle the 10 cards for season 1 and put them face down on top of the deck. This deck forms your Expedition draw pile.
11. Draw the first 2 cards of your draw pile and put them face up in the Decision Zone of the player on your right. At the end of this stage, each player should have 2 cards in their Decision Zone – given by the player on their left – and their 2 Choice cards in their hands.

For all players:

12. At the center of the table, form the River, representing the game rounds, by setting one after the other 3 of the 4 season 1 River tiles, face down. Put the remaining tile back in the box – it will not be used during the game. Then add the season 1 Island tile to the end of this line, face down. Continue this line by repeating the process with the season 2 and season 3 River and Island tiles. You will have a River made up of 12 tiles face down (3 seasons with 4 tiles each). Put the Progress pawn in front of the first season 1 River tile.
13. In the middle of the table, place all the different Human, Food, Ymune and Battery pawns and tokens, along with the Card distribution per season tile.

Advanced setup

Follow the standard setup, but:

• Instead of 2 Machine Room tiles on their standard faces, take 3 Machine Room tiles advanced face up at random and keep 2 tiles. Put the third remaining tile back in the box, it will not be used during this game. Put the 2 tiles, advanced face up, in your Machine Zone.
• Instead of putting the first 2 cards from your draw pile in the Decision Zone of the player on your right, draw your first 4 Expedition cards, choose 2 and put them face up in the Decision Zone of the player on your right. Put the other 2 on top of your draw pile.

How to Play

The game is played over 12 rounds. A round consists of 3 distinct phases. Each phase must be done by all the players at the same time.

• I – Decision phase: Draw your cards. Choose cards.
• II – Action phase: Activate your cards. Use your powered Machines.
• III – Maintenance phase: Increase the Bane level. Lower your Bane level. Lose Humans. Heal all your Contaminated Humans. Move down the River.

Decision Phase

Draw your cards

Draw the first 2 cards of your Expedition draw pile and keep them in your hand with your 2 Choice cards.

You now have 4 cards in your hand and 2 cards in your Decision Zone, given by the player on your left.

Exception for the last turn: your Expedition draw pile is empty – you cannot draw. You only have the 2 Choice cards in your hand and the 2 cards in your Decision Zone.

Choose your cards

The Dual Select System comes into play during this step: you choose 1 card for yourself and 1 card for the player on your left, using your Choice cards.

• Your Keep card goes with the card you will keep.
• Your Give card goes with the card you will give the player on your left.

This choice has to be made secretly and simultaneously. You will first think about it in your head, then you will make 3 pairs of cards in your Decision Zone:

• 1 pair with your Keep card and 1 of the 4 Expedition cards;
• 1 pair with your Give card and 1 of the 2 Expedition cards face up in your Decision Zone;
• 1 pair with the 2 remaining Expedition cards.

All the cards in your Hand must be put face down.

Careful: when putting a card on one of the 2 cards face up in your Decision Zone, make sure the information on the left side of the card can still be read.

Important note: the Expedition card you will give to the player on your left must be one of the 2 cards face up in your Decision Zone.

Not giving away pieces of information to your opponents is key, that is why you must put down the cards in your Hand all at once when you have made your choice.

When all the players have their 3 pairs of cards, turn them face up.

• Place the card associated with your Give card in the Action Zone of the player on your left, on their R slot.
• Place the card associated with your Keep card in your Action Zone, on the G slot.
• Place the 2 remaining cards face up in the Decision Zone of the player on your right; you will get one of these two cards back during the next round.

At the end of this phase, you have:

• 2 cards in your Action Zone that you can activate during next phase,
• 2 cards in your Decision Zone for the next round,
• your 2 Choice cards in your hands.

Action Phase

You have 2 Expedition cards in your Action Zone: one given by the player on your right, the other you chose for yourself.

Activate your cards

Each card has an activation cost in Healthy Humans in the Cabins. This Cost is shown on the card's bottom left. The Humans in the Cabins have been treated and can go out on expeditions.

You can:

• Activate both cards by moving from the Cabins to the Contaminated Deck as many Humans as the Cost of both your Expedition cards.
• Or activate one of the 2 cards. In that case, whichever card you choose to activate, you do not move any Humans. In other words, you lose the benefits from the card you did not activate, but do not contaminate any Humans.

A card with an X Cost means its Cost is identical to the second card's Cost. If both cards have a Cost of X, both cards have a Cost of 0.

When activating a card, receive the number of Resources shown in the first circle in the top left corner. If both your cards in your Action Zone are of the same type, receive the bonus Resources in the second circle (see The 2 cards in your Action Zone are of the same type below). You can always receive less resources than what an activated card gives you.

Example: move 4 (2+2) Humans from the Cabins to the Contaminated Deck. Then take 2 Batteries and 2 Humans.

Please note that if you receive X Resources, that number is equal to the Cost of the second card in your Action Zone. If that second card's Cost is also X, then the number of Resources received is equal to the Cost of the first card.

The different types of cards

There are 4 types of cards matching the 4 Resources:

• Ymune cards – When receiving an Ymune, take it from the reserve and put it either in the Infirmary – it will become a Doctor treating your Contaminated Humans – or on the Bow of the Boat to become a Protector fighting the Banes. If you receive several Ymunes, you can choose to divide them between the Infirmary and the Bow at your discretion. However, once in place, the Ymunes are permanently assigned to their tasks and cannot be moved. Ymunes are deeply genuinely caring beings and will help you succeed in your mission.
• Human cards – When receiving Humans, take them from the reserve and put them on the Contaminated Deck of your Boat. They represent contaminated Humans found during your expeditions on the banks.
• Battery cards – When receiving Batteries, take them from the reserve and put them at your discretion on the Machines of your Boat. Batteries cannot be moved once you have put them on a Machine. Getting the power back on your Boat's Machines will help you greatly and is one of your priorities.
• Food cards – When receiving Food, move the cube up your Food gauge by a number equal to the number of Foods received. Each time you hit the 10-Food mark, put your cube back on 0 and take a token worth 10 Foods. The healthy Humans need food regularly to muster the strength for their expeditions on the banks.

The 2 cards in your Action Zone are of the same type

In that case, each activated card grants you additional Resources, on top of the Resources shown in the first circle. If you activated just one card, you only receive the Resources and the bonus from that card.

Anticipating the future saved your life once. It will undoubtedly come in handy once more!

Example: in this example, you receive 3 Foods and a bonus of 1 Ymune and 2 Batteries.

Use your powered Machines

There are 3 separate Machines in the Machine Room. When a Machine has all the Batteries needed to operate, it is powered. You cannot benefit from Machines that are not fully powered.

You can only benefit from the effect of your powered Machines once every turn, if you meet its requirements. You will receive 1 or several Resources through a Machine's effect. You receive these Resources as if you had received them from a card. You can always receive less resources than what a powered Machine gives you.

Precision: Batteries received through an activated Machine will only power the Machines on which they are put after the ongoing round.

The effect of a Machine can also be the healing of Humans. When you benefit from this effect, move the specified number of Humans from the Contaminated Deck to the Cabins.

Some Rooms indicate the type of Ymunes received or required (Protectors or Doctors).

Machines in a standard setup

You receive Resources from Standard Machines depending on the type of the 2 Expedition cards of your Action Zone, whether you activated one or both cards. If you have in your Action Zone:

• A Human card and a card of another type, then receive 1 Human.
• A Battery card and a card of another type, then receive 1 Ymune Protector.
• An Ymune card and a card of another type, then receive 1 Ymune.
• A Food card and a card of another type, then receive 1 Food.
• A Food card and a card of another type, then receive 2 Foods.
• A card with a Bane value and another without a Bane value, then receive 2 Humans.

Machines in an advanced setup

Advanced Machine Rooms are all different and their Machines all have different requirements and effects: Dispensary, Detection unit, Generator, Command post, Agronomy laboratory, Expedition airlock, Autonomous greenhouse, Decontamination unit, Shop, Workshop, Lazarette, Search unit.

Machines on the 1st line – The effect occurs if the Resources received this turn, through your cards only, meet the minimum required number and/or type. You can only benefit from a Machine's effect once per turn, no matter how many Resources you received. The same Resource received during the ongoing turn can trigger the effect of 2 different Machines.

Machines on the 2nd line – The effect occurs if the card you gave to the player on your left during this turn meets the requirement, for example: an Ymune card, a Battery card, a Human card, a Food card, a card with a Cost equal to 0/1/2/3, a card with a Cost lower or equal to 1, a card with a Cost higher or equal to 3 or 4, or a card with a Bane value.

Machines on the 3rd line – The effect occurs if the 2 Expedition cards in your Action Zone meet the requirement (whether you activated 1 or both cards), for example: an Ymune card and a card of another type, an Ymune card and a Human card, an Ymune card and a Food card, a Battery card and a card of another type, a Human card and a card of another type, a Food card and a Human card, a Food card and a card of another type, a card with a Bane value and a card without a Bane value, the sum of the two cards' Costs is lower or equal to 3, the sum of the two cards' Costs is higher or equal to 7, both cards have the same Cost, or the two cards have a different Cost.

Maintenance Phase

Increase the Bane level

Some season 2 and season 3 Expedition cards have a Bane value on the middle left. In your Action Zone, for each card with a Bane value, whether or not it was activated, increase your Bane level by moving your cube on the Bane gauge by the same value shown on the card(s). The cube cannot go over 12.

Lower your Bane level

You can partially or fully lower your Bane level by putting 1 or more Ymune Protectors back in the reserve. Each Protector you decide to lose lowers your Bane level by 2 squares (or 1 square if your Bane level is at 1) on the Bane gauge.

Lose Humans

If your Bane level is above 0, you lose as many Humans (contaminated or Healthy, it's up to you) as your Bane level. Nothing more happens if you've lost all your Humans but your Bane level is above 0.

Note: if you do not use Ymune Protectors to lower your Bane level, you will lose Humans at the end of every round.

Heal your Contaminated Humans

Heal as many Contaminated Humans as you have Ymune Doctors in the Infirmary. Healed Humans are moved from the Contaminated Deck to the Cabins.

If you have more or as many Ymune Doctors as Contaminated Humans, you cannot leave any Humans on the Contaminated Deck. If you have fewer Ymune Doctors than Humans, the unhealed Humans remain on the Contaminated Deck.

Sail down the River

Flip over the River tile in front of the Progress pawn to discover the end-of-turn event. Each player applies that event's effect. Then place the Progress pawn on the newly revealed tile.

There are 2 types of events:

• The events of the River tiles: apply the event's effect or you can discard an Ymune Protector to disregard that effect. During season 1, you will receive one or several Resources from these events. You will lose Resources during season 2 and season 3.
• The events of the Island tiles: a season lasts 4 rounds and you must only feed your Healthy Humans at the end of the season. Each Healthy Human consumes 1 Food. There are 2 different scenarios:
  • You have enough Food for all your Healthy Humans – lower your Food Gauge by as many Healthy Humans as you have in the Cabins. You might still have Food, it will come in play at the end of the next season.
  • You do not have enough Food for all your Healthy Humans; you lose all the Healthy Humans you could not feed. Your Food Gauge is therefore at 0.
  • You start the game with 8 Foods, which will only feed your 4 starting Humans for the first 2 seasons.

At the end of the round, discard the cards from your Action Zone. You will not use them again.

End of the Game

At the end of the third season, after feeding the Healthy Humans you have saved, count them. The player with the most Healthy Humans wins the game. If tied, the player with the most Healthy Humans and Contaminated Humans wins the game. If players are still tied, they share the victory.

We have reached the mouth of the River – Létéa is only 4 days away. The people still alive today represent our future.

Different Game Modes

PRECOGNITION can be played 3 different ways.

The competitive mode

We have just thoroughly explained it.

The team mode

Can only be played with 4 players.

The rules are the same as in the competitive mode, but with two teams of 2 players sitting one next to the other. At the end of the game, both members of the team add their Healthy Humans. The team with the highest number wins the game. If tied, the team with the most Contaminated Humans wins the game.

Note: since you always give a card to the player on your left, one teammate's job will be to help the team, while the other teammate's job will be to hinder the opposing team.

The cooperative mode

All players team up to achieve the Objectives set during each season. There are 2 types of Objectives:

• Objectives requiring only 1 player to have the specified Resources;
• Objectives requiring each player to have the specified Resources.

Here are the differences with the regular setup:

When setting up the River – Take the 3 cooperative River tiles and place them in front of the corresponding River section (season 1, 2 and 3). Under each section, make a stack by randomly adding, and without looking at them, as many Objective tiles of the corresponding season as there are players. Make sure to display the side of the tiles with three rectangles (two white and one black) upward. Put the remaining Objective tiles back in the box – they will not be used during the game.

During the Action phase – You have 2 new options:

• You can reveal an Objective tile of the ongoing season by moving Healthy Humans from your Cabins to your Contaminated Deck. To reveal 1 Objective tile, you must move: 1 Healthy Human in season 1, 2 Healthy Humans in season 2 and 3 Healthy Humans in season 3. The revealed Objective tiles are placed on their three rectangles (two white and one black) face up, next to their stack. The Human Cost to reveal a given tile can be paid by one player only. Please note that several Objective tiles can be revealed by one or several players during the same turn.
• You can use the Resources shown on an Objective tile, revealed during this turn or a previous one, to mitigate its effect. Only the Resources received by a single player during the ongoing turn can be used. Flip the tile on its other side, with only one white rectangle face up.

At the end of every Season – After feeding your Healthy Humans, if you still have Objective tiles under the cooperative River tile of that season, flip them over, three rectangles face up. You must have the Resources specified on the Objectives to complete the Objectives. One Resource can complete several Objectives.

If one or more Objectives of the ongoing season is not completed, the game is immediately lost. If they are all completed, the game goes on. You must complete new Objectives during the next season.

At the end of the game, add up each player's Healthy Humans. To win the game, you must have at least:

• 30 Healthy Humans in a 2-player game;
• 45 Healthy Humans in a 3-player game;
• 60 Healthy Humans in a 4-player game.

You can increase the level of difficulty of the cooperative mode:

• Hard: start with 4 Foods instead of 8.
• Apocalypse: start with 4 Foods instead of 8 and add 1 Objective tile per season.

Player Aid

Decision phase

• Draw the first 2 cards of your draw pile and keep them in your hand.
• With your cards Give and Keep, choose 1 card for yourself and 1 card for the player on your left. Make 3 pairs of cards by putting the cards in your Hand face down. You must put your Give card on one of the 2 cards face up in your Decision Zone.
• When everyone around the table has chosen their cards, reveal the cards and put: 1 card in your Action Zone; 1 card in the Action Zone of the player on your left; 2 cards in the Decision Zone of the player on your right.

Action phase

• If you activate the 2 cards in your Action Zone: pay for both by contaminating as many Healthy Humans as the Cost of the 2 cards combined. If you only activate 1 of the 2 cards in your Action Zone, do not pay anything.
• Receive the Resources of the activated cards.
• Receive the effects of the powered Machines meeting the requirements.
• Heal as many Contaminated Humans as you have Ymune Doctors in the Infirmary. Put them in the Cabins.

Maintenance phase

• Increase your Bane gauge by as many spaces as the total Bane value of the 2 cards in your Action Zone.
• You can lose 1 or more Ymune Protectors to lower your Bane gauge by 2 spaces per lost Ymune.
• Lose as many Humans – Healthy or contaminated, it's up to you – as the Bane value on your Bane gauge.
• Flip the next River tile, apply its effect and put the Progress pawn on that River tile.

Credits

Game designer: Julien Prothière Artist: Sébastien Caiveau Developer: Cédric Lefebvre Publisher: Ludonaute – www.ludonaute.fr – [email protected]

Copyright 2022 Ludonaute – All rights reserved.