Trek 12: ArchéoTREK
Trek 12: ArchéoTREK Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
- a Dig Site sheet to be printed for each archaeologist,
- 36 Bone tokens to cut and glue on cardboard so that they cross the centuries,
- 4 Skeleton tokens to cut and glue on cardboard to revive their past majesty,
- a pencil per archaeologist, or a piece of sharpened coal,
- the 2 dice of Trek 12: Himalaya, one red and one yellow.
Setup
Each archaeologist takes a Dig Site sheet and a pencil.
Place the 36 Bone tokens in a bag (or spread them out on the table, face down) and place the 4 Skeleton tokens nearby, face up. Designate the Archaeologist in charge and give them the dice.
Searching the Dig Site
A game round proceeds as follows:
1. Roll the dice
The Archaeologist in charge rolls both dice.
(The source heading reads "Lancer de dés", a French heading left in the English article. It is translated here.)
2. Choose your result
Each archaeologist chooses their result at the same time.
- To choose a result, each player picks only one of these operations from their Choices table on their Dig Site sheet:
- the yellow die value,
- the red die value,
- yellow–red or red–yellow: subtract the lower die from the higher die (your result can be 0 but never negative),
- red + yellow: add the two dice together.
- Each archaeologist ticks an empty box in the line corresponding to their choice, in their Choices table on their Dig Site sheet, from left to right.
When all boxes are ticked in the same line of your Choices table on your Dig Site sheet, that choice is no longer available to you.
- Report the result in a circle of your choice on your Dig Site sheet, as follows:
- During the first round, place your first result in the circle of your choice.
- All subsequent results have to be adjacent to an already filled circle.
- Attention to the three Special Circles. You MUST respect the following rules when you write down a result:
- Red-outlined circle: only the red die value may be written in it.
- Yellow-outlined circle: only the yellow die value may be written in it.
- Black circle with a white "+": only the result of an addition (red + yellow) may be written in it.
If you create an area of one or more contiguous filled circles with a total value of 9, you can create a Digging Area and decide to reveal fossils.
Be careful: a circle cannot be part of more than one Digging Area.
3. Reveal fossils (optional)
Starting with the Head Digger (see "Designation of the Head Digger" below) and continuing clockwise, each archaeologist who has decided to reveal fossils during this round:
- draws a line around the Digging Area containing the result they have just written down,
- draws as many Bone tokens as there are circles in their Digging Area,
- keeps one, plus one for each number 0 also present in their Digging Area, and
- puts back the remaining Bone tokens into the bag.
Here, when the archaeologist decides to form their Digging Area after writing down the number 2, they draw 5 Bone tokens and keep 3 of them.
Here, by placing the 6, the archaeologist cannot form a Digging Area with their 6, 2 and 1, because the circles are not contiguous. The archaeologist will have to wait to place a 1 in the empty circle next to the 6, and/or choose to include the 0 in the Digging Area, for example.
Designation of the Head Digger
The archaeologist who revealed fossils last becomes the Head Digger. They take the dice and place them in front of them. They will roll them at the beginning of each turn as long as they remain the Head Digger. (It is possible that the role of Head Digger does not change from one turn to the next.)
4. End of the round
If all the boxes in the Choices tables are ticked, it is time to close the Dig Site.
If not, keep on searching the Dig Site.
(The source heading "FERMER LE SITE DE FOUILLE" is a French heading left in the English article. It is translated here.)
Close the Dig Site
Once all the boxes on the Choices tables have been ticked, it is time to determine who will be the Archaeologist of the Year!
Note that there are fewer boxes in the Choices tables than there are circles on the Dig Site sheets, so some circles will remain empty and will not play a role in the final resolution.
Earning Skeleton tokens (cool!)
The archaeologists are given the 4 Skeleton tokens as follows:
- Each Skeleton token goes to the archaeologist who has strictly the most Bone tokens of the corresponding color.
- In the event of a tie, the archaeologist with the fewest points IN THAT COLOR takes the Skeleton token.
- If the tie persists, no one gets the Skeleton token.
Empty-Handed circles (not cool…)
Each filled circle that does not belong to a Digging Area is an Empty-Handed circle. Each Empty-Handed circle makes the player lose a number of points equivalent to its value (see the example of the calculation of the score below).
Counting scores
Each archaeologist adds up the value of their Bone tokens and their Skeleton tokens, and subtracts the value of their Empty-Handed circles.
Example: the archaeologist scores 33 points. 1+1, +3, +4+5+7, +4+6 for their Bone tokens, and +4 for their Skeleton tokens (1+3), minus the value of their Empty-Handed circles, here −2.
(The source text gives the Skeleton tokens as "+4 (1+3)". The example image shows the two Skeleton tokens as +3 and +1, which total 4, so both agree on the total. The page also writes "substract", corrected here to "subtract".)
The title of Archaeologist of the Year goes to the player with the highest score!
Happy digging
Happy digging to everyone!