Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar
75 questions players ask about Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar. Pick one for the answer. See also the full rulebook.
Updated 2026-11-02.
Setup and Components
- How is the first starting player chosen in Tzolk'in?
- How do dummy workers work in a 2- or 3-player game, and do they ever leave the gears?
- Do Starting Wealth Tiles give the player extra corn by seat, and do their technology advances cost anything?
- Where do the temple markers start?
- What happens if wood, stone, gold or crystal skulls run out?
- Is there a solo mode in the base game?
- Did the rules change between the 2012 and 2014 printings?
Player Turns
Advancing the Calendar
Starting Player Space
- Can your whole turn be placing a single worker on the Starting Player Space?
- Who can turn the gear two days, and when must they decide?
- What limits the double advance, and how is it recharged?
- When do you collect the accumulated corn from the Starting Player Space, and what can you spend it on?
- How does the Starting Player Marker move, and what if the holder takes the space again?
- When does the worker on the Starting Player Space come back?
Gears and Actions
- What does Uxmal action 5 cost, and which actions can it copy?
- Is there a limit on how much you can exchange with Uxmal action 2?
- How do you get more than three workers?
- Can you place a worker on Chichen Itza without a crystal skull?
- What can you do with Chichen Itza's last action space?
- Can you burn the forest on Palenque to get to the corn?
- What if no harvest tile is left on a Palenque action?
- Must you take a visible corn tile when harvesting corn on Palenque?
- With Tikal action 4 building two buildings, do Architecture technologies apply to both?
- Do Architecture bonuses apply again when a building lets you construct another building?
Temples
Technologies
- With level 2 Agriculture (Crop Rotation), can you harvest corn on Palenque when the corn is covered by wood?
- Are technology bonuses cumulative, so higher levels keep lower-level benefits?
- Does Resource Extraction give extra wood when I take corn, or extra stone from other sources?
- What happens when you advance past level 3 on a technology track?
- Does a building's own technology step help build that same building?
Buildings and Monuments
- Must you accept a building's one-time effects once you build it?
- When are new buildings put out?
- Can you own two copies of the same building?
- When you pay a crystal skull for a monument cost, does the skull return to the bank?
- For the tomb, civic and shrine monuments, do they count both buildings and monuments of that border?
- How are steps counted for the monument that gives 3 points per temple step?
- Does the temple re-scoring monument include the bonus for the highest player?
- How many points does the per-monument-built monument give in a five-player game?
Food Days and Scoring
- If a double advance skips a Food Day, is the Food Day still played?
- How many rounds does a game last, and how often are workers fed?
- Do farms reduce the corn cost of placing workers?
- Can victory points go below zero?
- On a Food Day, must you spend all your corn feeding before taking the penalty?
- How are leftover resources and corn scored at game end?
Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar – Tribes & PropheciesExpansion
- Do you have to follow the Prophecies, and are they known from the start?
- When are Prophecy points scored relative to feeding and temple rewards?
- If a Prophecy adds a cost (like corn per gold) that you can't pay, can you still take the action?
- Do technology-related Prophecy penalties apply to free advances from buildings?
- Does the Hunger prophecy's extra corn apply to a worker a farm already feeds?
- Can renovating a building pay for the extra resource added by Crowded Cities?
- Can Ek Chuah return borrowed resources at any time, and what if some are unreturned at game end?
- Does Ahmakiq's 2 corn apply on a turn where you place or pick up workers?
- Can Cit-Bolon-Tum use the extra last space on a gear?