Board Game Cartographers

A fast-paced game about drawing maps of a fantasy world.

Royal Cartographers` Competition

Players become cartographers of the kingdom of Nalos and set out to explore the surrounding areas to map new geographical features. Cartographers must be prepared for impassable terrain and encounters with monsters. Although it seems that the bigger problem will not be monsters, but the whims of Queen Gymnax.

At the beginning of the game, participants take pencils and blank sheets of map. They decide which side of the sheet is used in this game. The game lasts four seasons. Players try to earn as many reputation stars as possible.

Gameplay

The game lasts one year - four seasons, during which the royal cartographers will draw maps not only according to what they see in front of them, but also taking into account the whims of the queen: she wanted her lands to have forests, and even that every forest was on the bank of a river, so why not twist real geography a little to please the queen?

The game`s seasons consist of several rounds, and each round is divided into three phases - research, mapping and verification.

1. Research phase.A new research map opens with the outlines of the terrain. This is what the cartographers see during their mission, but how and where they will depict the terrain they see is a personal matter for each cartographer!
2. Map phase. Typically, a survey map depicts two types of terrain or two shapes between which cartographers can choose.

There are six types of terrain in total:

• Forest, Village, Farm, and Water are terrain types that can be represented using the usual rules.
• Monsters are terrain populated by various monsters. To depict this area, cartographers exchange map sheets and draw monsters on someone else`s map - each cell adjacent to a cell with monsters vertically or horizontally that is not covered by any other type of terrain at the end of the season will take away reputation (victory points), because the queen will think that the cartographer was simply afraid to approach the monsters in order to draw the area nearby.
  The ambush card (monster card) should be immediately returned to the box as soon as the cartographers draw a figure from it on the opponent`s sheet.
• Mountains - this is a terrain printed on map sheets. It cannot appear on exploration maps and cartographers will never draw mountains. However, if the cartographer draws all four cells adjacent to a mountain horizontally and vertically, this will bring him a gold coin - a permanent bonus that will bring additional victory points each season. Coins can also be obtained by selecting a certain figure or type of terrain on the exploration map: this option is always marked with a symbol on the map itself. The coins obtained should be immediately drawn on your sheet in the victory points calculation area.

Figures from the exploration map can be placed in any suitable free space. To better fit the figure, you can rotate or even mirror it in any way.

A special condition is also the drawing of a ruins card: if such a card is drawn during the exploration phase, the next card from the deck should be immediately revealed. Figures from the next exploration map should be drawn over the cell with the image of ruins on the map sheet.

3. Check Phase Players add up the time values ​​on all exposed cards. If this sum equals or exceeds the number on the season card, the season ends. If it was the end of winter, the game ends after the final victory points are tallied.

Season End and Scoring

Players earn reputation stars based on their edict cards. The current season card indicates which edicts are active - these are the whims of the queen that the cartographers must try to please.

Each of the four edicts in the game will bring you victory points twice - once in different seasons. However, you should pay attention to when this happens: you can fulfill the conditions of the decrees in advance, because even if a certain season brings you fewer reputation points, in the next season the conditions collected over several seasons will bring more.

Two decrees are active each season:

• in spring - the first and second;
• in summer - the second and third;
• in autumn - the third and fourth;
• in winter - the first and fourth.

So, even if you did not get victory points for the first decree at the end of the spring season, fulfilling the conditions of it can bring you points at the end of winter, and, for example, fulfilling the conditions of the second decree after the end of summer will no longer make sense: it will no longer bring RP.

The requirements of decree cards can be very diverse: from the location of different locations next to each other to filling the lines of the map with one type of terrain, drawing the largest forests or settlements, or something else.

As soon as the season ends, players check the fulfillment of the conditions of the current season and mark the obtained RP in the corresponding area on the map sheet:

• Each marked coin brings a reputation point,
• each empty area next to monsters - takes away one reputation point;
• all fulfilled decree conditions are recorded in each cell.

All reputation points obtained during the season should be summed up in the season column so that at the end of the game it is easier for you to determine the winning score.

After that, if it was not the end of winter, a new season map opens. All exposed research cards are shuffled into a deck, and a new ambush card is added to it - a monster card. If it happens that an ambush card did not come out in a certain season, you still have to add a new one to the deck. It is possible that several of them will come out in a certain season.

After calculating the victory points for the winter decrees, the final victory points calculation takes place: players add up the scores of all four seasons in the last column of the corresponding zone. The cartographer with the most reputation points wins.