Board Game Five Tribes

A great logic strategy game that uses mancala mechanics. It is ideal for family play and is guaranteed to appeal to both beginners and experienced players.

Mankala miracles from Katala

This is an abstract strategy based on the engine of good old Mankala, supplemented with an auction, collection of sets, activation of actions and even elements of territory control.

Before starting a game of 30 tiles, the playing field of the Sultanate is arranged - 5 by 6 cells. Three random meeples are placed on each tile (they are drawn at random from the bag).

Opens 9 cards from the resource deck and 3 genie cards from the corresponding deck. Players take camel chips of their color, turn order markers (in a two-player game - 2 markers each) and 50 coins from the bank.

Gameplay

The game consists of rounds. Each round is divided into auction and action phases.

1. Auction

Players take turns, according to the position of their tokens on the turn order scale, move tokens to free auction track divisions and immediately pay their bids. When a player places a marker at the "0" position, all markers at "0" will move up. There are three "0" positions on the auction track, so a maximum of three markers can fit there.

2. Player Actions

Players go according to the position of their markers on the auction track, from high bids to low bids, right to left and from the bottom divisions of the "0" column to the top.

On his turn, the player moves a token from the auction track to the nearest free cell on the turn order scale, then chooses a tile on a field that has at least 1 meeples, takes all meeples from it, and places them one by one on consecutive tiles connected orthogonally So, the player gets a certain route, and its length is equal to the number of meeples taken. Diagonals and reversing while driving are prohibited.

When a player places the last meeple, there must be at least one meeple of the same color on the current tile. The player takes the last meeples and all meeples of the same color into their hand. If there are no meeples left on the tile after that, the player puts out their camel and gains control of that tile.

A player`s action depends on the color of the meeples in their hand:

• Yellow visors: the player simply adds yellow meeples to his reserve;
• White Sages: The player adds white meeples to their pool. They can be spent on buying gins;
• Green Merchants: The player drops green meeples into a bag and receives the same number of resource cards from the beginning of the row.
• Blue Builders: The player drops green meeples into a bag and gets coins. Number of coins = number of surrounding tiles with blue numbers, including current and diagonal * number of blue meeples (can add and discard slave cards).
• Red Assassins: Player drops red meeples into a bag and kills (also returns to the bag) 1 yellow or 1 white meeples from another player OR 1 of any meeples within range the number of discarded assassins (you can add and discard slave cards to increase the distance).

Next, the player takes the action of the tile on which he completed his move:

• Oasis: allows you to place a palm counter on this tile;
• Settlement: allows you to place a palace token on this tile;
• Small Market: for 3 coins you can get one of the first three resource cards in the market;
• Great Market: For 6 coins you can get two of the first six resource cards in the market;
• Sacred Place: You can discard two white meeples or one white meeples and a slave card to get a genie card.

Genies provide victory points at the end of the game and allow you to enjoy various bonus effects, such as capturing free tiles, receiving coins when someone buys genies or moves through a controlled tile, double the profit from construction, place palaces and palm trees, add meeples from a bag to field, exchange slaves for resources, etc.

If desired, the player can sell card sets of various goods.

The round ends when the last player moves. A number of cards in the market are replenished with resources up to 9, and a number of genies - up to three.

End of the game

If someone puts out their last camel OR no one can move the meeples according to the rules, the game ends at the end of that round.

Players proceed to counting points:

• each coin in stock is one point;
• each yellow meeple (visor) in stock is one point. The player gets 10 points for each opponent who has fewer visors;
• each white meeple (sage) in stock is two points;
• the victory points indicated on the purchased djinn cards are added up;
• the victory points indicated on the controlled tiles are summed up;
• 3 points are given by each palm tree on a controlled tile;
• 5 points are given by each palace on a controlled tile;
• points for card sets of different goods are added up (1 unique card is 1 point, 2 cards are 3 points, and 9 different cards are as much as 60 points).

The player with the most points wins.