Terra Mystica Teaching Guide

Text highlighted in yellow should be revisited just prior to game start for more thorough explanation.

Theme and Goal:

Your aim is to develop a fantasy-based civilization using the unique features and powers of the faction you have been assigned.
Each faction can only build on their native terrain, but has the ability to terraform the land to achieve this objective.

Components

The Main Board shows different types of terrain & rivers. A scoring track surrounds the board we start with 20 VP (laurel wreath
symbol) each (well be able to trade these points for other goodies). Everything else Ill explain as we go, including: along the
bottom are Power Actions we can use (Orange Octagons always denote the performing of an Action); top-left shows a VP schedule
for the end of the game; and bottom-left shows what VP bonuses we can earn during each Round and what we gain for Cult
influence at the end of each Round.

Near the board are stocks of Favour Tiles, Bonus Tiles (the Scrolls denote the Passing Action), and Town Tokens which we can
acquire during the game. There is also a Cult Board, where we track our standing with each of 4 different Cults.

Finally, we each have a Faction Board where we keep most of our pieces, including Power (kept in three different bowls), Workers,
Coins, Priests, Bridges and Structures (Dwellings, Trading Houses, Strongholds, Temples and Sanctuaries). During the game, we
can only use what is on our Faction Board. Note that our Priests start the game off the board.

Your Faction Board also shows a Terrain Wheel (your native terrain is the one at the top and matches the colour of your pieces); an
Exchange Rate chart; a Shipping chart; the costs for building each type of Structure; and any special rules for your Faction. Each
player should announce their Factions special rules before the game begins.

Terminology & Important Concepts:

Spades are used to Terraform terrain (explained later). They are not a Resource and cannot be accumulated they are used the
instant they are obtained or lost forever, with the number of Spades obtained defining the limits of the Terraforming.

Adjacency Structures are considered Directly Adjacent if their spaces are physically touching, or connected by a Bridge.
Structures are Indirectly Adjacent if they are separated by a number of contiguous River spaces equal to or less than your current
value on your Shipping Track.

Gaining Power anytime a player gains Power it happens in the following order:
1) First move Power Tokens from Bowl I to Bowl II, if any; then
2) Once Bowl I is empty, move any remaining Power Tokens from Bowl II to Bowl III.

Conversions during your turn, immediately before or after taking an Action (but not during), you may convert any amount of Power
into Priests, Workers or Coins, following the Conversion Chart under Power Bowl III. Similarly, you can convert Priests into
Workers, and Workers into Coins. If you cannot afford to convert everything you want to, you may

Sacrifice Power This allows you to move Power from Bowl II to Bowl III, providing you permanently remove 1 power from the
game (from Bowl II) for each Power you move to Bowl III. You may also do this before taking a Power Action (see overleaf).

Gameplay:

Each turn is divided into 3 phases; The Income Phase, the Action Phase and the Cult & Cleanup Phase.

1. Income Phase
Each player takes any resources displayed with the Income Symbol and places them on their Faction Board. The Income
Symbol can appear on your Faction Board (on the Structure tracks), your Favour Tiles, or your Bonus Tiles.

2. Action Phase
We take turns in clockwise order completing a single action until everyone has passed.
 Transform & Build. First, you may transform a single empty terrain tile (Directly or Indirectly) Adjacent to one of your
Structures. This costs Spades; the number of Spades is determined by consulting your Terrain Wheel; 1 Spade for each step.
Spades can be purchased by converting Workers at the current Exchange Rate shown on your Faction Board.
Then, if the terrain is transformed into your Home Terrain, you may build a Dwelling on that space.
Alternatively, you can skip the transformation option and just build a Dwelling on an empty terrain tile Adjacent to one of your
Structures. The cost of building a Dwelling is shown on your Dwelling Track. Take the leftmost Dwelling and place it on the
board (note that this will improve your Income next turn).
Then each player who has Structures Directly Adjacent to this new Dwelling has the option to convert VPs to Power. Going
clockwise, each eligible player calculates the combined Power Value of all of their Structure(s) adjacent to the new Dwelling
(Power Values are shown beside the Structures on your Faction Board). They may immediately gain that much Power, but at a
cost of that many VPs minus one.
o This trade is all or nothing; no partial trades allowed, except where you would have Power left over after moving all Power
from Bowls I and II into Bowl III, in which case only pay for what you use.

Advance Shipping Track. Pay the cost shown on your Shipping Track to advance the marker one space, gaining the VPs
shown in the new space.

Lower Exchange Rate. Pay the cost shown on your Exchange Rate Track to advance the marker one space, gaining the VPs
shown in the new space.

Upgrade Structure. The black arrows on your Faction Board show which Structures can be upgraded into which. Pay the cost
shown next to the Structure you intend to build, then take the leftmost Structure of that type and replace one of your Structures
on the board. The replaced Structure returns to your Faction Board (thereby lowering your income next turn).
i. Trading Houses have a variable cost. Pay the lower cost if you are placing the Trading House Directly Adjacent to
another players Structure; otherwise, pay the higher cost.
ii. Strongholds gain you a new special ability when built, shown next to the Stronghold on your Faction Board.
iii. Temples and Sanctuaries allow you to take a Favour Tile. You may never have 2 of the same Favour Tile.
Then each player who has Structures Directly Adjacent to this upgraded Structure has the option to convert VPs to Power in
the same way as for the Transform & Build Action.

A Note About Towns

After taking an action, it may be that you now have an area containing 4 Directly Adjacent Structures with a combined Power Value
of 7. When this happens, you immediately gain a Town Token, gaining the VP listed and any additional benefit as a one-off reward,
and place the Town Token underneath one of the related Structures.
o If one of the Structures is a Sanctuary, there need only be 3 Directly Adjacent Structures for a Town to be claimed.

Send a Priest to a Cult. Take a Priest from your Faction Board and place him on any open space at the bottom of the Cult
Board, and immediately advance your marker that many spaces along the related Cult Track (gaining Power if you cross any
Power spaces). As Priests can never be retrieved from the Cult Board and are finite in number, you may instead wish to take a
Priest from your Faction Board and return him to the general supply to advance only 1 space along any Cult Track.
Only one Player Marker may occupy the 10 space on each Track. In order to cross from 9 to 10 on any track, you must have a
Town Token (one Town Token for each Cult Track).

Power Action. Spend Power (by moving Power Tokens from Bowl III to Bowl I) to use any of the Power Actions along the
bottom of the board, then cover that space with an Action Token (to show it cannot be used for the rest of the Round first
come, first served!). You may Sacrifice Power first if required.
o Spend 3 Power to build 1 Bridge on an unfinished bridge printed on the board Adjacent to one of your Structures;
o Spend the listed Power to gain the Resources shown; or
o Spend 4 or 6 Power to immediately take a Transform & Build action with 1 or 2 free Spades.
o When Transforming & Building using a Power Action, any Spades remaining after terraforming can be applied to a second
space, but only one Dwelling may be built. If you have insufficient Spades, you can convert Workers, but can only
Transform a single space (and/or build a Dwelling). Eligible players are offered the same VP-for-Power trade as for the
Transform & Build Action.

Special Action. Take any Special Action shown on your Faction Board (from having built a Stronghold), Bonus Card, or
Favour Tile, then cover it with an Action Token to show it has been used this Round.

Pass. (Represented in-game by the Scroll symbol). Youre now out of the Round. Take any bonuses shown on your Bonus
Card for Passing, then return your Bonus Card to the supply, face-up. Take one of the available Bonus Cards from the supply,
plus any Coins on it, and place it face-down in front of you until the next Round. The first player to Pass becomes the Starting
Player for the next Round.
3. Cult & Cleanup Phase
First, we gain the Cult Bonuses shown on the right-hand side of the current rounds Scoring Tile. Any Spades acquired are
spent in the play order of the next round and may be divided between spaces if possible, but cannot be increased (by spending
Workers, for example) or manipulated by Faction Abilities; nor can any Dwellings be built.
Then, we remove Action Tokens from any spaces that have been used this turn, wherever they may be (Game Board, Faction
Board, Favour Tile or Bonus Tile).
Then we add 1 Coin to each leftover Bonus Tile, and flip the Scoring Tile used in this round.

Game End & Scoring:

The game ends after the 6th Round. Players earn further VPs for each of the following (see VP chart, top-left of Main Board):

1. Cult Scoring for each Cult Track, highest player gets 8VP, 2nd gets 4VP, 3rd gets 2VP. Ties are shared (round down).
2. Area Scoring an Area is all of a players Structures which are (Directly or Indirectly) Adjacent. Player with the largest
single Area gets 18VP, 2nd gets 12VP, 3rd gets 6VP. Ties are shared (round down).
3. Convert all remaining resources into Coins using the conversion rates shown in Power Bowl #III, then get 1 VP per 3 Coins.