How to Play Imperial Settlers: Aztecs

Objective of the Game

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Preparation (Setup)

The Imperial Settlers: Aztecs expansion introduces a new Faction—the Aztecs, complete with their own set of Faction components: 1 Faction board, 1 Faction marker, and Faction cards. The Aztecs should be added to the list of factions from which players can choose to play. This expansion also includes a set of Blessing tokens and 1 tricolor Blessing token. Note that this is not a stand-alone expansion; you need the Imperial Settlers base game to play.

The expansion comes with 110 cards (63x88mm), including 60 Aztec cards, 10 Barbarian cards, 10 Egyptian cards, 10 Japanese cards, 10 Roman cards, and 10 Atlantean cards. It also contains 46 Blessing tokens (5 sets of 9 different colors and one tricolor) and 9 Statue tokens (3 sets of 3 tokens).

When building your Faction deck, some of the Aztec cards are treated as regular (basic) Faction cards, while others are treated as if they were released with previous expansions. The affiliation information at the bottom right edge of each card indicates how to treat it:

• : a regular Aztec card
• : treat it as if it was from the “Why Can’t We Be Friends” expansion
• : treat it as if it was from the “Atlanteans” expansion
• : treat it as if it was from the “3 Is a Magic Number” expansion

The cards marked with , , and are equivalent to the cards other Factions received in previous expansions.

For deck construction, there are two formats:

OPEN Format

You may mix any Common and Faction cards from any expansions with the corresponding cards from the Imperial Settlers base game. This format may not ensure balanced play.

STANDARD Format

This is the only format allowed in tournaments. Common cards come only from the base game. To build your Faction deck, you may mix the Faction cards from the Imperial Settlers base game with the Faction cards from exactly 1 expansion.

Building a Faction deck

For each card from the chosen expansion that you add, you need to remove a card from the base game from your deck. Your Faction deck must consist of exactly 30 cards. Of these, 3 cards come in 3 copies (a total of 9), 6 cards come in 2 copies (a total of 12), and the remaining 9 are single cards. Icons found in the bottom right corner of a card’s artwork tell you how many copies of this card you need to have in your deck:

• 1 copy:
• 2 copies:
• 3 copies:

For example, if you wish to use an expansion card with , you must use all 3 copies of this card, and you need to remove from your deck one set of 3 copies of a base game card.

Theoretically, with the Aztec Faction, the game can now accommodate up to 5 players. However, this is not recommended as the game may take excessively long to complete with more than 4 players.

Flow of the Game

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Actions and How to Play

This expansion introduces a new color of card: orange, and a new type of Good: Blessing tokens. It also introduces two new rules: Blessings and Prayers.

Blessing

Blessings are a new type of Good represented by Blessing tokens. These tokens come in various colors, just like the cards (except for orange: the orange token icon represents Blessings in general). Each Faction can have no more than 1 Blessing token of a given color at any time. When a player receives a Blessing token, they may take a token of any color they do not currently own.

Blessing tokens gained during a round can affect Pray Actions taken in that round. Unless a player can store them, Blessing tokens are discarded in the Cleanup phase.

The special tricolor token is produced by the Aztec Faction board, and no other Faction can gain this token. For each Pray Action, it may be used as either a brown, a grey, or a red token. The chosen colors may vary between Pray Actions, but only one color may be chosen for a single Action. The tricolor token does not count towards the token limit and it does not prevent a player from taking 1 brown, 1 grey, or 1 red Blessing token when they gain .

Prayers

Pray is a new type of Action found on some cards in this expansion. The way a Pray Action is resolved depends on whether a player currently owns any Blessing tokens (and of what colors).

Taking a Pray Action without Blessing tokens

When a player takes a Pray Action, they draw a given number of Common cards and resolve the effects triggered by the colors of these cards.

• If the Pray card instructs a player to "choose" a color, this can be done after they have drawn and seen the cards.
• If the Pray card instructs a player to "announce" a color, they must do so before they draw the cards.
• If the Pray card does not tell a player to "announce" or "choose" a color, that player may either choose more than one color or no color needs to be chosen—the card will tell the player what to do.

A prayer’s effect is always specified on the card. Whenever a Pray Action refers to “each card”, it means "each card from the ones drawn for this Action" and not, for example, "cards in play" or "cards in hand". The number after the keyword Pray indicates how many Common cards a player should draw. After a Pray Action is resolved, the Common cards drawn for this Action are discarded.

Some cards can be of more than one type; if this is the case, the card’s color field is divided. In Pray Actions, the player resolves the effects of all the colors shown in the color field (e.g., golden and grey, not golden or grey).

Taking a Pray Action with a Blessing token

If a player has a Blessing token of a color they would have otherwise chosen/announced for the Pray Action, that Pray Action can be resolved differently.

A player with a Blessing token may decide to skip drawing cards and instead, count the Blessing token as if it was one COMMON card of the token's color. Blessing tokens are kept even after they are used for this purpose. A player may use multiple Blessing tokens for one Pray Action.

Even if a player has a Blessing token of a chosen color, they may still decide to draw cards. If they draw at least one card of the chosen color, the player will get a +1 bonus for each Blessing token as long as that token's color applies to that Pray Action (the tricolor token may provide a bonus of one chosen color). If they do not draw any cards of the matching color, the Blessing tokens will provide no bonus—the player failed to propitiate the Gods.

Blessing tokens are not spent the way other Goods are; even if used, they are kept until the end of the round and can be used again on later turns.

The timing of Pray Actions

The Pray keyword is always preceded by another keyword that indicates when that particular Pray Action can be taken. Standard rules apply:

• Production, Pray: take this Pray Action in the Production phase. Resolve the colors of the cards you drew to check if you produced any additional Goods.
• Feature, Pray: this Pray Action is triggered whenever the condition described on the card is met.
• Action, Pray: you need to pay the Action cost to take this Pray Action.

The Orange Color

Orange cards and tokens represent Blessings, . Note that there are no orange Blessing tokens in the game. The orange icon stands for either any other color or for all the other colors, depending on what the card tells a player to do.

"Matching"

A matching card is a card of a color that has been chosen/announced by a player when taking a Pray Action. A card is considered to match a Good if it is of the same color as the Good itself.

Rules Introduced in Previous Expansions

Some cards in this expansion use rules from previous expansions:

• Open Production: Introduced in the “Why Can’t We Be Friends” expansion.
• Technology: Introduced in the “Atlanteans” expansion.
• Sets: Introduced in the “3 Is a Magic Number” expansion.

Consult the respective expansion manuals for details on these rules.

Clarifications

Cards that can be used "in future Pray Actions"

Some Locations allow players to store cards that may be used in future Pray Actions. The Location description will always tell a player whether to keep these cards until the end of the round or the end of the game. Regardless, whenever such a card is used in a Pray Action, it is discarded after resolving the effect of that prayer. During one Pray Action, a player may use any number of these stored cards, and they are always used in addition to the cards drawn for the regular Pray Action.

Cards that have no color

Ruins have no color, so whenever a color is needed for a particular Pray Action, a Ruins card cannot be used for that prayer. For all purposes of Pray Actions, the "Newlyweds" common card also has no color (it only gains one once the location has been built).

Cards clarification

• Helpful Markus: If this location is targeted by any effect that allows the player to remove the Goods spent to activate it, the card placed under this location is discarded.
• Sturdy foundations: 2 Victory Points for each card placed under a matching COMMON location are awarded in addition to any points scored by that location itself.
• Thoth's Shrine: When a player scores with a matching location, the additional point is provided by Thoth's Shrine itself, not by that matching location. For example, if the player gains 1 Victory Point and triggers the effect of Thoth's Shrine to gain 1 additional Victory Point, the Sphinx's Feature ("Each time you gain at least 2 Victory Points...") cannot be used.

End of Game and Scoring

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Tips for Winning

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