2 & 3-player playthroughs
Definitions from the authored tutorial, with stable links for sharing a particular term. The selected edition and scenario determine how each rule applies.
Open the interactive tutorial →48 terms
A banker takes one or two actions, then refreshes the market. Buy, play and sell may each be repeated. A regional operations action or a particular trade fair is available once per turn. An action must change the position.
Rule reference: D1; E1–E6
The unit of money. Yellow disks represent one florin and red disks five. China is the common treasury. Money paid to China and money paid onto market cards have different destinations.
Rule reference: B1; glossary: Florins
A banker-colored pawn on a border. It can earn a trade profit, contribute to voting strength, and count toward Globalization. A pawn on an empire square is repressed and does not count as a concession.
Rule reference: B2; F4; F6; G3; L5
A religiously colored noble in a city. Rooks are ruling-class defenders in battles and can be targets of siege. They are not owned by any banker.
Rule reference: B1; F8; glossary: Ruling Class
A religiously colored military piece in a city. Knights can attack in campaigns and defend their empire in battles. The city symbol determines what an ordinary levy can place.
Rule reference: B1; F9; G4
A religiously colored inquisitor on a compatible tableau card or throne. It silences non-religious operations and ordinary abilities; prestige and abilities granting immunity to silence remain. If it enters a card with another bishop, BOTH bishops die. If there is no bishop there, it may kill one repressed token instead (pacification).
Rule reference: E2; F1; glossary: Silenced
A religiously colored ship on a sea border. When trade crosses it, one florin returns to China instead of paying a concession there. Pirate movement can reposition ships under its operation’s restrictions.
Rule reference: F7; G3
A trade route’s starting point. Busted disks mark disabled emporia and also prevent ordinary levies in their cities. The initial white route begins at Trebizond and the black route at Tana, both in Byzantium.
Rule reference: C1; G2; H1
Two rows, West and East, each with a hidden column zero and five face-up purchase columns. Column numbers determine purchase price. Gaps remain until the end-of-turn refresh.
Rule reference: C6; D2; E1
You cannot buy a card onto which you placed money earlier in the same turn. Remember the paid card identities even if your first action made gaps.
Rule reference: E1
Purchased ordinary cards go into a private hand, normally limited to two cards. An active card ability can override that limit; Höchstetter Bank grants an unlimited hand. Playing or selling frees space. Comets resolve immediately and never occupy a hand slot.
Rule reference: E1–E3
Your face-up cards are divided into West and East groups. Playing a card makes its ongoing operations, prestige and ability available subject to its text and any bishop. Kings and republics also sit with their controller.
Rule reference: B3; E2; E4
An optional event on a newly played card, identified by its bomb symbol. Announce it before placing agents. Resolve a non-battle one-shot before placing its agents, which must be deployed until saturated. Battle agents fight; surviving agents and bishops then follow their placement rules. If the one-shot is declined, agent placement is optional.
Rule reference: E2.1–2; live Book I p. 14; designer clarification March 26, 2024
A token shown on a card that may enter play when that card is played. Placement follows the card’s location and the token’s placement restrictions. Occupied positions can require repression payments; an empty legal border is a simple pawn placement.
Rule reference: E2
A civil-war one-shot. Attackers include the card’s eligible non-bishop agents, all bordering pirates, and repressed knights and rooks on the target empire square. All ruling-class pieces in its cities defend. Pair casualties; at least one attacker must survive to win and cause regime change. Existing concessions and repressed pawns do not attack in a conspiracy.
Rule reference: J1; glossary: Battle
A civil-war one-shot using the card’s eligible agents, YOUR bordering concessions, all bordering pirates, and all repressed pawns in the target empire. All its ruling-class pieces defend. At least one attacker must survive for victory and regime change. Existing concessions join the attack and can become casualties.
Rule reference: J2; glossary: Battle
A takeover transfers an empire, or flips your own king/republic, as its triggering rule specifies. Optionally add a concession, optionally emancipate repressed tokens, and resolve the ownership, vassal, queen and bishop consequences. Golden liberty applies to a vote’s map-religion choice; it is not the name of the concession reward.
Rule reference: Glossary: Regime Change; F6d
An empire square on its monarchy side. Kings in your tableau count for Imperial victory; a vassal remains a king. Printed prestige can also matter to another victory. A king left on its throne belongs to no banker.
Rule reference: B4; F9; L4
An empire square on its republican side. Republics and Law prestige combine for Renaissance victory. Government type and the religion of the map are separate properties.
Rule reference: F6; L6
Printed symbols that contribute to particular victory checks: religious prestige, Discovery, Law, and Patron. Count the relevant type, including applicable empire squares. A bishop does not erase prestige.
Rule reference: B3–B4; L3–L6; glossary: Prestige
Take one existing florin from a card, trade-fair card, or empty space in the market row shown by the commerce icon. The operation does not create money in China. Its card must be unsilenced and unused for an operation this turn.
Rule reference: F2; E4
Spend one action to use cards in either your West or East tableau. Each eligible card may contribute at most one of its operations; choose their order. Location, target and silence restrictions still apply.
Rule reference: E4; F1–F9
Target a concession bordering an unsaturated empire at the operation’s location. Its owner either pays one florin to China or represses the concession without paying. In BOTH cases, that owner chooses and places a legal levy in the taxing empire. A regional East/West card lets the taxing player specify an empire in that region.
Rule reference: F4a–b, live Book I p. 20
A ruling-class piece placed in an available, unbusted city, matching its printed color and shape. Trade fairs raise one in each unsaturated empire visited before the voyage terminates; no voyage means no levies. Tax raises a levy whether the concession owner pays or accepts repression.
Rule reference: F4; G2b; G4–G5
An operation that removes one eligible rook, knight or pirate at its allowed location. It is an assassination, not a battle: no attacker has to die in exchange. It does not target a banker’s concession.
Rule reference: F8
Spend an action to discard the hidden card of one market. Add the player-count subsidy to that space, pay the convening banker first, then distribute remaining profits along that market’s route and raise legal levies in visited empires.
Rule reference: G1–G5
An ordered path of empire visits and border crossings beginning at an active emporium. Concessions receive one florin when crossed; pirates consume one. When the profit pool is exhausted, the voyage ends there and does not continue to later empires.
Rule reference: G2–G5; H1
A token displaced into an empire’s repressed area remains in the game but loses its normal map function. Costs and placement depend on the action that represses it. Repressed pawns are serfs, not concessions.
Rule reference: E2; F4; glossary: Repressed
A political operation against an eligible empire already in a tableau, requiring the specified concession majority and payment for repressed pieces. It can capture a rival king or flip your own government. Thrones and vassals are not eligible targets.
Rule reference: F6
An operation using the knights of a king you control to attack a legally adjacent empire. Pay for all attacking knights, resolve the battle against the defenders, and apply the successful campaign’s vassal result.
Rule reference: F9; glossary: Battle; Vassal
A queen may marry an unmarried king listed among her suitors, normally in its throne or YOUR tableau. A specific ability may allow marriage in an opponent’s tableau. Place her beneath the king to form a royal couple and resolve regime change. Alternatively, play her as an old maid: her prestige counts, but her operations and abilities do not.
Rule reference: I1–I3
A crusade, jihad or reformation is a religious battle one-shot with its own attacker, defender and map-conversion procedure. It is distinct from a conspiracy or peasant revolt.
Rule reference: K1–K2
Resolve this non-battle one-shot against each player separately. A player with tableau prestige of BOTH indicated religions discards all their cards of those religions. Old maids are excluded. A discarded royal couple returns together to its throne. A triggering card discarded by its own apostasy must still place its agents afterward.
Rule reference: K3
A bishop on a card or royal couple blocks non-religious operations and ordinary abilities. Light-blue religious operations, prestige, and abilities granting immunity to silence remain available. Removing the bishop restores the other functions. A printed Vote operation is silenced too.
Rule reference: F1; glossary: Silenced
A special market card purchased at the normal column price. Resolve it immediately: discard it and activate one inactive victory square. The buyer does not gain exclusive access to that victory.
Rule reference: E1; L1
An active victory square permits any qualified banker to spend an action declaring that victory. Check its exact comparisons at declaration. If a market gap cannot be refilled from either draw deck, the alternative Patron comparison and florin tiebreak apply.
Rule reference: L1–L6; D2
To declare this active victory, have at least two more concessions than each opponent and strictly more Discovery prestige than each opponent. Both comparisons must hold at declaration.
Rule reference: L2; L5
The active Imperial victory requires a king advantage over every opponent. In a two-player game the required lead is three kings; with more players it is two. Include vassals in the king count.
Rule reference: L2; L4
For a religion to be supreme, its bishop count must exceed the other two religions combined, and its believer count must also exceed the other two combined. Believers are matching knights, rooks and pirates in matching theocracies; a pirate bordering two matching theocracies counts in both. Then the declarer needs more prestige of that religion than every opponent.
Rule reference: L2–L3; glossary: Supreme; Believer
This active victory requires more republics than every opponent and at least two more Law prestige than every opponent. Neither comparison alone is enough.
Rule reference: L2; L6
After paying a market card’s full purchase cost, collect any florins already on that card. These speculation profits cannot help pay for that same purchase. Selling a card is a separate action under E3.
Rule reference: E1d; E3
Following a vote in a theocracy, you may leave the religion unchanged or change its map to the medieval state. This concerns map religion, independently of whether the empire is a king or republic. The extra concession from a regime change is a separate effect.
Rule reference: F6d, live Book I p. 22
Move the busted disk from the card’s specified emporium to the uncovered emporium of the same color. Repress any token covered by it. Future trade starts at the newly opened city. The Spice Islands shift requires an existing Discovery prestige, excluding the played card. Follow the revised E2.1b sequence: resolve the one-shot before placing agents; H1’s older timing sentence has not been harmonized.
Rule reference: H1; E2.1b; designer clarification March 26, 2024
Discard a tableau card at the acting card’s location. A card cannot behead itself. If the victim is an empire square, the acting card also dies; apply the empire discard procedure, including its vassals, queen and bishops.
Rule reference: F3; glossary: Discard
An operation moves a matching kind of map token at the acting card’s location to that empire square as a repressed token. The acting banker gains one florin from China. This operation differs from paying to repress during agent placement, or accepting repression instead of paying a tax.
Rule reference: F5; E2.2; F4
Move a bishop of the icon’s religion to an adjacent card in the same tableau or to a card/throne sharing its location. Player boards block movement between East and West, and a bishop cannot move directly from throne to throne. Royal couples and suzerainties have further adjacency rules. Both bishops die on a bishop collision; an otherwise bishop-free destination allows optional pacification of one repressed token.
Rule reference: F1a–g
A king subordinated to another king after a successful campaign. Place it beneath its suzerain and keep it king-side up. Its operations and prestige remain relevant in that tableau; it counts as a king for Imperial victory. Vassals cannot be targeted by Vote and cannot campaign against their own suzerain.
Rule reference: F9g–j; glossary: Vassal
An empire whose eligible cities are all full cannot accept an ordinary levy and cannot be a tax location. Constantinople has three spaces; a busted emporium is unavailable. The active Venetian Condottieri ability can change Venice’s capacity. Battle survivors use the separate placement and repression procedure.
Rule reference: F4a; G4; glossary: Saturated
These playthroughs were checked against the publisher’s living rules and errata on 8 September 2026. Each tutorial includes its rule references and source notes.
Reading guide reviewed 2026-09-15; based on tutorial v1.2.4. This date records an editorial review of the existing tutorial, not a new rules edition. Strategic suggestions are conditional interpretations, separate from official rules.