Inventions: Evolution of Ideas

This game takes place over 6 eras, with era 1 being the initial setup round and era 6 is when final scoring is performed. The remaining 4 eras contain 3 rounds each and represent different periods of human history.

The core loop in this game is that you are trying to present ideas that then lead to inventions that get shared with humankind so that they can be iterated on and improved to form new inventions.

A given idea does not have to be presented, invented and then shared by the same player.

During the game, players will place their pillars of time markers in the actions spaces in the assembly area. Each player can only ever have one of their markers on a given row of this part of the board. However, different players can have their markers on spaces occupied by another player's piece.

Certain actions in the game require citizen meeples to be placed. You can only ever use meeples that are in the upper space on your player board for a given specialty. If a citizen meeple is exhausted, it must be placed in the lower space for the given specialty.

Citizens can have one of three specialties:

• Economy (teal)
• Culture (white)
• Technology (brown)

Scholars (black) can be used in place of any of the above 3 specialties:

• If an action exhausts a scholar, it is exhausted as the type of specialist that it performed the action as
• Otherwise, it is returned to the academy on your player board

Round Structure

With the exception of the setup round, a round is performed as follows:

• The Chronos meeple is moved one space forward on the era track
• Players take turns in turn order, where each player does the following:
  • Take 1 main action
  • Optionally, take 1 or more chain actions

Turn Structure

A player's turn is divided into 4 steps:

1. Prepare chain action tokens
2. Perform actions
3. Aspirations become progress
4. Build progress

2 player game rules

The rules for 2 player games are almost the same as 3 and 4 player rules, except for the following changes:

• Players gain influence when an opponent performs a main action on the same action space as your season pillar tokens as well, not just the same space as your epoch pillar token

When it comes to Chronos specific rules:

• All of Chronos' citizens are scholars and has no scholar limit
• Chronos has access to all private milestones and milestones in the discard, not just their own
• On Chronos' turn:
  • Move their season pillar to the next region in the migration path
  • Then try to perform one of the following 4 actions:
    1. Present an Idea
    2. Invent
    3. Share Invention
    4. Innovate
  • If Chronos is unable to perform any of the above actions in his current region, he moves to the next region and re-evaluates the actions until Chronos finds an action they can do

End of the second era, and thus the game, will be triggered when one of following conditions is met:

• A player has completed 4 sets of rubble
• At least 3 of brown decks have been exhausted

End of the second era occurs at end of round when this condition is met, and then all players will one more round before final scoring occurs

Game is set up game like 3 player game with changes as given below. Solo mode requires use of 2 sets of unused player components for automa use.

Important Notes

• Any time either bot scores points, they move the same scoring marker
• Chronos NEVER does the following:
  • take chain actions or use pillars to take actions
  • use a player board, aspiration tiles or influence
  • has cards at any point during the game, including during setup
  • take actions shown on their influence tokens
• Hephaestus NEVER does the following:
  • take actions shown on their influence tokens
• All of Chronos' citizens are treated as scholars
• Chronos only ever needs one scholar when inventing
• If you place your pillar in same action space as bot, bot receives 2 points
• If bot places pillar in same space as human player pillar, player receives influence as normal

End of Era

Before performing usual end of era steps, the following process is performed.

• Shuffle Hephaestus' used action cards and place them at bottom of remaining deck
• Give Hephaestus chain action marker if one is between current and next era on era track
• If Chronos has influence marker between current and next era on era track:
  • Move Chronos to next region on map where they do not have influence marker
  • Place influence marker on leftmost empty space in this region
  • Score IP on most valuable space of region, even if this space is occupied
• At the end of eras 2, 3 and 4:
  • Chronos takes new milestone:
    • Move current milestone to common knowledge display
    • Take rightmost milestone from Eureka display, place in bot's private milestone space
    • Put 1 citizen on new milestone tile
    • Advance bot's era marker to rightmost space of next era
    • Adjust turn order as usual after this placement
  • If there are still milestones in Eureka display:
    • Non-player upgrades their milestone:
      • Move milestone to common knowledge display
      • Replace it with rightmost milestone in Eureka display
    • If 3rd or 4th milestone is still in display, they are placed in common display
  • Refill Eureka display
• Bots score 2 points for each sage returned to board

Final Scoring

• Bots score points for their inventions, progress tiles and wealth tiles according to table below:

  Resource	Easy	Normal	Hard
  Inventions	2	3	4
  Progress Tiles	2	3	4
  Wealth Tiles	3	4	5

• Game can be scored in one of two ways:
  • Beat combined score of bots
  • Achieve 8 accolades
• Accolades are scored according to following table:

  Goal	Accolades
  Beat bots score	2
  Beat bots after sharing all inventions on board that they have presented	1
  Beat bots score by more than 20 points	2
  Have 10 or more inventions	2
  Score 6 or more wealth tiles	1
  Have all 7 progress tiles of 1 type	1
  Have all 7 spaces on main board filled with ideas	1
  All presented ideas currently on board are invented	1
  Have all of your citizen meeples in play	1
  Fill all spaces of your progress map	2
  Have 8 or more influence at end of game	1

• Your final rank is as follows:

  Accolades Scored	Rank
  1-2	Neanderthal
  3-5	Medieval
  6-8	Technologically Advanced
  9-11	AI
  12-14	Genius
  15-16	Alien