Game Theme: In the land of Gate, there are four warring factions, each one currently controlling a single capital. They all have steadily growing populations and are constantly hungry for more land to alleviate their congestion problems.

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Game overview: The players each control one of these factions in their attempt to expand their empire.

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Number of players:

2-4 on the first map, 2-6 on the second (up to a potentially infinite number of players on future maps)

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Target Audience:

A family strategy game, ages 6+

Setup

To start, players (2-4 on the map that comes in the default box) choose one colour of token each. They then place one of their tokens on a capital city. Decide amongst yourselves who goes first using whatever method you wish.

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How to Play

On a player’s turn, he/she may choose to either:

• Place one token (this is here forward referred to as ‘build one castle’ or similar)

Or:

• Move one token (this is here forward referred to as ‘advance one castle’ or similar)

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A player may also decide to use their turn to advance their capital city’s level. This is covered in a later section.

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Levels

A player can advance a castle onto the same city as another friendly castle, In this case, the tokens are ‘stacked’ and the castle’s level goes up by one. In this way, a castle with one token is Level 1, a castle with two tokens is Level 2, and a castle with three tokens is Level 3. If you are using the tokens provided, you may instead swap two level 1 tokens for a level 2 token etc. using the same rules above. The maximum level for any castle is 3, and the maximum number of Level 3 castles for any one player is 3.

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Objective

The aim of the default game is to control as many cities as possible. In this game type, a player wins if he/she controls more cities than any of his/her opponents at the end of the game.

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Game Types

Default: Players compete to capture as much territory as they can. The game ends when a player has no options available on their turn.

Dominance: Players compete to capture every capital city on the map. The game ends when a player has achieved this.

Slaughter: Players compete to destroy enemy presence on the map. The game ends when there is only one player’s castles left on the map.

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Gameplay Elements:

Players take it in turns to do any of these actions

1. Move

2. Attack if in range

3. Level up if next to a token or occupying a capital city

Movement

• The player rolls a dice to skip cities or just move a single space

• The player moves his or her tokens that number of space in any direction

Attack

• If the target is below your level, move to its space

• Otherwise, roll the dice, if you roll the same or higher as the defender’s level, move to its space

Ports

• When occupying a city adjacent to a port, a player may choose to move to any other port, which counts for one turn.

• However, if the target location is occupied by an enemy, refer to the rules on attacking above.

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