Anachrony rules refresher

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You're trying to finish with the most Victory Points when the World Capital collapses after the asteroid Impact. You get there by powering up Exosuits and placing Workers to gather resources, construct buildings and Superprojects, and research Breakthroughs. Along the way you borrow assets from the future and later pay them back through Time Travel, keep your Morale up, and evacuate the Capital before it falls.

For setup, in a two or three player game use the side of the Main board with only two hexagonal slots for Research, Recruit and Construct. Put the Evacuation Action tile on its intact A side. Sort the buildings into four face up stacks by type: Power Plants, Factories, Life Supports and Labs. These are the primary stacks, and the top building of each can be constructed. Lay out the seven Timeline tiles in a row below the board, with the Impact tile between the fourth and fifth. Put a random Superproject above each Timeline tile, the leftmost face up and the rest face down. Each player's Focus marker starts below the leftmost Timeline tile. Deal five random Endgame Condition cards face up above the board.

Everyone uses the same side of their Player board. Each Path board goes out on a random side, and that side shows your Evacuation condition. Take the starting resources, Water, Energy Cores and Workers shown on your Path board. The Path of Progress also takes a random starting Breakthrough. Place your Workers in the Active and Tired columns as shown, and set your Morale and Time Travel markers on their starting spaces. Choose one of your two Leader cards. The player who most recently had déjà vu is First Player and puts their banner next to the World Council spaces. Then, going clockwise from the First Player, the first player gets no bonus Water, the second and third get one, and the fourth gets two.

The game runs for up to seven rounds called Eras, and each Era has six phases in order. First comes Preparation. Next is the Paradox phase, which is skipped in the first Era. Then the Power up phase, where you ready Exosuits, followed by the Warp phase, where you borrow from the future. Then the Action rounds, and finally Clean up. In the Action rounds, play goes clockwise from the First Player. On your turn you may take any number of Free Actions. Then you do exactly one of three things: place a Worker on a space on your own Player board, place a Worker inside a powered up Exosuit on the Main board, or pass for the rest of the Era. Once everyone has passed, move on to Clean up. The Impact happens during Clean up at the end of the fourth Era.

In Preparation, flip the Superproject above the next Timeline tile face up. Then shift the buildings: move the top building of each primary stack face up onto a secondary stack beside it, covering whatever was there. The top buildings of all eight stacks are now available. Clear the Recruit pool, draw a Recruit card, and place the four Workers it shows. Clear the Mine pool, draw a Mine card, and place the five Resources it shows. Also put a Uranium, a Gold and a Titanium on the slots beside the three Mine hexes. After the Impact, ignore the top Resource on the Mine card and place a Neutronium there instead.

In the Paradox phase, check each Timeline tile that has Warp tiles on it, working from left to right. On each tile, whoever has the most Warp tiles rolls the Paradox die once and takes zero, one or two Paradox tokens. If players are tied for most, all tied players roll. The moment you get a third Paradox by any means, you suffer an Anomaly. Stop rolling, and return all your Paradox tokens. Once all rolls are done, you may pull one of your Warp tiles back from any Timeline tile. Then place an Anomaly tile on the leftmost free building spot on your board, choosing the row if there's a tie. If you have no free spot, the Anomaly covers one of your buildings, which can't be used until the Anomaly is gone. Each Anomaly left at game end is worth minus three points. To seal one, place a Worker on it and pay either two Titanium, Uranium or Gold plus two Water, or one Neutronium plus two Water. The Anomaly and that Worker both go back to the general supply, so you lose the Worker.

In Power up, going clockwise from the First Player, place up to six Exosuits on your hex slots. Each Exosuit on one of the three bottom slots costs an Energy Core. Then gain one Water for each hex slot left empty. After the Impact, two of the three top slots are covered. You can't place Exosuits there, and they give no Water.

In the Warp phase, each player secretly takes zero, one or two Warp tiles in hand. Reveal them together and place them on the present Timeline tile. Then, in player order, take the asset each tile shows from the supply. Warping in a Worker costs one Water, and you may pay with Water you're warping in at the same time. Warped Workers go to your Active column. A warped Exosuit goes onto one of your hex slots, even a covered one.

Now, Workers. Scientists, Engineers and Administrators each have actions they're good at or barred from. A Genius counts as any type when placed on an action. A Genius can't be spent as another type to pay a Worker cost, can't be sent back to repay a Worker Warp tile, and doesn't count as another type for Evacuation conditions. Only Active Workers can take actions or be sent back through time. Worker costs, mostly on Superprojects, can be paid from either the Active or Tired column, but never with a Worker that's busy on a space.

On the Main board, a hex space holds one Worker for the whole Era. Hex pool spaces take any number of Workers. On your Player board, each Worker space can be used once per Era and needs no Exosuit. Some spaces restrict which Workers may go there, give a bonus for a certain type, charge a cost, or keep the Worker Motivated. A Motivated Worker returns to your Active column at Clean up instead of your Tired column.

Construct, Recruit and Research are the Capital Actions, and each has hex spaces stacked top to bottom. The upper space is free, the middle one costs one Water, and the lower one costs two Water and is only used with four players.

Construct can't be taken by an Administrator, and an Engineer knocks one Titanium off the total cost. You have two choices. You can take the top building from any of the eight stacks, place it on the leftmost empty spot of its row, and pay the cost printed on that spot. If the row is full, you can't build that type. Taking a building uncovers the one beneath it. Or you can build the Superproject in your Focus, which is normally the one above the current Era's tile. It goes on the leftmost pair of side by side free spots on your board, and you choose the row only if several rows are tied. You pay the Superproject's own cost, including its Breakthroughs, ignoring the spot costs.

Recruit can't be taken by a Scientist. You take a Worker from the Recruit pool into your Active column, plus a bonus. A Scientist gives two Water, an Engineer gives an Energy Core, an Administrator gives a Victory Point, and a Genius gives your choice of those. If an Engineer takes Recruit, you can't choose a Genius.

Research is Scientists only. Set one die, either shape or icon, to any face, and roll the other. Then take the Breakthrough with that shape and icon. The question mark on the icon die means any icon, but you can't set the icon die to it. If the result isn't available, reroll one die of your choice.

World Council has two spaces. The left one costs two Water and makes you First Player. The right one costs one Water. With either, you may perform a Capital Action that has no available spaces left. The Worker restrictions and bonuses of the copied action apply, but not the Water costs or tile bonuses of its spaces. You may take the left space just to become First Player, even when Capital spaces are still open, and then take no action.

Mine Resource gives you one Resource of your choice from the Mine pool. The upper hex also gives a Uranium, the middle one a Gold, and the lower one a Titanium. An Engineer who mines stays Motivated.

Purify Water is a pool space giving three Water, or four with a Scientist.

Trade with Nomads is a pool space where you make one exchange, in either direction. You can trade three Water for an Energy Core, an Energy Core for a Neutronium, a Neutronium for any two of Titanium, Uranium and Gold, or any two of those for three Water. An Administrator trades twice.

On your Player board, the Supply action is a Worker space. Spend the Water shown under your current Morale position, move all your Tired Workers to Active, and step up one on Morale. If you're already at maximum Morale, take the Victory Points shown at the right end of the track instead. An Administrator doing this stays Motivated. Force Workers is a Free Action that needs no Worker. Mark it, move all your Tired Workers to Active, and drop one step of Morale. If you're already at the bottom, you lose a Worker of your choice instead.

Free Actions, whether on buildings, Superprojects, Force Workers or some Leaders, can each be used once per Era on any of your turns, up to and including the turn you pass. Cover each one with a Path marker when you use it. Using one doesn't end your turn.

Time Travel works through your Power Plants. When you use one, first move your Focus marker to any past Timeline tile within that plant's range. Range counts back from the current Era's tile, and the Impact tile doesn't count. You may leave your Focus where it is if it's already on a past tile in range, but you can never end with your Focus on the current Era. Second, you may pay back one of your Warp tiles on the tile now in Focus by spending the asset it shows. Workers must come from your Active column, and an Exosuit must be a powered up one from your hex slots. That Warp tile then returns to your supply. If you did both steps, advance your Time Travel marker one space. Shifting Focus is the only moment you can pay back a Warp tile this way. Warp tiles on the present tile can't be paid back through a Power Plant. Removing a Warp tile any other way, such as by a building ability or when you take an Anomaly, never advances your Time Travel marker. Shifting Focus also lets you build that earlier Era's Superproject with Construct.

In Clean up, take back all Workers. Motivated ones go to Active, and the rest go to Tired. Empty Exosuits from the Main board go to your personal supply, not onto your hex slots, since they must be powered up again. Take back your Path markers from your Free Action slots. Unused Exosuits still on your hex slots also return to your supply. Then move every Focus marker to the next Era's tile. The First Player stays the same unless someone took the left World Council space.

At the Impact, at the end of the fourth Era, flip the Evacuation tile to its damaged B side. Put the minus three marker on the second spot from the top with two players, the third with three, or the fourth with four. Then randomly place Collapsing Capital tiles on the Capital Action hexes: two per action with two or three players, and three per action with four. Each tile gives a bonus on top of the normal action, and Worker restrictions still apply. When an Exosuit is retrieved from one of these tiles at Clean up, flip the tile to its unavailable side. From now on, World Council can copy a Capital Action whose spaces are all occupied or unavailable. Finally, cover two of the three top Exosuit slots on every Player board.

Evacuation opens after the Impact. It's a pool space, any Worker can take it, and each player may do it once per game, only if they meet the base condition on their Path board. Place a Path marker on the highest free numbered slot. Score the base value plus the bonus for the assets named on your Path board, and keep those assets. If you land on the minus three slot, score three fewer, but not below zero. An Evacuation can never score more than thirty.

The game ends at the end of the Era in which the last Collapsing Capital tile flips to unavailable, or at the end of the seventh Era. Before scoring, you must pay off every Warp tile still on the Timeline. Workers come from Active, and Exosuits must be powered up. These payments give no Time Travel progress, and each Warp tile you can't pay off costs two points.

Each of the five Endgame Condition cards gives three points to whoever leads in that category, and all tied players score the full three. Then add up points printed on your buildings and Superprojects, minus three for each Anomaly, your Time Travel track, and your Morale track, where low Morale costs points and high Morale earns them. Add your Victory Point tokens and any Timeline penalties. Each Breakthrough is worth one point, and each set of a circle, a triangle and a square is worth two more, whatever their icons. Most points wins. If tied, the most Water wins, then the most total Resources, and if still tied, the players share the victory.

A turn, played out

It is Era 3 of a three player game, and you sit second in turn order. In Power up you placed 3 Exosuits on your three bottom slots, paying 3 Energy Cores, and took 3 Water for the three empty top slots. One Exosuit already carries your Scientist on Purify Water, which gave you 4 Water because a Scientist worked it. Two powered up Exosuits are still on your hex slots. Your Active column holds an Engineer and an Administrator. Your Tired column holds 2 Scientists from last Era. Back in Era 2 you warped in an Exosuit, and that Warp tile still sits on the Era 2 Timeline tile. The player to your right had 2 Warp tiles there to your 1, so only they rolled the Paradox die this Era. You were spared. It is your turn. You start with a Free Action, your Power Plant, whose range reaches 1 tile back. Your Focus marker moves from the Era 3 tile to the Era 2 tile. That is a past tile in range, so the move is legal. Now you may pay back the Warp tile sitting there. It shows an Exosuit, so you spend one of the two powered up Exosuits from your hex slots. The Warp tile goes back to your supply. You did both steps, so your Time Travel marker advances one space. A Path marker covers the Power Plant, and it is done for this Era. Your Focus on Era 2 also means a Construct later this Era could build Era 2's Superproject instead of Era 3's. Using the Free Action did not end your turn. Now your one real action. You have one powered up Exosuit left, and you want Resources. The upper Mine hex already holds the Worker of the player to your left, and a hex holds its Worker for the whole Era. The middle hex is open. Your Engineer climbs into the last Exosuit and goes there. The middle hex hands you its Gold. The Mine pool is down to 2 Titanium and 1 Uranium, and you take a Titanium. Because an Engineer mined, he stays Motivated. At Clean up he returns to your Active column, not your Tired one. Your Exosuits are all used now, but your Player board still has work. Next turn your Administrator can take Supply, which needs no Exosuit. You will pay the Water shown under your current Morale position. Both Tired Scientists move to Active, and your Morale steps up one. Because an Administrator did it, he stays Motivated too. You could instead Force Workers as a Free Action right now and wake the Scientists for nothing. That would drop your Morale a step, though. You have no Exosuit left to use them in this Era anyway, so you hold off. Play passes to the player on your left. At Clean up your Focus marker jumps forward to the Era 4 tile, and the Impact comes at the end of that Era.