Barrage rules refresher

Read the refresher

You are a hydroelectric company chasing the most Victory Points after five rounds. You get there by building dams to catch water, conduits and powerhouses to turn that water into energy, and by fulfilling contracts and racing up the Energy Track.

For setup, put the Map, the Energy Track and the Management board out together. Shuffle the Headstream tiles and place four face up on the Map. Shuffle all the Bonus tiles and place five face up on the designated spaces of the Energy Track, returning the rest. Place one random Objective tile at the end of the Energy Track. Put out National Contracts equal to the number of players minus one. Split the Private Contracts into their three piles by back, shuffle each, and reveal the top two of each pile. Draw one Neutral Dam setup tile from each pile and place the Neutral Dams accordingly: there is always a level 1 Dam in the Mountains, a level 2 Dam in the Hills, and a level 3 Dam in the Plains. Put one Water Drop behind each Neutral Dam. Set up the Patent Office with its three shuffled piles face down and the first three tiles of pile one face up. Each player takes a Company board with a randomly paired Executive Officer, plus a Starting Contract, along with 6 Credits, 6 Excavators and 4 Concrete Mixers, and the basic wild Technology tiles with the question mark go back in the box. Remember the turn order markers go on in reverse selection order, so the first player to choose a company sits last in turn order. Energy markers start on the zero space, Victory Point markers on space 10. With three players the fourth turn order space is unused, and with two players the third and fourth are unused. Also, with three players, block every action space marked with a four using Engineers of an unused company, and with two players block every space marked three and four, on both the left and the right.

Each of the five rounds runs through the same five phases. First, Income and Headstreams, done simultaneously: everyone collects the income revealed on their Company board, then Water Drops are placed on each Headstream tile according to the number shown for the current round, except in round five when no drops are placed in this phase. Then the Actions phase, where players take single actions in turn order. Then Water Flow, then Scoring, then End of Round.

On your turn you must place Engineers on exactly one free action space and immediately carry out that action. Each space shows how many Engineers it needs, from one to three, and spaces with a red outline cost an extra three Credits. You may not place Engineers without performing the action, and you may not perform an action you cannot pay for. Your turn ends after that one action. If it is your turn and you have no Engineers left, you pass, and the phase ends when everyone has passed.

Your four construction action spaces are on your own Company board and nobody else can use them. They must be filled from the left, and they get more expensive: one Engineer, then two, then three, and the fourth space needs three Engineers plus three Credits. A construction action goes in order: place the Engineers, put the matching Technology tile into the open segment of your Construction Wheel, put the required Machineries in that same segment beneath the tile, rotate the wheel one segment clockwise, then place the structure on the Map. If you have no Technology tile for that structure type, you cannot build it. Machineries and Technology tiles are locked on the wheel until it comes all the way around, whereas Credits just go back to the general supply.

Bases cost 3 Excavators in the Plains, 4 in the Hills and 5 in the Mountains, and you may not have two Bases of your color in the same basin. Elevations go only on top of your own Base or Elevation and cost 2, 3 or 4 Concrete Mixers by area, with a maximum of two Elevations per Base, so a Dam maxes out at level 3. Conduits cost 2 Excavators multiplied by their production value. Powerhouses cost 2 Concrete Mixers plus one more for every Powerhouse you have already built, and again, never two of your color in the same basin. Bases and Powerhouses built on a red outlined building space cost 3 extra Credits; Elevations never pay that.

The shared Management board holds the rest of the actions, and every action there has a left space and a more expensive right space. Once a player occupies a space it is closed to everyone else for the round, though the same player may take both spaces of an action in a round. The Bank is the exception: it is a single non exclusive space where you may always place any number of Engineers and gain that many Credits. The Workshop rotates your Construction Wheel to free up your Machineries and tiles. The Machinery Shop sells Machineries for Credits. The Contract Office gives you one face up Private Contract free, or two for one Credit, and you may never hold more than three face up Contracts. The Patent Office sells an Advanced Technology tile for five Credits, usable immediately. Water Management lets you put two Water Drops on one or two Headstream tiles for the coming Water Flow phase, or one drop that flows down immediately.

The Turbine Station is where you produce. To produce you need at least one Water Drop on a Dam that is yours or neutral, a Powerhouse of your color, and a Conduit directly linking that Dam to that Powerhouse. Move as many drops as you like from the Dam along the Conduit and produce Energy Units equal to the Conduit's production value times the number of drops moved, then apply the bonus or malus on the action space you used. If the Conduit belongs to another player, pay them one Credit per drop moved and they score one Victory Point per drop. You cannot produce if the total would be less than one. Move your Energy marker up the track by the amount produced. Each production may fulfill at most one Contract, meaning one Contract whose energy requirement is less than or equal to what you just produced; take the reward and turn the Contract face down. The used Water Drops then leave the Powerhouse and continue flowing downhill. Your Company board's production bonus grows as you build Powerhouses: plus one at your second, your special ability at your third, and another plus two at your fourth.

After everyone has passed, Water Flow happens. Every Water Drop on the Headstream tiles flows down the rivers one at a time. A Dam holds exactly as many drops as its level; once full, further drops pass by and continue downhill, and any drop that passes a basin at the bottom of the Map is removed. Water sitting in a Dam only moves when someone performs a production action.

Then Scoring. The leader on the Energy Track scores 6 Victory Points and second place scores 2, but only players who produced at least one Energy Unit qualify. If two tie for first, add the 6 and the 2, split them evenly rounded up, and nobody takes the second place bonus; if players tie for second, each gets 1 point. Next, take Credits according to where your marker sits on the track, and if you are still on zero you gain 3 Credits but lose 3 Victory Points. Then the current round's Bonus tile, which is the leftmost one still visible, is scored, but only by players who produced at least 6 Energy Units this round. If your marker is in the current round's section of the track or beyond, take the full reward; if it is in an earlier section, reduce the reward by 4 Victory Points for each section you are behind, never going below zero. Then discard that Bonus tile.

At End of Round, reorder the turn order so the player who produced the least energy goes first and the biggest producer goes last, breaking ties by inverting the previous round's relative order. Reset all Energy markers to zero, take back your Engineers, discard any leftover Advanced Technology tiles from the Patent Office and refill it with three new ones, drawing from pile one, then two, then three. The End of Round phase is skipped in the last round.

The game finishes after the Scoring phase of round five. Score the Objective tile: rank everyone by its condition, with 15 Victory Points for first, 10 for second and 5 for third, ties evenly splitting the points of the tiers involved, rounded up. Score 1 Victory Point for every set of five items among your Excavators, Concrete Mixers and Credits in your personal supply, counting nothing that is still stuck on your Construction Wheel. Score 1 Victory Point for each Water Drop held by your personal Dams. Most Victory Points wins, and the tiebreaker is whoever produced the most Energy Units during the final round.

A turn, played out

Round 3, Actions phase, and it is your turn. In the Hills you own a level 2 Dam, a Base with one Elevation, and it holds exactly 2 Water Drops, full since the last Water Flow. Downstream sits one of your 2 Powerhouses. The only Conduit directly linking that Dam to that Powerhouse belongs to the player to your left, and its production value is 3. You have 4 Credits and 2 face up Private Contracts, one asking for 4 Energy Units and one asking for 6. You go to the Turbine Station. The player to your right already holds the left space this round, so it is closed to you. You place Engineers on the more expensive right space instead. You move both drops out of your Dam along the Conduit. That is 3 times 2, so 6 Energy Units. Because the Conduit is not yours, you pay the player to your left 1 Credit per drop, so 2 Credits leave you and you drop to 2. They score 2 Victory Points. Your second Powerhouse unlocked the plus 1 on your Company board, so you are at 7, and then you apply the bonus or malus shown on the right space. Your Energy marker climbs by that full total. Both Contracts are now met, but one production fulfills at most one Contract. You take the 6, collect its reward and turn it face down. The 4 stays face up for a later production. The 2 drops now leave your Powerhouse and keep flowing downhill. The river below runs into the basin with the neutral level 3 Dam in the Plains, still holding its 1 starting drop. It holds 3, so both drops stop there and it is full. Anyone with a Powerhouse below it, linked to it by a Conduit, can now produce from it. Your Dam in the Hills is empty until the next Water Flow. You have also passed 6 Energy Units, so you qualify for this round's Bonus tile at Scoring. The next player in turn order takes the next turn.