Terra Mystica is a pretty big game with a lot of things that work tightly together. So hang in there for one moment.

First, let’s start off big, and get through the details. By the end, of all this, we'll be ready to play.

Objective/Scoring

We are all controlling a unique race of creatures in a land of mysticism and magic, trying to grow and expand our own empires and transforming the planet to be more hospitable to our own needs.

You will be trying to gain the most victory point and they can be gained in several ways. First, let’s look at the end game scoring, as you can see here in the corner of the main board.

The first is the simplest. You will convert any remaining resources you have into coins. For every 3 coins, you get 1 point.

This second one is the largest direct and indirect adjacent area. There are points for the largest, second second largest, and third largest contiguous areas. If players tie, they add up the points for those positions and split it between them, for an example if two players have the largest area, they will add 18 points and 12 points to get 30 points, but then divide that between the two players, so each would get 15 points.

The third end game scoring is for the cult track. There are four cults: Fire, Water, Earth and Air. The player who has the highest in a cult track will get 8 points, second highest will get 4 and third highest will get 2. Each cult track is scored separately. And similar to area scoring, if two players tie on a cult track, they add up the points and split it between them. So if three players tie for second place, you will add 4 plus 2, for 6 points, and split that between the three players for 2 points each. You’ll round down if it is necessary.

Another common way to score points will be during the rounds. Each round has a unique way of getting points. If you do that action illustrated during that round, you will get points for doing that. It can be from using spades, placing new buildings, upgrading buildings, founding a town, all sorts of things.

There are a few other ways to get points, such as upgrading your abilities, founding cities, favor tiles and bonus cards. I’ll mention that when we get to those parts.

(Use the recommended races for first play in the rulebook.

• 2 Player: Witches & Nomads

• 3 Player: Witches, Nomads & Alchemists

• 4 Player: Witches, Nomads, Halflings, and Mermaids

• 5 Player: Witches, Nomads, Halflings, and Mermaids. You play Giants.)

Player Board, Main Board & Setup (Part 1/2)

Here is the good news, you’ll actually start with 20 points just by playing. But here is the bad news, throughout the game, you’ll be given a choice where you may actually want to lose points. But we’ll talk about that when we get to it.

• Transform Cycle

But lets set up and explain the player board. Starting off-center of your board, there is a picture with your race.This area is the Transform Cycle. Surrounding that picture are terrain types. The one on the top is your “Home Terrain”. This is what is habitable for your race. So you can only build on this terrain. Throughout the game, you’ll be able to transform the terrain on the board to your terrain type. Between each terrain type there is a spade. To be able to transform terrain, you need spades.

• Spade Exchange

The most common way to get spades is to the right. This is where you exchange workers for spades. You will place a marker on the lowest exchange rate. This is usually 3 workers for 1 spade, but some races are different. For most races, you will be able to upgrade the exchange rate to improve the rate and get additional points. Below the exchange rate, it shows what it costs to upgrade. This is usually 2 Workers, 5 Coins and One Priest. If you upgrade it, you will get 6 points and your exchange rate is better. It takes an action to upgrade, and we’ll talk about actions soon.

• Shipping Track

For most races, there will be this area below the spade exchange area with this boat. This shipping track. This usually will start at 0, so place a marker on the left most space, with the 0. If you see just to the left, you can upgrade your shipping track for 1 priest and 4 coins. This will also net you some points. When you normally transform terrain or build, you must do that directly adjacent to where you already have a building. But if you are on a tile next to a river, you may advance the shipping track. This gives you an indirect adjacency for transforming terrain or building. For an example, if I were on the “1”, I would be able to build across the river. If I were on the “2” I could go a little down the river 2 spots, and if I were on the “3”, I could go way down the river, 3 spots. And if you remember, one of the end game scoring is area and that counts direct AND INDIRECT adjacency. So this is good for scoring and expanding.

• Racial Ability

Under the shipping area, there is a special ability that is unique to your race. For Witches, you get an additional 5 points for founding a town, which I’ll get to. For Nomads, you’ll start the game with 3 Dwellings, instead of the normal 2.

• Alchemists - 3 Player Game

  You may trade 1 point for 1 coin, or 2 coins for 1 point. Remember, at the end of the game, it takes 3 coins for 1 point for the rest of us. So you may want to consider having a lot of coins at the end of the game.

• Halflings - 4 & 5 Player Game

  You get 1 additional point for every spade you get in the game, regardless of how you get it.

• Mermaids - 5 Player Game

  You may skip one River space when founding a town. For everyone else to do that, they would have to build a bridge across the river, which I’ll talk about later, but you can skip a river space and have it count towards a town.

• Giants - 5 Player Game

  I will always pay exactly 2 spades to transform terrain. Even for Mountains and desert.

These are the innate abilities of your race. But there are other things that still make your race unique.

• Structures

Now over to the left, there is the structures area. Before the start of the game, you will place all your buildings on the board in their appropriate spots. The first important thing to note is you will always build the leftmost available building on your board. As you build and upgrade your structures, they will give you benefits. Every time you see this icon with the hand, that means you will collect that during the income phase.

• Dwellings

  Dwellings are the smaller buildings. When you have them placed on the main board, they will give you additional workers at the beginning of the round. To the left, there is a cost to place a dwelling. This has some variety between races. And finally, if you look carefully on the board, there is an arrow in your race’s color pointing up.

• Trade Houses

  This means Dwellings can upgrade to Trade houses. The cost to upgrade is to the left of the Trade Houses on your board. Normally, it costs 2 workers and 6 coins to upgrade, but if you build directly adjacent to an opponent, it will only cost you 2 workers and 3 coins.

  When you upgrade, you will replace the Dwelling on the main board with a trade house, and put the Dwelling back on the rightmost available spot on your player board. You should now notice that where the Trade House was, shows the symbol of getting coins during income and usually power. However, when you placed your dwelling back, you lowered the amount of workers you would get during the income phase. And finally, there are actually two arrows pointing. One pointing up, the other pointing right. This allows you to upgrade to the Stronghold and Temple, respectively.

• Stronghold

  The cost to upgrade to a Stronghold depends on the faction, and that’s because the Stronghold has a unique ability for each. That’s also one reason why there is only one Stronghold for each faction.

  For Witches, you get one of these special action tokens because you get a special action, which can be used once per round. This special action allows you to build 1 Dwelling on an unoccupied forest space. You can build this anywhere on the main board as long as it’s in a forest, and you don’t pay the cost of the building. You’ll use the action token to keep track of when you use the special action.

  Nomads also get a special action token. Once per round, you get to transform a Terrain space directly adjacent to one of your structures to your home terrain. You then are allowed to immediately build a dwelling by paying its cost.

• • Alchemists - 3 Player Game
  • After building the Stronghold you immediately gain 12 Power, which we’ll talk about soon. You’ll also gain 2 Power for each spade you get throughout the remainder of the game.
• • Halflings - 4 & 5 Player Game
  • After placing the stronghold, you get immediately get 3 Spades to use. You may also build one Dwelling by paying its cost. You’ll also gain 3 points due to your special ability.
• • Mermaids - 5 Player Game
  • After building a Stronghold, you immediately gain one shipping track for free. You’ll still earn the appropriate amount points for the upgrade.
• • Giants - 5 Player Game
  • I will get an action token, like the Witches and Nomads. This allows me to get 2 free spades to a directly or indirectly adjacent transform a terrain type to my home terrain. I may build a Dwelling by paying its cost, if I’d like.

(To be continued)