Part 1: Starting The Game

....when the Tlisk annexed Ko'ol, it touched off a multi-racial war, with each empire attempting to grab enough planets to survive....

To start, deal each player 10 cards. Place the remaining cards, called the Main Deck, face down in the center of the table. Next to the deck will be the Discard pile; off to the side will be the Scrapyard for cards removed from play. The player on the dealer's left starts the first turn and is called the opening player. At the end of each turn, the opening player rotates to the left such that the player starting a turn should be the player to the left of the person that started the previous turn.

If your initial hand has no planets, you may trade in your hand for a new one. Place your old hand face up in the Discard pile and draw again. You may continue to discard and draw hands until your hand contains a planet.

Each turn has six phases: Draw, Discover, Build, Action, Transport, and Discard. All players play a given phase before moving to the next phase. A turn is over when all players have played all six phases. See Part 3: Turns for a detailed description of each phase.

Winning The Game

....the Nova Wars quickly altered the political landscape. Once empires had cooperated based on race, but now it was territory that mattered....

[NOTE: Some of the rule books published by Heartbreaker did not include this section. Please print this section and distribute freely.]

To win, you must have the population potential shown below at the end of a turn (i.e., after all players have discarded).
      Number of    Population Potential
       Players       Required to Win
      ---------    --------------------
          2                17
          3                15
      4 or more            13
Note that this is potential, not actual, population. The population potential of your empire includes the potential of all your planets, plus the Environment and Civilization on your planets; ships do not count.

If the Main Deck runs out in the middle of a turn, players continue drawing from the Discard pile and finish the turn. At the end of that turn, the game is over and the player with the highest population potential is the winner. In case of a tie, compare the total Military strength of your planets, then Economic strength, then Diplomatic strength.

  • Go to Part 2 of Rules.
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