Gamehelpcraftingthecosmos

The main goal of Crafting the Cosmos is to have the most victory points at the end of the game. The game is played in a series of rounds -- each player takes a turn (Energy Phase + Crafting Phase), then a cleanup/end phase happens where universal goals are scored.

Goals

• Surround each nebula with its requested stars (on its corners)
• Surround each nebula with life tokens (on its sides)
• Collect time crystals and discharge them when you get 6 time crystals
• Collect cards of the same type, and trade sets for a special ability of that type, or points
• Complete special objectives (universal goals) that are different each game

Energy Phase

Shift Energy

A player can gain resources by moving marbles ("energy tokens") around 4 board sections ("controls"). They must make 1-3 clockwise moves with their own marble or the neutral black marbles. You must move your own marble at least once, but moving the black marbles is optional. (A marble must skip over a full section, and this still counts as one move.

Collect Resources

Each section has an "active reward" on its left side, and you gain the reward for the section your marble landed in. (Put stars next to your player board, and increase DNA/Supernova on the track.)

• Light (Red) : Get 3 Red Hydrogen stars
• Time (Green): Get 1 Green Oxygen star + 2 DNA
• Gravity (Blue): Get 2 Blue Helium star + 1 Supernova conversion later this turn
• Chemistry (Purple): Get 1 Purple Carbon star + 1 nebula from the top of any stack

Then take "passive rewards" -- For all marbles (yours, opponents, and black), you gain the resource they're next to -- so in a 4 player game, that's 7 resources. (The order you get them starts with the section your marble is in.)

Note it's possible you won't get any of a particular resource if the section ends up with no marbles. Place

• Light (Red): Take a card ("energy card")
• Time (Green): Gain a time crystal (or slide an existing time crystal up)
• Gravity (Blue): Gain a graviton
• Chemistry (Purple): Gain a protolife

NOTE: You must finish this phase (taking resources) before you start crafting or taking actions.

Supernovae

Convert regular stars into powerful wild stars. Gain: Increase your supernova slider once per resource gained.

Time Crystals

Accumulate time crystals to gain extra stars and score points. Gain: Slide a time crystal up your time chamber track. When you reach the sixth space of your time chamber track, take a new time crystal token from the supply, place it on the 0 space of the track, and then continue gaining crystals, if applicable. Take a new time crystal token only when you reach the sixth space of the track. (See page 12 for the discharge time chamber action.)

Energy Cards

Spend energy cards to gain power cards, activate power cards, and score points. Gain: Draw cards from the faceup energy card display or facedown energy card deck. New faceup cards are revealed at the end of each player’s energy phase until there are 4 faceup cards again. (They are not refilled after each card is taken.) There is an energy card hand limit of 10 that is checked during the end phase (see page 16). If the deck becomes depleted, shuffle the energy card discard pile to form a new deck.

Proto Life

Surround a completed nebula with proto life to gain valuable advanced life. Gain: Take life tokens from the supply with the proto life (purple) side faceup and keep them near your player board.

DNA

Convert fragile proto life into robust stable life. Gain: Increase your DNA slider once per resource gained.

Graviton

Spend gravitons to perform move actions with stars or life. Gain: Increase your graviton slider once per resource gained.

Craft phase

In this phase, a player can spend their resources from the Energy Phase to build up their galaxy board. They may take placement actions, scoring actions, energy card actions, and resource slider actions in any order.

NOTE: Any unspent nebulae, stars, and proto life will be lost at turn end.

Placing resources

Nebulae

Turn the nebula elements side up and place it on your board in the hexagon shaped regions. Note nebula with more elements will be worth more points.

Stars

Place stars on the corners of the hexagon region.

Proto Life

Place proto life on the side of a hexagon region, in between the corner spaces that stars use. It must be purple side up, and adjacent to an existing life if possible. (If no life exists, place it on the starting life space.)

Upgrading and moving resources

Supernovas

Decrease your Supernova slider by 1 to upgrade a star into a supernova. Supernovas count as wilds when checking the Nebulae's requirements.

DNA

Decrease your DNA slider by 1 to upgrade a proto life to a stable life. Stable life do not get consumed when constructing advanced life. (See next section.)

Graviton

Decrease your graviton slider by 1 to move a life or star, but not a supernova. Note if that space is occupied, you can continue to an adjacent space (of the same type) for one movement.

Actions

Complete a Nebula

If a nebula's adjacent stars fulfill its requirement, score the nebula's points, discard an adjacent star (including a supernova), then flip it over to indicate it's been scored.

Note: adjacent life tokens are not used in completing nebulas -- see next section.

Create advanced life

If there are proto life or stable life tokens in any combination on all six sides of a nebula's hexagon, you can create advanced life there. Discard the proto life (but keep the advanced life) and place an advanced life token on the nebula. This will be worth extra points at the end of the game.

Discharge Time Chamber

If you have 6 time crystals, you can discharge the one on spot 6

Requirement: Have a time crystal token on the 6 spot of your time chamber track.

• Gain 1 star token ( , , , or ) and place it on any open star space.
• Move the time crystal token to the rightmost scoring space.
• Gain victory points based on the number on the scoring space (1: 3 points; 2: 6 points; 3: 10

points; 4: 15 points; 5: 21 points). After you have filled your time chamber 5 times, future discharge time chamber actions will earn you a star but not score additional points.

Example: At the start of the round, the cyan player has 4 time crystals. A This turn, they gain 3 more time crystals. They slide their time crystal token up 2 spaces to the top of the time chamber track and then B grab a new crystal from the supply and place it on the 0 space of the time chamber. C They then slide it up 1 more space to gain their third crystal. D At any point during their craft phase, they can slide the crystal at the top of their time chamber over to the 6-point space to gain 6 points on their score track and gain a star.

Energy Cards

Players can spend energy cards in 3 ways during the craft phase. After you spend energy cards, place them in a central discard pile near the draw deck. You do not need to use all of your energy cards each round. You may keep up to 10 energy cards. (See page 16 regarding hand limit.)

1. Players can discard matching sets of energy cards to add power cards to their galaxy. (See sidebar.)

2. Players can also discard energy cards to activate many power cards based on their costs. (Some power cards have costs in addition to energy cards.) You can activate power cards during the craft phase only. You may use a power card as often as you can afford to.

3. Players can discard 5 matching energy cards to gain 6 points. You can perform this action multiple times if you have enough matching energy cards.

Example: The magenta player decides to fill their second power card slot. A They discard 3 matching energy cards (3 light energy cards). B They draw 3 cards from the matching power card deck (light) and choose 1. They choose “Relativity Δ.” C They place it in their second power card slot. Next, they take their power token from the slot and place it in the light control on the main board.

GAINING POWER CARDS

The cost to gain a power card is indicated by the slots on your player board. The first power card costs 2 matching energy cards. The second costs 3, the third also costs 3, and the fourth costs 4 matching energy cards.

To gain a power card, you will draw a number of power cards equal to the number of matching energy cards you spent. Always draw from the power card deck matching the type of energy cards used. Next, keep 1 power card and place the others in any order on the bottom of the matching power card deck. When you gain a power card, place the power token from that power card slot on the main board as a reminder for future energy phases (i.e., if you gain a time power card, place the marker in the time control of the main board as a reminder to gain an additional resource each energy phase). You still gain resources if no energy tokens are in the control.

You can fill your power card slots in any order. You can gain multiple power cards in a single turn if you have enough energy cards. If you have no open slots, you cannot gain a new power card with this action.

UNIVERSAL GOALS

Points are awarded to the players who have the most of the resources specified by the universal goal card: 1st place scores 6 points, and 2nd place scores 3 points. If players are tied for 1st place, they each score 6 points, and no player scores 2nd place points. If players are tied for 2nd place, they each score 3 points. Then discard the universal goal card.

You must have at least 1 of the contested resource to be able to score from a universal goal. If no players are able to score the goal, the goal is still discarded.

For the purposes of universal goals, supernovae count as stars but count only as their own type. They cannot be counted as any other type of star (i.e., they could count for your continuous stream of stars but not as a carbon star). (See pages 18–19 for a complete reference of universal goal cards.)

Game End

The game ends after the end phase if the time crystal tokens in the supply are depleted or if the last universal goal card is scored. Each player flips over their advanced life tokens and adds those victory points to their score track. Whoever has the most points wins. In the case of a tie, whoever has the most energy cards left in hand is the winner. If there is still a tie, the tied players share the victory.

Example: It is the end phase and time to award points for the universal goal, which is for the most proto life. The magenta player and the cyan player each have 7 proto life tokens. The violet player has 3 proto life tokens. Magenta and cyan each score 6 points, and violet scores 0

LINK https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/292899/crafting-the-cosmos-rulebook