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Fry- edited this page Jan 31, 2017 · 7 revisions

Space Settlers

An awesome colonization board-game in space.

Official rule files from "Starfarers of Catan" can be found on this official page. Here the one-click download files (will start the download instantly!):

Table of Contents

  1. Main goal
  2. Box content
  3. Board
  4. Planet tags
  5. Mothership
  6. Overview card
  7. Resources
  8. Trade cards
  9. Action cards
  10. Glory medals

Main goal

  • Each player tries to be the first to gain 15 winpoints.
  • A winpoint equals to several things:
    • 1x colony
    • 1x harbor
    • 1x special planet-tag (the ones which must be unlocked by having X cannons or Y trade rings)
    • 2x glory medals
    • Having the most trade posts on a trade station (this gives 2 winpoints)

Box content

  • 22 figures per player - 3 ships, 3 harbors, 7 trade stations, 9 colony stations
  • 4 motherships (they are just for collecting the "add-ons" and this is not needed in the computer game, a nice GUI will cover that)
  • 4 overview cards (also covered by a GUI in the PC game)
  • 100 resource cards - 20 per each of the 5 available resources
  • 40 glory medals
  • 24 cannons, 24 jet propulsions, 20 trade rings
  • 20 trade cards, giving the player special power-ups
  • 32 activity cards, causing all kind of unforeseen outcomes

Board

  • The board is rectangular shaped and consists of a hexagonal grid.
  • On one short edge of the board are the starting planets, marked with alpha, beta, gamma, delta.
  • There are equally distributed planet-groups all over the map. They always consist of different colored planets, each of them having one of the three different color tags (red, blue, yellow)
  • On the edges (middle and opposite short edge) there are 4 different trade harbors. They all have 5 docking stations, numbered from 1 to 5. Also, they each hold 5 different trade cards.

Planet tags

  • The planet tags are small chips that have one number between 2 and 12 (excluding 7) on one side and with a colored dot on the other side (fitting to the planet color tags: red, blue, yellow).

  • They are placed with the number down and the color dot up on the board on every planet, according to their color. This means, a yellow planet tag goes randomly on any yellow marked planet.

  • A player arriving with his colony ship on a colony building spot, can look at the hidden numbers without letting the others know. If SHE decides to build a colony there, SHE must reveal the numbers for the remaining game.

  • There are exact same amount of colored tags and planets, so no colored tags will remain after the board is built up.

  • Among the red tags, there are some special numbers with images on it, as you can see on the pictures above:

    • Trade rings with number 3 or 4: You can only build a colony at this spot if you have 3 or 4 trade rings addons on your mothership. If you build a colony here, remove this tag and place a random colorless tag instead. The player keeps the removed special tag and gains one winpoint for revealing it.
    • cannon with number 4, 5 or 7: You can only build a colony at this spot if you have 4, 5 or 7 trade rings addons on your mothership. If you build a colony here, remove this tag and place a random colorless tag instead. The player keeps the removed special tag and gains one winpoint for revealing it.

  • 5 colorless tags exist, which are exclusively used for replacing the special red tags as explained above.

  • 12 greek letter tags exist. They are placed accordingly on the start planets. Among the specific letters (e.g. alpha, beta,...) there is no special order. So the 3 alpha tags are placed only on alpha planets, but in random order. (In the real game, you place them with numbers down first, then when all are placed turn them up side down immediately to get random order)

  • The reason why 6 and 8 are written in red is just to emphasize that these numbers are the most likely to be rolled, since you roll with 2 dices and 7 (the actually most likely number) is reserved for the 7-card rule.

  • alpha: 4, 8, 11

  • beta: 8, 10, 12

  • gamma: 3, 5, 6

  • delta: 2, 6, 9

  • red: 4-cannon, 5-cannon, 7-cannon, 3-trade ring, 4-trade ring, 10, 10

  • yellow: 2, 5, 5, 6, 8, 9, 9

  • blue: 3, 3, 4, 4, 11, 11, 12

  • white: 2, 3, 4, 10, 11

Mothership

  • The mothership is used to attach the extensions to it (cannons, jet propulsions, trade rings). This should be done in a simple GUI in the game.
  • It is also used to role somekind of dice that will show 2 out of 4 possible colors: black, blue, yellow, red.
  • These colors determine the steps each spaceship of the current player can go.
  • Black 0, blue 1, yellow 2, red 3. (e.g. player with 2 jet propulsions rolls yellow + red, so his/her ships can move 2+3=5 steps + 2 jet propulsions = 7 steps total per each spaceship on the board)
  • If black got rolled, this instantly activates the action cards. The other rolled color is obsolete then. After the action card is finished, the standard speed is 3 + jet propulsion amount. (as shown on the overview card)

Overview card

  • The overview card sums up all important information while gaming.
  • Left edge shows all steps per turn:
    • Roll the 2 resource dices and give all resources to all players accordingly
    • Draw extra resource from resource-stack if current player has less than 9 winpoints
    • Trading and building in any order
    • Determine spaceship-speed (roll colors with the mothership)
    • If black: play action card and set basic speed to 3
    • If non-black: determine speed
    • Move spaceships according to total speed
  • Middle top shows what resource symbol goes to what planet color
  • Middle bottom shows how much speed each mothership dice color means
  • Right edge shows the resource cost for all ships and extensions

Resources

  • There are 5 different resources available.
  • In the orginal game, they are limited to 20 cards per resource. This is due to limited space in the physical box and also sometimes leads to situations where resources get out of stock and players can't gain any more before somebody spends them back into the stock (maybe this is also intended by the creators). This limit can be considered to be removed in the computer game. (or keep it for mapmaking, just increase the amount if wanted)
  • One resource called "trade good" has a special ability for trading. Else, all resources have somewhat equal importance.

Trading

  • Resources can be traded with the stock or with other players.
  • Trading is only allowed to happen with the current player.
  • The trading player can suggest deals to others and also receive offers for a deal.
  • Trading with the stock can be made with giving 3 resources of the same kind (e.g. all green) for one resource of the players choice. Exception is the "trade good", it can be traded with a 2:1 ratio.

Spending

7-card rule

  • Players basically can hold as much resources as they want.
  • As soon as the number 7 gets rolled, players who (its the most likely number in the gaussian distribution when rolling with 2 dices)

Trade cards

  • Trade cards are gained at the trade stations.

  • Once a player gained such a card, its ability is active for the remaining game and it cannot be lost or traded.

  • There are 4 different trade stations: brown, green, red, blue.

  • Brown provides special resource trade ratios:

    • 2:1 exchange with the stock for green resource
    • 2:1 exchange with the stock for red resource
    • 2:1 exchange with the stock for yellow resource
    • 2:1 exchange with the stock for blue resource
    • 1:1 exchange with the stock for brown resource (trade good has special conditions, see trading)

  • Green provides extra resources:

    • Gain one extra blue resource if you get at least one blue resource from a colony (this only can provide one extra resource, so if you get 3 blue from colonies, you still only get 1 bonus)
    • Gain one extra yellow resource if you get at least one yellow resource from a colony
    • Same for all other resources...

  • Red provides extra mothership extentions:

    • Speed and attack of your spaceships is +1 bigger each from now on. (This is equal to having an extra cannon and engine as mothership extension. This card is provided 3x)
    • Speed of your starships is +2 bigger from now on.
    • Attack of your starships is +2 bigger from now on.

  • Blue provides all kind of special abilities:

    • As long as the owner of this card has less than 6 glory medals, SHE can trade one glory medal for one trade good resource. (This card exists twice)
    • If somebody rolls a 7, you only have to pay tribute according to the 7-card rule if you have more than 12 cards in your hand. (e.g. "12-card rule")
    • If there is a round where you get no resources from your colonies, you can take one resource of your choice from the stock. This doesn't applies to rounds where the 7 got rolled.

Action cards

  • There are 32 different action cards.
  • Detailed info can be found on the separate page.

Glory medal

  • 2x of them count as 1 winpoint.
  • They are usually gained through action cards.
  • You can also loose them through action cards.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE SEE THE OFFICIAL MANUAL

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