Setup

Table of Contents

1. Setup Up Table

1. Place the map and collect the 18 battle dice and 25 resource tokens.
2. Give the initiative marker to a random player.
3. Shuffle the 20 action cards marked “2” through “6” to start the action deck.
4. 4 Players Only: Shuffle the 8 action cards marked “1” and “7” into the action deck. (Otherwise, return them to the box.)
5. Place the 3 ambition markers on their blue, lower-numbered sides in the Available Markers section of the map.
6. Place the chapter marker on the “1” space of the Chapter track on the map.
7. Place the zero marker in the Ambition Declared slot on the map.
8. Shuffle all 6 Vox and 25 Guild cards to make the Court deck. Draw 3 cards (2 players) or 4 cards (3-4 players) from this deck to make a face-up Court row.
9. Shuffle the setup cards that list your number of players. Draw 1 setup card.
10. In the 2 clusters (2-3 players) or 1 cluster (4 players) on the map marked Out of Play on the setup card, place a path marker over its numbered gate and place 3 out-of-play markers over the planets touching that gate.
11. 2 Players Only: Place the 6 resource tokens matching the 6 planets covered by out-ofplay markers onto the ambition boxes:
    • Material and Fuel go on Tycoon.
    • Weapons go on Warlord.
    • Relics go on Keeper.
    • Psionics go on Empath.

2. Set Up Players

12. Each player chooses a color, collects the matching player board, 5 cities, 5 starports, 15 ships, and 10 agents, and places the cities in the triangle slots along the top of their player board.
13. Each player puts their Power marker on the “0” Power track space on the map.
14. Players simultaneously place their starting pieces onto the map as follows. The player with the initiative marker does this:
    • Place 3 ships and 1 city in the system marked 1A on the setup card. Place the leftmost city from your player board.
    • Place 3 ships and 1 starport in the system marked 1B.
    • Place 2 ships in the system (3-4 players) or 2 systems (2 players) marked 1C.
    Going clockwise from the player with initiative, the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th players set up in the same way in the systems marked 2A-C, 3A-C, and 4A-C on the setup card, respectively.
15. Each player gains the 2 resource tokens matching the planet icons in their A and B systems, putting them in the leftmost and next leftmost circle slots on their player board, respectively.
16. Each player draws 6 action cards into their hand. 2 Players Only: The player without initiative may discard all 6 action cards in their hand and draw 6 new ones.
17. Discard all action cards not in players' hands into a facedown action discard pile on the map.