Arcs

Standard Actions

Table of Contents

Tax

(Administration)

Choose a Loyal city or choose a Rival city you control.

Loyal pieces are your color.

Rival pieces are other players' colors.

Control means you have the most fresh ships in the system.

Gain 1 resource of the city's planet type from the supply.

Resources you gain go in empty resource slots on your player board—see Resources (page 17).

If you tax a Rival city, you also capture 1 agent of that Rival from their supply, even if you didn't gain the resource.

Tax Limit: You cannot tax a city more than once per turn.

Captives: Place captured agents in the Captives box on your player board. They add to your Tyrant ambition (page 18).

Build

(Construction)

You may build a building or a ship.

When you build anything in a system that is controlled by anyone other than you, place the piece damaged.

Damaged ships are tipped over, and damaged buildings are flipped to their darker side.

Move

(Mobilization & Aggression)

Move any number of Loyal ships from one system to an adjacent system.

A system can be a gate or a planet (page 6).

Systems sharing a single thin border are adjacent.

If you move from a system with a Loyal starport, you may take Catapult moves—keep moving the ships as much as you want, dropping them off as you want, until they move to a gate controlled by anyone else or they move to any planet.

When you take a Catapult move, check for control before moving in, not after.

You can't Catapult from Rival starports you control.

Out-of-Play Clusters: You cannot move into any systems in out-of-play clusters. The path marker placed on out-of-play gates makes its two neighboring gates adjacent.

Repair

(Construction & Administration)

Stand up 1 damaged Loyal ship, or flip over 1 damaged Loyal building. (This can be anywhere on the map!)

Influence

(Mobilization & Administration)

Place 1 agent on any card in the Court. (The Court is the card row along the map edge.)

Secure

(Aggression)

Take 1 card from the Court if you have more Loyal agents on it than each Rival. Return all Loyal agents on it to your supply, and capture all Rival agents from the secured card.

Resolve its When Secured action, if any. If it says to discard it, place it in a face-up Court discard pile near the Court deck.

Finally, draw a card from the Court deck and place it face up in the Court in the same spot as the secured card.

Captives: Put agents you capture in the Captives box on your player board. They add to your Tyrant ambition (page 18).

You can't immediately use Prelude actions on the secured card (page 20).

Battle

(Aggression)
  1. Choose Battle System: Choose 1 system that has any Loyal ships. This is the battle system. These are your attacking ships.

    2. A system can be a gate or a planet (page 6).

  2. Choose Defender: Choose 1 Rival whose pieces are in the battle system. These are their defending pieces.
  3. Collect Dice: For each attacking ship, you may collect 1 assault, skirmish, or raid die.
    • Assault dice damage the defender quickly at some cost to you.
    • Skirmish dice damage the defender slowly but keep you safe.
    • Raid dice steal stuff from the defender and might damage them but are risky.
    Raid Dice Limit: You can only collect raid dice if there are defending buildings or if the defender has no Loyal buildings in any systems on the map.

    4. You may collect fewer dice than the maximum, and you may mix types, but you cannot collect more than 6 dice of a type.

  4. Roll and Resolve Dice: Roll the collected dice. You must resolve all rolled faces in this order:
    1. Hit any of your attacking ships once per [Hit Your Ships Symbol].
    2. If you rolled any number of [Intercept Your Ships Symbol], the defender intercepts you—hit any of your attacking ships once per fresh defending ship. (This can only happen once per battle!)
    3. Hit any of their defending ships once per [Hit Ships First Symbol]. Once no defending ships remain, hit any of their defending buildings instead.
    4. Hit any of their defending buildings once per [Hit Buildings Symbol].
    5. Raid their resources and cards by spending [Raid Cards & Resources Symbol] if you have any attacking ships left (Raiding , page 16).

    5. If you hit a fresh piece, it becomes damaged—tip it over if it's a ship or flip it over if it's a building.

    If you hit a damaged piece, it is destroyed—remove it. The attacker takes destroyed defending pieces as Trophies. The defender takes destroyed attacking pieces as Trophies.

    Trophies: Place pieces taken as Trophies in the Trophies box on the respective player board. These add to the Warlord ambition (page 18).

    To be clear, the attacker rolls and resolves all the dice. The defender doesn't usually make choices.

    Destroying Cities

    If you destroy a city—even outside battle!—do the following:

    1. Provoke Outrage. Discard all resources and Guild cards you have of that city's planet type, placing the discarded cards in a face-up Court discard pile near the Court deck. Place an agent to cover the Outrage icon of that city's planet type on your player board—that resource is now Outraged (see below).
    2. Ransack the Court. Secure any card that has any number of the defender's agents. Take all Rival agents on the card as Trophies, not Captives.

    If you have no Loyal agents, use a placeholder piece until an agent becomes available.

    If you already have Outrage of the city's type, perform both steps except placing the agent.

    Outrage: You cannot spend Outraged resources for their normal Prelude action (page 17).

    You can still tax Outraged resources and add them to your ambitions.

    Raiding

    If any attacking ships remain after taking hits, you may spend [Key Symbol] you rolled to steal resources and Guild cards from the defender, one at a time, by spending the number of [Key Symbol] in its raid cost, shown above the resource slot on the player board or in the top-left corner of the Guild card (page 17).

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