Elasund

 he object of Elasund is to build major buildings, help construct a church, encourage trade, and build up the city wall--all of which allow the players to place their victory point cubes on the board.

Setup: Each player is given a set of 4 buildings, 9 wall segments, and 5 building permits. These are all items that they may construct. They also get 10 victory point cubes (which they need to place to win) and one trade marker (which is put at 0 on the trade track).

Each player gets to place two of his buildings, one of which generates gold and one of which generates influence, on the board in designated places.

Each player take 3 gold and 1 random influence card.

A set of neutral buildings are placed to the side of the board for anyone to build.

Finally, city walls are set up to define the size of the city: a 4-player game uses the whole board, while fewer players will compete in a smaller section.

Gold. All gold is identical. Each card is marked "1" gold.

Influence. There are three types of influence cards: red, blue, and green. To do some things you need matched influence cards and to do some things you need different influence cards.

Order of Play: On their turn a player gets to take the following actions:

• Roll Dice
• Build Buildings
• Place a Building Permit
• Take a Special Action

Roll Dice: This is going to be the one truly familiar element to long-term Settlers of Catan players. The active player rolls two six-sided dice. A ship is then moved to one of the 10 rows of the city. Each building which is even partially in that row generates any gold or influence marked on the building for its owner. (Not all buildings generate these items; some are only worth victory points.)

The "ship row" where the ship is located also determines where building permits can be placed that turn, as noted below.

Identical Rolls. If you rolled the same number as the ship is already sitting on, you instead move it exactly two spaces up or down. This nicely prevents runs of numbers and also gives you an occasional bit of extra control on some turns.

Pirates. As you might expect in a Catan game, if you roll a "7" something bad happens. Pirates! The player puts the ship in a row of his choice (but not the previous row it was in). Each player with a victory-point building even partially in that row has to give up 1 card per building. And, if the active player controls any towers (which appear on some city wall segments) then he gets to randomly take one discarded card per tower.

Build Buildings: On a player's turn he may build either one or two buildings. These can be: city buildings; city walls; or church sections.

City Buildings. Each player has 2 of his own buildings that he can build, plus a number of neutral buildings. These vary in size from 1x1 to 2x3 and they vary in cost from 2 to 5 gold and from 1 to 3 building permits.

Building permits are pieces that you can play on the board for a cost in gold. This happens down in the third phase of your turn, which we hvaen't gotten to yet. In order to place a building that requires 1 building permit, it must go on top of 1 building permit, while similarly a building that costs 3 building permits must cover 3 building permits on the board.

These building permits don't all have to belong to you. However the total value of your own building permits that you'll be covering must exceed the total cost of each other player's building permits in that area. And, other players' building permits do count toward your requirement for building permit minimums. So, if you were going to build one of those mammoth 2x3 buildings that require 3 building permits, and you had a "0" and a "2" there and your opponent had a "1" then you'd meet both requirements for building: 3 building permits and the highest total value. However, if you build atop another player's building permits you have to pay them the value of the permit in gold.

You can also build atop other buildings. If the building is smaller, no problem; they call that urban renewal. If it's the same size then you have to pay 3 influence cards of the same color to do so. (Influence lets you do lots of "illegal" things in the game.)

Buildings do various things: some will provide you gold in dice-rolling phase, some will provide you influence. All the neutral buildings will let you play either 1 or 2 victory point cubes.

Also, if a player builds a city building on any trade spots (marked by windmills, and appearing at the docks and by the city gates) he gets one trade point per windmill. These are marked on a trade track and he gets to place victory point cubes on the trade track as he climbs it (at 3, 5, 7, 9 , and 11, though the higher spaces are all limited, allowing only the first few players to place their cubes).

City Walls. You have a set of 9 city walls which you can build as long as there's still space around the city. These initially cost 2 gold each, when you're building toward the sea, but when those initial spaces are built up the rest cost 4 gold each, until the wall is all built.

You build your city walls in order. The first couple give you an influence card each when you build them. Your city walls maked #3, #6, and #9 are guard towers; they let you place a VP cube and later collect cards taken by the pirates. The other city wall pieces let you draw 2 influence cards when you build them.

Church. You can build a church piece by paying 7 gold. Each of these pieces forms 1/9th of the final church (making the whole thing a 63 gold boondoggle). The first player who builds part of the church gets to look at the first two pieces, then place one on the church starting space (which is out near the docks). This determines the direction that the church will get built in, because the other 8 pieces are placed in their correct orientation to form the big "church picture".

Church pieces always build over other buildings, giving that first player considerable power because he's going to decide what the church ultimately destroys as it's built up.

Each church piece allows the placement of 1 VP cube.

Place a Building Permit: Next a player either places a building permit in the current ship row or else take 2 gold. Placing a permit costs the player the value of the permit (from 0 to 4 gold).

A player can discard 2 influence cards of the same color to build the permit in a different row.

Take a Special Action: Finally a player can take up to one special action, all of which require influence cards.

• Take 2 gold. (3 different influence)
• Place a bonus building permit. (3 different influence + gold cost)
• Upgrade a building permit. (2 identical influence + gold difference)
• Move a building permit. (2 identical influence)

Winning the Game: A player wins when he's placed all 10 of VP cubes on some combination of neutral buildings, city walls, church pieces, and the trade track.