Welcome to the Game Rules of Ecos: First Continent!

Hey there! I’m excited to explain the game rules for Ecos: First Continent. Let’s dive right in!

Objective

In Ecos: First Continent, the goal is to create a beautiful and harmonious world. You will be using cards to shape the land, introduce wildlife, and evolve your own species. Your ultimate objective is to fulfill specific conditions and score the most points.

Components

The game includes several components, such as:

• Terrain cards: They represent different types of land, such as forests, mountains, and deserts.
• Animal cards: They depict various animals that inhabit the world, such as elephants, tigers, and dolphins.
• Scoring tokens: These tokens are used to keep track of your score throughout the game.
• Species boards: Each player has their own species board, where they will place their animal cards.

Gameplay

During the game, you will take turns performing actions. On your turn, you have two basic actions you can choose from:

• Play a card: You can play a terrain card or an animal card from your hand. When playing a terrain card, you must place it adjacent to other terrain cards, creating a connected landscape. Animal cards can be placed on suitable terrains to build your species population.
• Evoke: Instead of playing a card, you can use an evoke ability of a card on the table, activating its special effect. This can be a powerful move to change the landscape or enhance your species.

The game continues until a specific end condition is met, such as all players running out of cards or a certain number of scoring tokens being claimed. Then, the final scoring takes place, and the player with the highest score wins!

Conclusion

So, now that you know the game rules for Ecos: First Continent, it’s time to gather your friends and start exploring the wonders of this captivating game! Enjoy shaping the land, introducing wildlife, and evolving your species. Have a great time!

Imagine if Earth had formed in a completely different way. That’s the concept behind Ecos, a game where players act as forces of nature, working together to shape the planet, but with their own unique visions for its magnificence. In this game, you get to play a part in creating a world that is both similar to and different from our own. It’s up to you to decide which landscapes, habitats, and species will thrive.

Unlike other games, Ecos doesn’t have turns. Instead, one player reveals element tokens from a bag, one at a time. Each element token can provide energy to some or all players, depending on the effect they want to activate.

When your card has enough energy to activate, you get to use the effect. This usually means adding terrain or wildlife to the board. The game ends when a round finishes and at least one player has 80 victory points. The player with the most points wins.

What You Need

• You will receive 6 Dial tokens
• There are 75 Map Tiles
• You’ll find 15 Mountain Tokens
• There are also 25 Forest Tokens
• Included are 66 Energy Cubes in a storage container
• There are 6 Scoring Cubes
• 1 Scoreboard
• 105 Game Cards
• There are 102 Animal tokens in 2 storage containers
• You’ll receive 40 Element stones
• 1 Element bag
• You’ll get a Rulebook

Setup

The sections below are numbered to correspond to the number on the setup image. Setup is the same for any player count 3 to 6, and slightly different for 2 players.

First, I want you to choose a color and take the Dial token that matches your color. The Dial token will show you how many Element tokens you will have in the game. Make sure to have the word “START” at the top of your Dial token. You will also need 7 .

Next, let’s set up the Score Board. Place it on the table and take the Score Markers for each player. Put them on the starting space of the Score Board.

Now, it’s time to create the initial landscape. You will need 1 Desert tile, 1 Grassland tile, and 2 Water tiles. Arrange them according to the diagram:

Hey there! I’ve got something super cool to share with you. Have you ever played a game and wanted to try different ways to play? Well, guess what? I’ve got some awesome alternate configurations for you to check out in future games. Exciting, right? Let me show you!

Here’s what you need to do:

1. First, grab the game board and lay it out in the center of the table.

2. Next, take the Map tiles and place four of them in the corners of the game board.

3. After that, place the rest of the Map tiles nearby. Make sure to have stacks of Land tiles and Water tiles.

4. Put the token organization trays, Mountain tokens, and Forest tokens close by on the table.

5. Make sure all 40 Element tokens are in the Element bag. The player who went for a hike most recently will be the start player and should take the Element bag.

6. Create the starting hands and active cards as described below.

7. All blue and brown cards that are not in any players’ initial 12 cards should be shuffled separately and placed into separate face-down decks.

Get Ready for Your First Game!

If you’re new to the game, don’t worry – I’ve got you covered! Let’s start by using the recommended pre-set starting hands. It’s easy! Just look for the cards with those special footprint icons in the bottom left corner.

Now that you’ve found them, let’s organize them into six neat piles based on their footprint icons. Each pile should have 12 cards in it. Once you’re done, place all the piles face down.

Here’s the exciting part! It’s time to randomly choose one of the piles. That pile will be your starting set of cards. Cool, right?

Now that you have your starting set, let’s focus on the 3 cards that have a darker footprint icon. Those cards are your powerful starting “active” cards. Place them face up on the table. The remaining 9 cards in your starting set will be your hidden hand. You can look at them, but make sure to keep them hidden from the other players.

Starting Hand Set Icons

Subsequent Games

If you’ve played before, you can try two different options to add more variety to your game.

More preset hands: On the opposite side of the footprint icons, you’ll find leaf icons. These icons allow you to sort the cards in the same way as the footprints, giving you more options for pre-set cards.

Draft: Another option is to try drafting your starting cards. Here’s how you can do it:

1. Deal 5 blue-backed cards to each player face down. Take a look at your 5 blue cards and choose 1 to keep. Pass the rest of the cards face down to the player on your left. Once everyone has made their choice, players pass the cards again. Keep repeating this process until each player has 4 blue cards. Shuffle the remaining undrafted cards back into the deck.

Okay, let’s get started! Here’s what you need to do:

1. First, hand out 9 brown-backed cards to each player. Place the cards face down. Then, pass the remaining cards to the player on your right. Repeat this process until each player has exactly 8 brown cards. Don’t forget to shuffle the cards that weren’t drafted back into the deck.
2. Now that everyone has their cards, each player should have a total of 12 cards in hand. Take a look at your hand and select 3 cards to be your active cards. These cards should be placed in front of you, facing you, with the side that has the most leaves at the top. Keep the other 9 cards in your hand for now.

If you’re playing with a mix of experienced and new players, you can give pre-set starting hands to the new players and let the experienced players draft their starting hands among themselves.

And now, you’re ready to begin!

Note: It’s worth mentioning that the two decks of cards in this game have slight differences. The blue cards are known to score more points compared to the brown cards. On the other hand, the brown cards focus more on setting up the map.

Playing the Game

Let’s talk about how the game is played. To start, I’ll be the one known as the “Harbinger.” I’ll take the Element bag and draw out one Element token randomly. I’ll announce what element I drew and place it on the table. The possible elements are listed below and can also be found on the Dial tokens of each player, along with their level of commonality.

Hey there! Let’s dive into the fascinating world of card games, where strategy and luck intertwine. Now, hear this: every player, me included, has got a nifty little trick up their sleeve called the Harbinger. Here’s the lowdown:

Whenever we draw a card, we can pluck one of our tokens and plop it down on an empty spot that rocks the same element icon as the lucky card we drew. But, if all our tokens have already claimed a spot, fret not! We’re allowed to yank one token from any of our cards and slap it down on the new card.

See? It’s all about making the most of what we’ve got in hand. So, let the games begin and let the Harbinger guide our decisions!

When you draw an Element token, you can only place one on the game board.

If you don’t want to place an Element token, you have another option. You can rotate your Dial token one turn clockwise instead, which is a 90-degree rotation. But remember, if you can’t place an Element token, you have to rotate your Dial token.

If you have any cards that already have all their energy spots filled, it’s time to resolve their effect. You can find more information on how to do this on page 6 under the section “Completing a Card”.

So, here’s what happens during each round of the game. First, every player places a card or rotates their Dial token. Then, we resolve all the card effects. After that, we do it all over again, starting with the Harbinger drawing another Element token.

Now, if the Harbinger draws a special Wild Element token , something exciting happens. It means that the round is over and the Harbinger’s time is up. The Wild Element token allows you to place your card on ANY type of icon and resolve the card effects just like normal.

Once everyone has had a chance to do this, we need to check if the game is over. Don’t worry, we’ll go over how that works in the “Game End” section. If the game is not over, we put all the Element tokens back in the bag and pass it to the player on the left. They become the new Harbinger, and we keep playing as usual.

Card Anatomy

Card Effects

Ecos is a game with a wide variety of cards, each offering its own distinct effects. When playing with these cards, it’s important to understand that their effects are applied in a specific order: from top to bottom.

Finishing a Card

If you ever place a card with “ECO!” at the end, shout out “ECO!” and follow these steps:

1. Take out all the trees from the card and put them back in your supply of available trees.

2. Do what the card says.

3. If the card has more than one tree at the top, turn it 90 degrees so it has one less tree. The number of trees shows how many times you can use the card before discarding it. If the card only has one tree, discard it instead of turning it. Discarded cards go into a pile.

It’s important to remember these rules when playing the game. Have fun and go green!

When multiple players say “ECO” together, we resolve their effects one by one, starting with the Harbinger and going clockwise. Each player gets to do all of their effects and rotate their Dial token before we move on to the next player.

If someone else resolves their “ECO” before me, I have another option. Instead of going through with my original plan, I can remove the card I just placed and give my dial a spin. This way, I can make a new decision.

There are situations where other players’ card abilities change the landscape, making my initial idea no longer feasible or desirable. In these cases, it’s a good idea to pivot and try something different.

At times, when I resolve my card, it won’t impact the landscape or any other players. If we want to keep the game moving quickly, I don’t have to announce “ECO” in these situations. I can just go ahead and carry out my effect right away.

But if my effect does affect the landscape or involves gaining cards, it’s important to announce “ECO” and follow the turn order when resolving the effects.

Using Your Dial

Every time I draw an Element token and I either can’t place a or don’t want to, I instead turn my Dial token 90 degrees clockwise.

Once my Dial token has made 2 rotations, I can immediately reset it to start (so the “Start” side is at the top) to “gain a card.

If I choose not to use the gain a card effect after 2 rotations, then after the 3rd rotation, I can either play a card from my hand or gain a new from the extra supply. This is the main way to play cards and gain additional . Then I reset my Dial token to start.

The cards I play start facing me (the side with the most leaves should be at the top). The I gain are added to my personal available .

Gaining Cards

My Dial token and some card effects will let me “Gain a card”. When I gain a card, I can either:

When you play the game, one of the actions you can take is to look at two cards from the top of either deck or one from each deck. You get to choose one of those cards to add to your hand, and the other card is placed face up next to the decks. Another option is to take any 1 face up card that was left there by a previous gain a card effect. The face up cards can accumulate if more players choose the first option. Gaining cards is not always necessary to win the game. It’s possible to win with just your starting 12 cards if you make the right moves.

The game ends after a Wild Element card is drawn and all its effects are resolved. If at least one player has 80 or more points, then the game is over. The player with the most points wins.

When there’s a tie, you should pass the Element bag to the new Harbinger. The new Harbinger then takes out one more Element token. Everyone deals with this token in the usual way. If only one player is now in the lead, they win.

If there’s still a tie, keep repeating the process until only one player is in the lead. It’s important to note that in this case, any player can win, not just the ones who were tied initially.

If you want a shorter game, you have the option to play to 60 points instead of 80.

Rules for Playing with Two Players



If you want to play Ecos with just two players, there are a few changes you need to make to the regular rules:

1. During setup, each player receives 12 brown-backed cards and 6 blue-backed cards instead of the usual 8 and 4.
2. Both players start with 5 cards already in play. If you’re using the pre-set hands, the additional cards you receive are chosen randomly. If you’re drafting, you’ll be dealt 2 blue-backed cards and 4 brown-backed cards, and then you’ll draft the rest of your hand. However, instead of drafting one card at a time, you’ll draft 2 cards at a time.
3. Whenever it’s the Harbinger’s turn to draw a token from the bag, they actually draw 2 tokens instead. The players can then use each token for a dial rotation or a placement.