Game Rules for Innovation

Hey there! I want to share the game rules for Innovation with you. It’s a super fun game that will get your creativity flowing!

First things first, let me explain the setup. In Innovation, you and your friends will take on the roles of great inventors, racing against each other to make groundbreaking discoveries.

Here’s how the game works. Each player will start with a small civilization and a set of cards. These cards represent ideas and technologies that you can use to advance your civilization and outpace your opponents.

On your turn, you can take a number of actions, like drawing cards, playing cards from your hand, or sharing your knowledge with other players. The goal is to score achievements and earn victory points, which will show how successful your civilization has become.

The game is played in epochs, or eras, which represent different periods of history. As the game progresses, new technologies and more powerful cards become available, allowing you to unlock even greater achievements.

But remember, innovation can be a double-edged sword. While discovering new ideas can propel you forward, it can also disrupt existing technologies and strategies. So, be prepared to adapt and react to changing circumstances.

At the end of the game, the player with the most victory points wins. But winning isn’t everything. It’s the journey of discovery and the excitement of creating something new that truly make Innovation a thrilling experience.

So, are you ready to embark on this exciting adventure of innovation? I guarantee you’ll have a blast! Get your friends together, set up the game, and let the creativity flow!

Innovation is like a game of building a whole civilization, using clever ideas and new technologies. It’s like starting from the Stone Age and picking the inventions that will shape the future of your people. You can go from simple things like the Wheel and Clothing, all the way to powerful concepts like Gunpowder, Democracy, and Combustion. And who knows, you might even reach the heights of Satellites and the Internet.

Each of these innovations gives your civilization special abilities. Some of them help you advance through time faster, while others help you construct important things like buildings and roads. And there are even some innovations that give you the power to attack your rivals.

In the game, each innovation is represented by a card, and there are 105 different cards to choose from. You don’t need any maps or game pieces to move around because the cards have everything you need – they show you what actions you can take and keep track of your score.

A card’s main purpose is to be an innovation. You play it face-up in front of you to use its effects, but cards can also end up face-down in your score pile or as achievements, representing the power, influence, and legacy of your civilization.

For the Third Edition, several cards have been rebalanced. These include Oars, Fermenting, Feudalism, Measurement, Societies, Statistics, Industrialization, Combustion, and Fission.

Learning About Innovation

The game of Innovation takes time to master. It’s not too difficult to explain the basic mechanics, but the 105 unique cards and their various effects can be overwhelming for new players. Before teaching the game to others, it’s often helpful to play a few turns on your own.

When you first play the game, it’s best to have 2-3 players. Focus more on your own cards rather than trying to keep track of what your opponents are playing. There’s so much to discover, and the more time you spend playing, the more you’ll unlock in future games! Here are some tips for teaching Innovation to others.

Now let’s talk about the objective of the game. There are two main ways to win. The first, although less common, is to have the most points when the game reaches age 10. You earn points by using the abilities of your cards throughout the game.

The second way to win is by earning achievements. If you have enough points, you can use an action to claim an achievement. And if you collect enough achievements, you win instantly!

Here’s how many achievements you need to win based on the number of players:

– 2 Players/4 Player Teams: 6 achievements required to win.

– 3 Players: 5 achievements required to win.

• 4 Players: Score 4 achievements to emerge victorious.

What Makes Up a Card

My Civilization

As I play, I collect cards of five different colors on my board. The top cards of each color are the most crucial because I can use their effects through the Dogma action.

Even the cards that I cover up as the game progresses still have value. Certain effects let me splay a color in a direction, revealing extra icons from the cards I’ve covered.

So here’s the deal: the board is where I keep all the cards I’ve played. It’s like my little kingdom, you know?

Those icons you see? They’re like secret weapons. They help me share in what other players are doing, ask stuff from my opponents, and even defend against their demands. Pretty cool, huh?

Now, check this out: see that blue card way over on the right? That’s my blue card splayed right. And that purple card on the left? That’s my purple card splayed left. Yeah, I have a whole system going on.

And then there’s my score pile. It’s where I keep all the face-down cards. Each card has a value, or what we call an age number, and that value is how many points I get. So, the higher the age number, the more points I’m racking up. Pretty straightforward, right?

Achievements are a special part of the game Innovation. I love how they work because once you get one, it’s yours forever and nobody can take it away. Pretty cool, right?

Getting Set Up

When we’re getting ready to play, we need to set up the supply piles. We split the cards into ten different piles and arrange them like a clock. It looks like this:

Next, we need to pick one card from each of the first nine ages. We do this randomly, without looking at the cards, and put them in the middle of the table. These are called the normal Achievements. Then, we take the five special Achievements and put them close by.

Game On!

Alright, folks, let’s get this party started! We each start off with two age 1 cards. They’re our options, but we can only choose one to be the very first card on our board. The other one becomes our starting hand. Now, the player with the card closest to A alphabetically gets to go first. If there’s a tie, the first player (or the first two if we have four players) only gets one action instead of the usual two. But don’t worry, every turn after that will be a full two actions.

Now, each turn has two actions in store for us. There are four types of actions we can choose from:

• Draw: Feeling lucky? Add a card from the supply piles to your hand. Trust me, these cards will come in handy later. You can use them to meld or power up dogma effects. It’s like having an ace up your sleeve!
• Meld: Time to put your strategic thinking to work. Take a card from your hand and place it onto your board. This move is all about building a strong foundation for your game.

When it comes to playing the game, I want to introduce you to two important actions: Dogma and Achieve. These actions are key to your success in the game, so it’s important to understand how they work.

Dogma: This action is like the core of innovation. When you activate Dogma, you get to use the special ability of one of the top cards on your game board. These abilities can do a lot of helpful things, like adding cards to your score pile. It’s a powerful action that can really make a difference in your strategy.

Achieve: The Achieve action is all about claiming achievements. To use this action, you need to have enough points to meet the requirement of an achievement. Achievements are a big deal because they are the main way to win the game. So if you want to come out on top, you’ll need to focus on achieving those goals.

Each turn, you have two actions that you can use in any combination and any order. This means you can choose to perform the same action twice or mix it up. It’s up to you to decide the best way to use your actions to maximize your chances of winning.

Draw

Now, let’s talk about the Draw action. When you take a Draw action, you get to add a card to your hand. But not just any card – you’ll always want to go for the highest value card that you have on your game board. The value of a card is simply its age number. By adding higher value cards to your hand, you’ll have more options and potential strategies to explore.

Running out of Cards: If there are no more cards left in a particular pile, you don’t need to worry. Just draw from the next pile that still has cards in it. This goes for any situation where you need to draw cards, whether it’s because of a special action or some other effect.

Let me explain with an example. Say you need to draw a card with a value of 4, but the piles for 4, 5, and 6 are all empty. Don’t fret! Simply draw a card from the next non-empty pile, which in this case would be the 7 pile. However, if you ever have to draw a card with a value higher than 10, the game immediately comes to an end.

Adding Cards to Your Board

Now let’s talk about how you add cards to your board. It’s a simple process. Just choose a card from your hand and place it on your board. If there are already cards of the same color on your board, you can place the new card on top of them. If your cards of that color are already arranged in a particular order, the new card continues that arrangement in the same direction.

You have the freedom to choose any card from your hand to place on your board, regardless of its value compared to the existing top card of that color. So go ahead and strategize!

Achieving Success

To claim a normal achievement and take an Achieve action, two conditions must be met. Firstly, your score (the total value of all your cards in the score pile) must be at least five times the age number of the achievement. Secondly, you need to have a top card that is equal to or higher in value than the achievement you wish to claim. If both these requirements are satisfied, you can claim the achievement and place it under your reference card on the right side.

Claiming an achievement doesn’t cost any points; it’s simply a threshold that needs to be reached. Once you have claimed an achievement, it cannot be taken away from you.

Now, let’s talk about Dogma. When you take a Dogma action, you get to choose one of your top cards and activate it. This represents your civilization focusing on one of the innovations that you have discovered. The Dogma action is the central mechanic of the game.

When someone plays a Dogma card, they trigger a special ability. Before the ability kicks in, a small version of one of six icons appears, showing which icon is the card’s highlighted icon. This is important because at the beginning of the Dogma action, each player checks how many highlighted icons they have on their own board. If a player has at least as many highlighted icons as you, they can benefit from your innovation too. Not only that, but they are also protected from any negative effects the card may have.

Some cards have multiple effects. When you use a Dogma action, you activate all of the effects at once. There’s no need to count the icons again before each effect – the only thing that matters is the number of icons at the beginning of the action. Make sure to finish one effect completely before moving on to the next one.

When I want to execute an effect, it’s not just about me. I have to consider everyone else too. We take turns, starting from the player on my left, following the instructions of the effect. Only then do I get to perform the effect myself. If the card has more effects, we repeat this process for each one, making sure to share and follow the instructions.

Once I’m done with my Dogma action, things get interesting. If any of my opponents used one of my effects, I get a little reward. I can take a free Draw action. But there’s a catch – this only happens if the opponent’s use of my effect caused something to change in the game. And by change, I mean drawing, revealing, melding, tucking, splaying, scoring, exchanging, or moving cards. Some effects are in high demand!

In the darker boxes, there are demands that I make, and they are like attacks. I read them out loud to tell my opponents what they have to do. We take turns in a clockwise order, and each opponent follows the instructions. If they have the same number or more of the icon that is shown, they can ignore the demand effects.

If I can only do part of a demand effect, I do as much as I can and ignore the rest. For example, if a demand requires my three highest cards but I only have two, I would just use those two. Even if my hand or score pile is empty, an effect that swaps them still happens. I can even use the Dogma action on a card that won’t have any effect at all.

An Example of Dogma

So here’s what’s happening: I have Writing and Code of Laws, and I want to use Writing to draw a 2. Here’s how it plays out:

First, I check if my opponent has at least as many of the featured icon as I do. If they do, they can share in my action. In this case, my opponent does have enough, so they draw a 2. Then, it’s my turn to draw a 2.

Once the Dogma action is done, because my opponent shared in my effects, I get a special bonus: a free Draw action. Since my highest card is a 1, I draw a 1.

And that’s how it works! It’s a simple but effective strategy.

Keywords

Bottom: The bottom card of your stack of a color. If you have only one, it is both the bottom and top card of that color.

Card Image: The picture on a card is shaped like a hexagon and represents a new idea. These pictures don’t actually affect the game, but they do show you which direction the card works best when placed.

Draw and X: Some special effects in the game tell you to draw and tuck, draw and meld, or draw and score a card with a specific value. When one of these effects happens, you first draw a card and then do the second part of the effect with that card. Remember, if a pile of cards is all used up, you have to draw from the next pile that has cards left.

Exchange: You can swap cards between the two places that are listed, even if one of the places is empty. When you make an exchange, it doesn’t count as scoring the cards for the Monument ability.

Execute for yourself only: You have to keep effects like this to yourself and not share them with other players. However, those effects can still have an impact on other players, like with Rocketry.

Fun: You gotta have it! It’s a must for a good time.

Highest/Lowest: This refers to the value or number on the cards you’re talking about. If there’s a tie, you can decide which cards are affected.

Non-demand effect: This is any action that a card lets you take that doesn’t start with the words “I Demand”.

Remove: When the Fission card is successful, it gets rid of all the score, hand, and board cards in the game. These cards are set aside in the box, and you start fresh with the few cards left in the supply.

Return: If you return a card, you put it back at the bottom of its pile, facing down. If you return multiple cards at once, you get to choose the order they go back. If the pile was empty, it’s considered full again.

Score: When you score a card, you put it in your score pile, face-down. Your score is the total value of all the cards in your score pile.

Let’s talk about some key concepts in the game:

Top: The top card of each color is the card that you can see completely.

Tuck: When you tuck a card, you place it at the bottom of the matching color pile. If possible, you can continue the pile in a spread. If there are no cards of that color on your board, the card starts a new pile.

Value: The value of a card is its age number. If a card refers to the value of something you don’t have, like your top purple card when you don’t have any purple cards, you treat the value as 0.

Win and Game Ending Effects: Some cards can end the game early. For example, some cards let you win if a certain condition is met, and once that condition is satisfied, the game ends right away. Other cards determine the winner based on who has the most of a certain type (X). If there is no tie for X, the game ends immediately and the player with the most X wins. However, if there is a tie, the effect of the card is completely ignored.

Here’s an example to illustrate the concept:

So here’s what’s happening: I’ve got these Oars, and I really want to use its Demand effect. The thing is, I’ve got three of these cool icons ? on the card, while my opponent has only one. So, I go ahead and read aloud the effect, all excited for what’s about to go down.

But, uh-oh, turns out my opponent doesn’t have any cards that match what I’m looking for. Bummer, right? So, unfortunately, nothing happens. No biggie, though!

See, here’s the cool thing about Oars. It’s got a second effect that’s not a Demand effect. It’s what we call a non-demand dogma effect. And this one says, “If no cards were transferred due to this demand, draw a 1”. So, even though my opponent didn’t have any matching cards, I still get to draw a card. Score!

Oh, and just to clarify, if there were other players eligible for this effect, they would get to draw a card too. Sharing is caring, after all.

Now, let’s talk about splaying, shall we?

So, here’s the deal. Sometimes, these dogma effects will tell you to splay a color in a certain direction. What does that even mean? Well, let me explain.

You see, at any given time, a color can be in one of four states: unsplayed, splayed left, splayed right, or splayed up.

When you want to spread out a color, you’ll start by taking the top card and pushing it in the indicated direction. This will reveal one symbol if you’re spreading to the left, two symbols if you’re spreading to the right, and three symbols if you’re spreading upwards.

If the color is already spread out, you’ll need to unspread it before spreading it in the new direction. But if a color only has zero or one card, it’s always considered unspread – so if a spread out color ends up with zero or one card, it won’t remember that it was previously spread out.

Here are some examples to show you what purple looks like when it’s spread out to the left (with two cards), blue when it’s spread out to the right (with three cards), and red when it’s spread out upwards (with three cards).

Score, Achievements, And Special Achievements

Throughout the game, you’ll gather cards in your score pile by using dogma effects. Each card in your score pile is worth a number of points equal to its value, which is the same as its age. When you tuck these cards under your reference card, you’ll see the number in the top left corner. The total value of all the cards in your score pile is your score.

When the game starts, there are nine regular achievements available, one for each of the ages from 1 to 9. You can get an achievement by using the Achieve action if you have enough points and a top card with a value equal to or greater than the achievement’s value.

Once an achievement is claimed, it’s no longer available. You don’t have to claim them in order, and sometimes it’s smarter to go for a higher achievement first.

Hey there! I wanted to tell you about the five special achievements that are up for grabs. If you meet the requirements for one of them, go ahead and claim it right away. Just like regular achievements, once you claim a special one, it’s yours forever and no one can take it away from you.

But here’s a fun twist. In the rare event that two players become eligible for a special achievement at the exact same time, the tiebreaker is determined by turn order. The current player gets the upper hand in breaking those ties, going clockwise.

The Game Comes to an End

To win the game, you have to claim a certain number of achievements based on the number of players. For a game with two players or teams, you’ll need to claim 6 achievements. If you’re playing with three players, aim for 5 achievements, and with four players, it’s 4 achievements. You can mix regular and special achievements to reach the goal.

If nobody has won yet and there’s no more cards in the age 10 pile, or if some dogma effects come into play, the game wraps up right away.

When it comes to this game, the most important thing is each player’s current score. Achievements become less relevant as time passes. The player with the highest score at the moment is the winner. If there is a tie, the player with the most achievements wins. If there is still a tie, the game ends in a draw.

Team Rules for Four Players

If you have four players, you can choose to play in teams. This makes the game more stable and predictable. It’s a great option if you prefer playing with four people! In a team game, the effects of demands do not apply to your teammate. Also, if you and your teammate are the only ones who share a non-demand effect, you do not get a free Draw action.

Any dogma effect that mentions an ‘opponent’ does not affect your teammate. To win in a team game, your team needs to collect a combined total of 6 achievements (you can claim achievements without adding your partner’s score) or have the highest combined score when a player tries to draw a card higher than age 10.