LOWLANDS

Welcome to Lowlands, where you’ll find yourself in a fierce competition against other players and the challenging land you’ve chosen to settle on. Your goal? To become the top sheep farmer in the region. But here’s the twist: you’ll also need to work together with your rivals. Without cooperation, the dikes that protect our farms from the devastating tide may not be able to hold. And that means everything we’ve worked for could be washed away. So, will you put aside selfish motives and lend a helping hand? Or will you take the risk and go it alone?

SETUP

Getting Started

Alright, let’s get started with setting up the game! First, we need to put the gameboard right in the middle of the playing area. Make sure it’s nice and centered so everyone can see.

Next up, we need to shuffle the flood cards and put them face down in their assigned spot. These cards will come into play later on, so keep them handy.

Now it’s time for everyone to choose a color. This color will represent you throughout the game, so pick one that you like best. Once everyone has chosen a color, grab the dike point markers and stack them on the first dike space. Make sure to use the colors that were shown in random order.

Don’t forget about the other dike spaces! Each of them should have a progress token placed on them. These tokens will help keep track of your progress as the game goes on.

Now let’s focus on the value track. Take the value marker and put it right in the middle space of the track. This marker will show you the current value as the game progresses.

Moving on to the phase track, grab the phase marker and place it on the first phase. This will let you know which phase you’re currently in.

Almost there! Now it’s time to shuffle the resource cards. Once they’re all nicely mixed up, put them in their assigned spot on the board. The top four cards should be drawn and placed face up in various spots on the resource display.

And that’s it! You’re all set up and ready to start playing. Have fun and may the best player win!

When setting up the game, I place the sheep board right alongside the gameboard. It’s important that the number of dots in the corner matches the number of players. Then, I take three resource markers and place them on the assigned spaces of the sheep board. Each sheep icon gets a sheep placed on it. As for the other game pieces like coins, flood pieces, and various others, I put them next to the board as the supply.

Next, I divide the expansion tiles based on their backs. I shuffle each deck separately and put them beside the board. To start, I draw three cards from the action building stack, the sheep building stack, and the feature stack. These cards are placed in columns below their decks, facing up. I also draw a number of storm surge cards equal to the number of players and place them beside the other columns. Any remaining storm surge cards can be removed from the game since they won’t be used.

Getting Set Up

First things first! We need to make sure everyone has what they need to start playing. Here’s what you’ll be getting:

• Four resource cards
• Four coins
• Two laborers
• Sixteen fences
• Two sheep
• Four building markers in your chosen color
• Three farmers in your chosen color
• A handy reference sheet
• A farm board
• An income board

Once you have everything, it’s time to set up your playing area. Place your farm board right in front of you. The income board and reference sheet should be placed next to it, within easy reach.

Now, let’s assemble your starting pasture. You’ll need six fences, which you’ll use to enclose an area for your two sheep. Make sure to position the pasture in the center of your farm board. Lastly, place one of your laborers on the bottom action tile.

Before we get started, we need to determine who goes first. This player will be in charge of the dike point marker pile. They will also receive the starter player marker. The other players won’t go empty-handed, though. They’ll each earn one coin from the supply. And now, we’re all set to begin!

Playing the Game

In the game, there are three stages that have six phases. These phases are called Turn of the Tide, Work, Upkeep, Work, Upkeep, and Hightide. There is a phase marker that lets you know which phase you’re in. At the end of the three stages, there is a storm surge phase that marks the end of the game.

During the Turn of the Tide phase, you need to make sure you only have eight resource cards in your hand. If you have any extra cards, you have to discard them. Then, you place three new flood cards from the flood deck face down on the board’s sea spaces. The left card is revealed, and you take that number of flood pieces and put them on the empty flood spaces from left to right. The flood levels will rise three times during the game.

When we’re working, we have to put our farmers in specific spots to get things done. To do that, we use action points to complete the tasks we’ve chosen. It’s a bit like taking turns. One person starts and then we go around in a circle, each placing one farmer on a spot on our own board. We keep doing this until all the farmers are placed. We can put more than one farmer on the same spot, too.

After we’ve worked hard, it’s time for the Upkeep phase. During this phase, we’ll take care of our sheep. We’ll get more sheep by adding one for every two we already have. We’ll also earn some money based on what we see on our board. And we’ll get back all of our farmers. Finally, we’ll clear the sheep market by returning all the sheep to the supply. The person who’s gone the furthest on the dike track gets a special piece, and we reveal a new flood card.

In the High Tide phase, we compare the dike pieces to the flood pieces to see if they hold or break. If the dike level is higher, it holds; if it’s lower, it breaks. When it holds, I earn a coin for every point I have that’s more than the lowest player. But when it breaks, I collect a breach token for every point I have that’s lower than the player with the most. We move the value marker one space to the left.

Now let’s move on to the Storm Surge phase. Here, we score our buildings and features. First, we check the dike. If it holds, all breach tokens are discarded. But if it fails, we have to give up a sheep for each breach token we have.

Next, we tally up our points from the dike, sheep, buildings, features, coins, and resource cards. We note them all down on the score pad.

The End of the Game

Hey there, it’s me again! I just wanted to chat about how the game comes to a close. The storm surge phase is what signals the end of the game. When that happens, it’s time to tally up your points. Whoever has the most Victory Points wins the game! Pretty exciting, right?

Well, that’s all for now. I hope you had as much fun playing as I did telling you about it. Stay tuned for more adventures and updates, my friends!

Bye for now!