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Cascadia rules

Draft habitat tiles and wildlife tokens to build a thriving Pacific Northwest ecosystem. Includes the Landmarks expansion.

Players
1–4 (1–6 with Landmarks)
Time
about 45 min
Ages
10+
Goal
Draft Habitat Tiles and Wildlife Tokens to build the best Pacific Northwest landscape. Score points for animal patterns and for your largest habitat corridors. The highest total wins; each player takes 20 turns (15 in Landmarks faster play).

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How to play Cascadia

Setup

  1. Wildlife Tokens: put every Wildlife Token in the Cloth Bag (100, or 135 with Landmarks) and mix them.
  2. Habitat Tiles: use 43 tiles for 2 players, 63 for 3 or 83 for 4 (20 per player plus 3), picked at random without looking. Shuffle them and stack them face down, in any number of stacks, within everyone's reach. Return the rest to the box.
  3. Wildlife Scoring Cards: pick 1 card for each of the 5 wildlife at random and put the five in view of everyone. The rest go back in the box. For a first game use the five marked A.
  4. Starter Habitat Tiles: deal 1 at random to each player, face up in front of them (each is a cluster of 3 tiles). The others go back in the box.
  5. Display: reveal 4 Habitat Tiles face up in the centre. Draw 4 Wildlife Tokens from the bag and pair them, in order, with the 4 tiles.
  6. Nature Tokens: put them all (25, or 40 with Landmarks) within everyone's reach.
  7. First player: whoever most recently saw one of the game's wildlife in real life, or choose at random. Play goes clockwise.

Your turn

Each turn: check for overpopulation, take one tile-and-token pair, place both, then refill the display.

  1. Overpopulation: if all 4 visible tokens match they are wiped, and this can repeat. If 3 match you may wipe those 3, once per turn. Set wiped tokens aside, draw replacements one at a time pairing each in order with a tile, then return the wiped tokens to the bag.
  2. Choose a pair: take 1 tile with its token. Before choosing you may spend a Nature Token to take any 1 tile and any 1 token, or to wipe any number of tokens (replaced as in overpopulation). Spend as many as you like.
  3. Place the tile: add it to your environment touching at least one side of a tile you already have. Never on top of a tile, and tiles never move.
  4. Place the token: put it on a tile that shows its wildlife and has no token yet (the new tile or any other), or return it to the bag. On a Keystone Tile (it carries a Keystone symbol) it earns a Nature Token.
  5. Refill: replace the tile from any stack and the token from the bag, without moving the others. Play passes clockwise.

Final scoring

When the game ends, score four things for each player on the scorepad.

  1. Wildlife Scoring Cards: score each of the five wildlife on its card.
  2. Habitat corridors: tiles of one habitat form a corridor when they share a matching edge. Score 1 point per tile in your largest corridor of each of the 5 habitats.
  3. Majority bonuses: compare corridor sizes between players for each habitat. 2 players: 2 points to the largest (1 each if tied). 3–4 players: 3 points for largest, 1 for second. Solo: 2 for each habitat of 7 or more tiles.
  4. Majority ties (3–4 players): two tied for largest get 2 each; three or four tied get 1 each; either way nobody gets the second bonus. A tie for second gets 0 each.
  5. Nature Tokens: 1 point for each one you still have.

Game end and winner

Solo mode

  1. Solo setup: set up as for 2 players but take only 1 Starter Habitat Tile, and put the tile stacks on the left of the play area.
  2. Solo turn: take a turn as usual. Before refilling, discard the tile and the token furthest from the stacks (out of the game), slide the other two tiles and two tokens away from the stacks to make two pairs, then draw 2 new tiles and 2 new tokens.
  3. Solo scoring: play exactly 20 turns, then score as usual. Compare your total with the score ratings (60+ up to 110+).

Variants and achievements

Expansion rules

Only needed if you play with the expansion named on each heading.

Landmarks: setup Landmarks

Landmarks adds new tiles and tokens that you mix into the base game, plus the Landmark module below.

  1. Setup: mix the new Habitat Tiles, Starter Habitat Tiles and Wildlife Tokens into the base ones. Tiles to use for solo, then 2 to 6 players: with the Landmark module 44, 45, 66, 87, 108, 129 (one extra Keystone Tile each); without it 43, 43, 63, 83, 103, 123.
  2. Setup: straight after dealing Starter Habitat Tiles, before the display, choose the first player at random (this replaces the usual way of choosing) and flip tiles until as many Keystone Tiles as players are showing.
  3. Setup: starting with the player to the first player's right and going counter-clockwise, each player takes one Keystone Tile and adds it anywhere legal in their environment. Solo: take the first one flipped. Shuffle the rest back in.
  4. Setup: shuffle each of the 5 Landmark Scoring Card decks and flip as many cards from each as there are players (solo: 2). Lay them in a tableau near the Wildlife Scoring Cards.
  5. Setup: put Landmark Tokens of each habitat, as many as there are players, beside their matching cards.
  6. Setup: Wildlife Scoring Cards E–G are optional extras. If you like, shuffle them in with the others before you pick the five.

Landmarks: playing Landmarks

  1. Place a Landmark: when the tile you place makes a habitat corridor of 5 or more tiles, you may put a Landmark Token of that habitat on that new tile. You can have only 1 Landmark of each habitat.
  2. Choose a card: then take one of that habitat's Landmark Scoring Cards from the tableau and put it beside your environment.
  3. Your Wildlife Token: you may still place it this turn, but not on the Landmark tile, or return it to the bag. A Landmark tile can never hold a Wildlife Token. A Landmark on a Keystone Tile earns no Nature Token.
  4. Scoring: at game end add each Landmark card's points in the scorepad's Landmarks row. I and J cards score nothing themselves but add tiles to a corridor, which also counts for majorities.

Landmarks: faster play (optional) Landmarks

Use this at any player count; it suits 5–6 players. Each player plays 15 main turns plus 5 between-turn actions.

  1. Faster setup: take out of the bag as many of each wildlife as there are players. Deal each player 5 random Habitat Tiles, face up beside them, and put 1 each of Bear, Elk, Salmon, Hawk and Fox beside each player's tiles, in that order, to make 5 pairs.
  2. Between-turn action: once play passes to the next player you may play 1 pair from your personal supply into your environment. Do this once between your turns and at most 5 times; pairs unplayed by your last turn are lost. Pairs are not replaced.
  3. Swap: before the action you may spend a Nature Token to swap any two Wildlife Tokens in your personal supply.

Landmarks: end game Landmarks

All Cascadia rules (64)

General

Turn

Clarification

Resources

End

Scoring

Variants

Landmarks expansion

Expansions covered

More about Cascadia