Actions and Effects

Every Main Action in Galileo's Truth, the Secondary Actions (Write, Copy and Read a Treatise, Create an Invention, Observe the Sky, Draw, Remove a Treatise) and the Effects.

Resolving icons

A Main Action gives you icons to activate, in the order you like.

• Round-framed icons are Secondary Actions — optional. Unframed icons are Effects — mandatory.
• Icon groups split by a plain line: pick one group.
• Groups split by a Suspicion line: one group free, or both if you first increase your Suspicion by 1.
• Groups split by the Principle split: do the group that matches your coin ( top, bottom).
• If you must draw from an empty deck, draw what you can, shuffle your discard pile into a new deck and keep drawing.

Main Actions

Abjure

Turn your Principle Coin to Ptolemaic and move it to the right-hand space on your Desk. This is final. Not allowed in Period III (Cycle 5).

• You immediately reduce your Suspicion by 5.
• Every other player who is still Copernican increases their Suspicion by 1.

Play Treatise Cards

Play one or more Treatise Cards from your hand into your play area.

A Treatise Card has a spine on the left — its Subject (colour and top icon) and the Books it gives — and the open page on the right with its icons.

1. Choose and stack. All cards in the stack must share one Subject. Overlap them so every spine shows; the top card is the Active Card. Purple (Wild) cards match the Subject they are played with, or any one Subject you choose if played alone or only with other purple cards.
2. Gain Books: every Book on every visible spine, in the stack’s Subject.
3. Activate the icons of the Active Card only. Other cards’ pages, and Treatises played on earlier turns, are ignored.

Play a Penance Card

A Penance Card you have drawn must be played this Cycle, as a Main Action:

1. Put it face up in your play area.
2. If the Inquisition Token is still face down, reduce your Suspicion by 1.
3. Either way, you may pay the Coins printed on it to remove it from the game — otherwise it stays in your play area and will cycle back into your deck.

Use an Invention

Turn one of your Once per Cycle Inventions 90° and activate the icons in its centre. It can’t be used again this Cycle; it turns upright at the End of the Cycle. Income, Ongoing and End-Game Inventions work without an action (types).

Upgrade your Academic Level

Everyone starts at Academic Level I. To reach the next Level you must meet the requirement on that Level’s Graduation Tile:

1. Take a Wax Seal from any Mentor and put it on the leftmost free seal space of your new Level on the main board.
2. Score the VP printed under it — the first player to reach Levels II, III and IV scores 4, 6 and 8.

Levels go in order (I → II → III → IV), one per action. Higher Levels open stronger action spaces for your Natural Philosopher.

Assign your Natural Philosopher

Put your standing Natural Philosopher on a main-board action space of your Academic Level or lower. Do all its Effects; Secondary Actions are optional; groups split by a line mean choose one. It is not available if it is lying down, on an action space, in Prison or at the Stake.

• Exclusive spaces take one Natural Philosopher per Cycle.
• Shared spaces take any number.

Secondary Actions

Write a Treatise

Write a new Treatise from the pyramid of Treatise Boards:

1. Choose a Treatise Card you have no Wax Seal on yet (one copy of each Treatise per player).
2. Pay the Books shown beside it on the Treatise Board (spending Books).
3. Pay the Research under it: 3 in the bottom row. Higher rows show two Research costs: skip one if you have a seal on one of the two Treatises directly below it, skip both if you have seals on both.
4. Put a Wax Seal from a Mentor on the leftmost free seal space above the Treatise and score its VP.
5. Take the card and either put it on top of your deck, or add it to your hand and discard a different Treatise from your hand (never a Penance Card).

Copy a Treatise

Take a Treatise up to the Level shown on the action, if you don’t already own it and another player’s seal is already on it:

1. Pay the Coins shown.
2. Put your seal on the rightmost free seal space above it — you score nothing.
3. The player whose seal is on the leftmost space scores the VP shown on the action.
4. Take the card: on top of your deck, or into your hand by discarding another Treatise.

Read a Treatise

Use a Treatise’s icons without taking it. The Treatise must be up to the Level shown on the action and carry any player’s seal:

1. Pay the Coins shown.
2. Activate all its icons as if you were playing it — on its own, never combined with cards in your hand.
3. The player with the leftmost seal on it scores the VP shown on the action, unless that is you.

Create an Invention

Buy an Invention from the Workshop:

1. Pay the Coins printed beside its slot and the costs in the card’s top-right corner.
2. Activate the icons in its bottom-right corner.
3. Put it face up in your play area.
4. At the end of your turn, slide the Workshop cards down to fill the gap and reveal a new card from the current Period’s deck in the top slot (none if it is empty).

Invention types (icon at the bottom of the card):

Type	When it works
Income	Every Income Phase
Ongoing	Always, every time its condition is met
Once per Cycle	As a Main Action (Use an Invention)
End-Game Scoring	At the end of the game

Observe the Sky

Take an Observation Tile into the Window of your personal board.

• Tiles come in three Levels, each with its own row of the Window. Your first tile must be a Level I tile on the starting space (bottom left); every later one must go on an empty space orthogonally next to a tile you already have.
• If a bag is empty, refill it from that Level’s discards.

1. Choose a Level for which you have a legal space.
2. Draw 2 tiles, keep 1, discard the other. Draw 1 and keep it.
3. Choose a legal space and pay the Research and Astronomy Books shown at its left.
4. Activate the icons on the space and on the tile, in any order.
5. Lay the tile face down on the space.
6. Bonus: 2 VP, 1 Coin.

Draw a Card

Draw one card. If your deck is empty, shuffle your discard pile into a new deck. If every card you own is in your hand or play area, you draw nothing.

Remove a Treatise Card

Remove one Treatise Card from the game — from your hand, discard pile or play area — and gain the Books on its spine. Penance Cards can’t be removed this way. You may look through your discard pile and removed cards at any time, but never through your deck.

Effects

Effects are mandatory.

Icon	Effect
	Gain Coins (a red number: pay them)
	Gain Research Tokens (a red number: pay them)
	Gain VP. A ”+” number adds to the VP this action already gives; a “×2” doubles them; a red number with the end-game sign is lost at the end; ”×” with the Academic Level icon is 2 VP per Level you have gained; “Lvl” depends on a Level
	Reduce your Suspicion. With ”× ≠”, by 1 per Treatise of a different Subject in your play area (up to 4; purple cards don’t count)
	Increase your Suspicion. With a dark base: every other player does; with the Copernican coin: every Copernican player does
	Gain Books of that Subject (a red number: meet the Level requirement and pay them)
	One Book of any Subject. With ”=”: that many Books all in one Subject; ”= × ≠”: one Book per Treatise of a different Subject in play (up to 4, purple ignored), all in one Subject; with an up arrow: move a Subject Marker to the first space of its next Level
	Put a Wax Seal on the leftmost free space of the shown Mastery Track and score it
	Take a Wax Seal off a Mentor and put it beside your board
	Take your Natural Philosopher back from an action space (not from Prison or the Stake)
Physics or Mathematics tube over a hand	Gain the Coins (Physics) or Research (Mathematics) your track gives at Income