Gameplay

Men-Nefer’s three Eras and three Seasons: the Flood, the three Sowing choices, Food costs, Heka and Food, Prestige Points and the Duat.

Era structure

The game lasts 3 Eras. The Narrator Token on the Era Track shows the current one. Each Era has three Seasons, played in order:

1. Flood (Akhet) — skipped in Era I: the game starts with Sowing.
2. Sowing (Peret) — the turns.
3. Harvest (Shemu) — scoring (Harvest and Scoring).

The game ends after the Harvest of Era III.

Flood

Do these steps in order:

1. Narrator — move the Narrator Token one space along the Era Track.
2. Resources
   • For each of your Boats that has passed only the first Fishing Boat on the Nile, take 1 Food; for each that has passed both, take 2 Food. Boats in Cities count too. The 2nd and 3rd Cities on the upper bank (counting from the left) sit on the first Fishing Boat’s line: a Boat in the 2nd City gets nothing, one in the 3rd City gets 1 Food.
   • Take 1, 2 or 3 Heka if your Orb has reached or passed the first, second or third Heka space of the Obelisk.
3. Apprentices — take your 3 Apprentices back to the Apprentice spaces of your board. Then move each Neutral Apprentice down to the next House of Life, keeping its Sun or Moon side; one in the bottom House goes to the top one. (Not with 4 players.)
4. Trade Contracts — refill every empty Contract space used at your player count: with value-2 Contracts in Era II, value-3 in Era III.
5. Turn order — rearrange the Water Lilies by score: lowest PP first, then the next lowest, and so on. Tied players keep their relative order.

Sowing choices

Starting with the first Water Lily and going in turn order, each turn you choose one option:

• Visit a House of Life, or
• Specialise in a House of Life, or
• Obtain an Action Tablet.

Each option can be used only 3 times per Era (you have 3 Apprentices and 3 Tablet spaces), so every Era you play exactly 9 turns — 27 in the game. Sowing ends when nobody can take any option.

Visit a House

You need an Apprentice on your board.

1. Pick one of your Apprentices; it comes with the Action Tablet above it.
2. Put the Apprentice on the Sun side of any House of Life, paying the Food cost.
3. Do the Tablet’s actions in any order. A slash means: choose one of the two.
4. Put the Tablet face down on the Discard Pile space of the Main Board.

Specialise

You need an Apprentice on a Sun space.

1. Slide it to the Moon side of the same House, paying the Food cost.
2. Move your Scarab one space up that House’s Specialisation Track and do the actions of the space it reached or of any space below it.

At the top of a track your Scarab stops, but you still specialise and may pick any space of the track. See Specialisation tracks.

Obtain an Action Tablet

You need an empty Tablet space on your board.

1. Choose one of the 5 Tablets in the market (never the top of the Draw Pile).
2. Pay or gain the Food shown to the left of it. You can’t take a Tablet you can’t pay for.
3. Put it on an empty Tablet space of your board. If its hieroglyph matches the one just to the right of your Hieroglyph Counter, move the counter onto it and do what is printed under that space: score 1 PP, or move one Scarab up 1 space without doing its action.
4. Do the board action printed to the right of the Tablet you took, or any action below it. Slashes and three-way choices mean: pick one.
5. Slide the Tablets above it down and fill the top slot from the Draw Pile. When the Draw Pile runs out, turn the Discard Pile over, without shuffling, to make a new Draw Pile.

See Action Tablets for the 20 Tablets.

Food and placement

Placing (Visit) or moving (Specialise) an Apprentice into a space that already holds Apprentices — yours, others’ or Neutral — costs Food:

If you can’t pay, pay nothing: place or move the Apprentice anyway, take 3 Food, and skip the rest — no Tablet actions (the Tablet is still discarded) or no Scarab step and actions.

Heka and Food

The game’s two resources, tracked on your Personal Board: Food (the Fish) and Heka (the Ankh). Each track stops at 10 — anything above is lost. Food pays for crowded Houses, Crafts and some Tablets; Heka pays only for Papyri.

Prestige Points

Everyone starts with their Seal on 10. Most PP come at the end of each Era (red seals ); some come at once during your turn (purple seals ). You can never drop below 0.

The Duat

The Duat Meter runs across the top of the Main Board. Your Heart starts at the left end and only moves right; your Feather starts at the right end and only moves left. At each Harvest the distance between them costs you points until they cross, and earns points after (The Duat at Harvest). A Heart or Feather at the end of the meter loses further steps.

Common action rules

• A space, tile or Tablet with several actions: do them in any order, finishing one before the next.
• You may always skip an action you can’t or don’t want to do — you just lose it.
• When an action gives several steps (Boats, Priestesses, Limestone), you may split them.
• Each action is explained on Houses and Actions.