Teach the Game
Explain Merv’s shared city, twelve actions, annual scoring and Mongol threat.
How you win
Build your influence, collect scrolls, spices and goods, and place courtiers where those collections score. The player with the most points after the third year wins. The central choice is whether to take the action printed on a city site, gather favour, or place a soldier to protect a valuable building. Your chosen city row also produces resources, so each turn links engine-building to one of six public actions.
The boards
The city is the 5-by-5 grid in the centre: its middle space is the camel market and the other 24 spaces hold building sites. Around it are the action path and four turn-order queues. The side boards are the caravansary (spice cards), mosque (advancement and rewards), library (scrolls and breakthroughs), palace (courtiers), marketplace (trading posts and goods), and the city wall. The tracks record points, favour, influence and the current year. The numbered setup picture points to each supply and board area.
A round
The game lasts three years, each with four rounds. On a turn, move your master meeple to an unoccupied slot along the current side, then activate a site in the matching row or column. Rounds one and three use the meeple’s column; rounds two and four use its row. If the chosen site is empty, place one of your buildings there.
Take resources from the activated site and from each of your own buildings in that active row. Upgrades change or add to the yield. If you activate an opponent’s building, its owner also gets that site’s normal yield and the resources shown by their upgrades elsewhere in the row. Then take exactly one main action: use the activated site’s board action, gain favour, or deploy a soldier. You may also trade at the camel market when it is in your active row, and fulfil any eligible contracts during your turn.
After everyone has acted, meeples move to the next corner queue. The player furthest counterclockwise moves first in the queue placement sequence; players may spend camels to skip available spaces. In years two and three, resolve the Mongol invasion after the fourth round, then score the year.
How the game ends
After the third year’s invasion and scoring, score caravan cards in sets: one card scores 1 point, two different spices score 3, three score 6, and all four score 10. Highest score wins. Break ties by favour, then influence, then the player earlier in the turn-order queue.
Ways to score
| Source | Points |
|---|---|
| Favour and influence tracks | Printed points when advancing onto a numbered space. |
| Contracts | The card’s points immediately when fulfilled. |
| Palace | Each courtier scores once per year: 1 per scroll, caravan card, good, or mosque-track space advanced, according to its hall. |
| Buildings | 1 point per surviving building at each annual scoring. |
| Scoring tile | 3 additional points per building with the matching action icon, each annual scoring. |
| Final mosque space | 4 additional points per building with the mosque icon, each annual scoring. |
| Caravan sets | At game end, 1 / 3 / 6 / 10 points for sets of one / two / three / four different spices. |
What each resource is for
| Resource | Why it matters | Main uses |
|---|---|---|
| Coloured cubes | Your currency; buildings produce them. | Pay action costs, ransom buildings during invasions, and fulfil contracts. |
| White cube | Wild currency. | Substitute for any colour in costs; a white-upgraded building produces it instead of its printed colour. |
| Camels | Flexible access and turn-order leverage. | Reach distant caravan cards and marketplace cities, gain camel-market boons, and move earlier in the next queue. |
| Scrolls | Knowledge, contract requirements and milestones. | Score in the palace, fulfil contracts, and trigger breakthroughs at 2, 4, 6 and 8 scrolls. |
| Caravan cards | Spices earn pair boons and set points. | Score in the palace and at game end; pairs can grant soldiers, favour, cubes or upgrades. |
| Goods | Trade goods support contracts and palace scoring. | Commit to contracts without losing their palace value, or score them in the Hall of Trade. |
| Favour | Political standing pays courtiers. | Spend one per courtier during every annual scoring. |
| Influence | Reputation unlocks contracts and spice variety. | Reach contract thresholds and collect up to four spice types. |
| Soldiers | Protect a building from an invasion. | Gain influence when deployed; a soldier on a building prevents the Mongols from destroying it. |
| Upgrades | Improve one city site. | White replaces its resource yield; a bonus upgrade adds a second cube. Both can alter ransom payment. |
Teaching tips
Teach the active-row resource engine before the six actions: activating a building can pay its owner too. Then explain how to reach a board action with the master meeple, and only after that introduce the optional camel market and contracts. Remind players that the first year has no invasion, while the second and third years test whether they protected the sites that matter. Courtiers cost favour at every annual scoring, even when their hall scores zero.