Teach the Game

A concise teach for building a business and scoring through six rounds of Resafa.

How you win

Score the most victory points after six rounds and the final Rain scoring phase. The main board has a 1–2-player side and a 3–4-player side. Each player also has a workshop-and-garden area on their player board, a camel-capacity track, four coloured card tracks, and a scoring disc on the main board’s score track.

A round

Resafa lasts six rounds. Each round, take three turns in clockwise order. On a turn, play one of your six multi-use action cards, choosing which half faces up. Take its main action and its matching colour action in either order; then draw a card when your round permits. Odd rounds draw after each play. At the end of even rounds, all players collect their six cards, take any yellow special action cards into hand, shuffle, and draw three. Each colour action grants a bonus card, one step on a special-card track, or a sack card. The six main actions build workshops, take provisions, produce, build gardens, build canals, or trade.

How the game ends

After each player has taken three turns, refill the bonus-card display, pass the starting-player tile left, and advance the round. Rain scoring happens after rounds 2, 4 and 6. After the final Rain phase, score the end-game categories and compare totals. Ties go to the player with the most canal tiles; if still tied, the players share the win.

Ways to score

Score points from actions, card effects, garden-completion rewards, trading-base bonuses, canal spaces and water flowing through canals, Rain scoring, pink special cards, scarab merchant tokens, and end-game multipliers. Remaining spice and amphora are worth 1 VP each; every 5 remaining coins and resources together are worth 1 VP. Canals also score a fixed end-game amount based on how many you built. See Rain and final scoring.

What each resource is for

• Coins pay road tolls, workshops, gardens and trading bases.
• Stone and marble pay building costs; stone also helps establish trading bases.
• Spice and amphora are goods that can be bought, sold or kept for end-game points.
• Camels raise the capacity of the caravan, allowing it to buy or sell more of one type per trade.
• Merchant tokens fill scoring rows on your player board; scarab tokens score separately.
• Water cubes mark rain sources activated by canal construction.
• Action, bonus, sack and special cards provide main actions, flexible colour actions, one-time effects, and lasting or end-game benefits.

Teaching tips

Show a turn with the action card first, then demonstrate choosing the colour benefit. Explain that a card’s colour is a second action, not a cost. Teach the three buildings separately: workshops produce, gardens connect their green placement rewards and fill scoring squares, and canals route water for Rain points. Finish with a sample trade, including Resafa as a warehouse stop, then show how Rain scoring follows a water cube. The first game uses the normal setup; the advanced option to inspect removed special cards can wait.