Gameplay

How tableau cards, Court actions and Unification rewards work together over five rounds.

Two ways to play a card

Each turn you play one card from your hand. Tuck it under one of the five regions on your player board, or place it face up at the Emperor’s Court and take one Court action. Any card can pay for any Court action; its number and colour do not matter there.

Tuck a card into your tableau

Choose a region and slide the card under its top edge so its ability remains visible. The card’s colour grants that many matching Unification tokens based on its position in that region: one for the first card, two for the second and three for the third. A region can hold only three cards.

Adding the second card raises Unrest by one; the third raises it by two. You cannot choose a placement or effect that would take Unrest above 3. Cards stay where played for the rest of the game.

Play at Court

Place a card on the Court pile, choose one action you can legally perform, and resolve it. Then choose one follow-up: activate matching tableau abilities, move one official to an adjacent region, or pass. You cannot activate abilities in a region already at Unrest 3.

To activate abilities, the card you played at Court must have the right number compared with the card directly beneath it in the Court pile. For Hire two workers, Build a palace and Build a wall, the number must be higher. For Recruit an official, Search for the elixir and Install a governor, it must be lower. On the first Court card, set the starting number so you can activate abilities. The type and ability of the Court card do not affect which Court action you may take. The complete face set is on Cards & Components.

Unrest

Each region tracks Unrest separately from 0 to 3. Hiring workers, placing tableau cards and some card or tile effects can increase it. Governors, bonuses and some card effects reduce it. At 3, you cannot take an effect that would add more Unrest there.

Unification rewards

At the end of each round, compare the value of your small and large tokens in each aspect separately. For each aspect, the highest eligible player chooses to accept the full reward or pass. If they pass or cannot take all of it, continue down the ranking. To accept a reward, spend all tokens of that colour. A player needs at least one token to be eligible. Ties follow the priority order described below.

After the three aspects, reset turn order using the reward order, unlock Terracotta Soldiers by spending three tokens each, and discard excess tokens: return every unused value-2 token and keep no more than five value-1 tokens. Then advance the round marker.

Build the engine

Recruit officials before you need their actions: Alchemists support the elixir route, Architects enable palaces, and Generals enable hiring. Palaces convert workers into points, a bonus tile and a large token. Walls turn workers into a scoring position and may let you attach an Emperor tile to a tableau card. Governors clear regional Unrest and take over a region’s endgame majority.

The Teach the Game page gives the full action summary; Game End and Scoring explains final scoring.