Teach the Game

A first-game teach for building the Qin empire through cards, officials, palaces, walls and the Mausoleum.

How you win

You have five rounds to help Qin Shi Huang unify China. Improve your standing across the five regions, build palaces and walls, install governors, and advance your ship toward the elixir. After the fifth round, the player with the most victory points wins.

The boards

Each player has a board with five regions: Chu, Zhao, Wei, Yan and Qi. Cards placed here form your tableau and raise your contribution to Writing, Currency or Laws. This is where officials and workers gather, and where you track each region’s Unrest.

The main board holds the shared regions, palace and governor spaces, the Great Wall, the ship route, the Mausoleum and the three Unification tracks. The Court board tells you whose turn it is and which phase the round is in.

A round

Each round has three phases:

1. Draw: Each player takes two cards from each of the Writing, Currency and Laws decks, for six cards total.
2. Play: In turn order, play one card and choose one of two routes. Tuck it under a region on your board to gain matching Unification tokens, or play it at Court to perform any one of the six Court actions. A Court card’s number and colour do not restrict the action.
3. Reward: Compare your Writing, Currency and Laws tokens separately. The leader in an aspect may spend all of their tokens in that colour to take that aspect’s reward.

Cards tucked into your board improve later Court actions. Each region holds at most three cards. The first card there gives one matching token, the second gives two and adds one Unrest, and the third gives three and adds two Unrest. You cannot raise a region above Unrest 3.

The six Court actions

• Hire two workers: Choose a region with one of your Generals, take two workers there and add one Unrest.
• Build a palace: In a region with your Architect, spend two workers from that region and one from elsewhere. Place a palace, take its tile and a large Unification token if available, then score six points plus the tile’s value.
• Build a wall: Spend the workers shown by an open Wall space, each from a different region when more than one is required. Place a wall. The first builder in a section may attach its Emperor tile to a tableau card.
• Search for the elixir: Move your ship three spaces and resolve any route reward reached. Alchemists let you place Alchemist cards into regions; ship progress also unlocks soldiers and Master Alchemist cards.
• Recruit an official: Place one Alchemist, Architect or General from your supply in any region.
• Install a governor: Return one official of each type from a region to your supply, place a governor in that region and take its printed bonus. Reset that region’s Unrest to zero.

After resolving a Court action, choose one follow-up: activate tableau abilities, move one official to an adjacent region, or pass. Abilities must match the action and the Court card’s number must be higher or lower than the previous card as shown by that trigger. You cannot activate abilities in a region already at Unrest 3.

How the game ends

After the fifth Unification reward, score the board. Score walls from their position and Wall tile condition, palaces from the regions where you have cards, governors from regional majorities, and the Mausoleum from the soldiers you placed. Add the elixir score based on your ship’s progress and Alchemist cards, then add any points already earned during play.

Ways to score

Palaces score immediately when built. Other routes build toward endgame points: compete for governor majorities, place walls where their scoring tile rewards your tableau, and send soldiers to Mausoleum spaces. Your ship increases the value of your Alchemist tableau. The Game End and Scoring page lays out the final checks.

What each resource is for

• Workers pay for palaces and walls. Generals let you hire them.
• Alchemists support the elixir route and let you place Alchemist cards.
• Architects open palace construction; Generals open hiring.
• Unrest limits how aggressively you can use a region. Governors reset it.
• Writing, Currency and Laws tokens compete for the end-of-round reward; palaces can award a large token.
• Terracotta soldiers validate Mausoleum conditions and score there.

Teaching tips

Teach the two card routes before the action list: tableau cards build your engine, while Court cards take one action now and can trigger that engine. Then show why officials matter: each type enables a different action. Finish by pointing out that Unrest is a hard cap, not a penalty track to ignore.

For the exact components and card faces, see Cards & Components. The publisher’s English rulebook is the reference for edge cases.

Rehearse taking a Unification reward

For one aspect, give one player two small tokens and another one large token: both have a value of two. Resolve their tie with the normal tiebreaker before offering the reward. The eligible leader may accept only if they can take the whole reward. Accepting returns all of their tokens of that aspect and moves their Turn Order marker to the reward’s slot.

If they pass, they keep the tokens and their marker stays put; offer the choice to the next eligible player. A player with no tokens of that aspect cannot take its reward.