Gaia Project (2017)

How To Play Gaia Project

Setup the Board

At first, take out all 10 sector tiles for 3-4 players (1-7 tiles for 1-2 players) and assemble the board.

Research Board:

• Place the research board and put 9 standard tech tiles randomly face-up in each tech space on the board. Then stack the remaining standard tech tiles on the placed tiles of the same type.
• On each space between level 4 and 5, place 1 advanced tech tile face-up of 6 research areas.
• Take one random federation token and place on level 5 of the terraforming research area.
• Place 1 player token of your color on level 0 of each research area.

Scoring Board:

• Place the scoring board near and put one round scoring tile faceup on each board’s tile space.
• Place one final scoring tile faceup on each space to the right of the green ranking tracks.

Round Boosters and General Supply:

• Randomly select the round boosters (according to the number of players) and place them next to the game board.
• Keep all the tokens (action, Gaia Planet, Lost Planet, power, Q.I.C, record) nearby for general supply.

Faction Board and Choosing a Faction

Choose one of these factions for your 1st game: Terrans, Hadsch Hallas, Xenos, Taklons.

Each player chooses their factions in clockwise order and places their faction board in front of them with the chosen faction faceup.

Put all structures and Gaiaformers of your color on their corresponding spaces on the faction board.

Follow the numbers on your faction board and place Q.I.C and power tokens accordingly. Put 1 knowledge, 1 ore and 2 credit markers on the starting positions on resource track.

Put your 7th player token on space 10 on the VP track and all the satellites on each 0 space on the scoring board.

As you put your 1st structure (starting with miners), you make the first planet a colony.

Power Cycle

There are three connected power areas (I, II, III) on the faction board linked to the left green Gaia area.

• Charging Power:

To spend power, you have to charge power first. To charge, move your power tokens to area III gradually through area I and II.

• Spending Power:

Once the tokens are moved into area III, you can spend only them.

• Gaining and Discarding Power:

You can gain power if any action allows you to transfer power tokens from supply to area I. To discard power, you can remove a token from any area except the Gaia.

Phases in Gaia Project

Gaia Project rules cover overall 6 rounds and each round has 4 subsequent phases:

1. Income
2. Gaia
3. Actions
4. Clean-up

Phase I: Income

At this phase, you get to gain resources at each round. The hand icon represents income in the game.

You can be allowed to gain income by any of these:

• Faction board
• Round Booster
• Tech tiles
• Current level in each research area

You gain 3 kinds of resources:

• Ore
• Knowledge
• Credits

The resource track on faction board goes upto 15, so you can have 15 of each ore and knowledge and 30 credits (15 per token). Keep track of your resources with the corresponding tokens as you gain or lose.

Phase II: Gaia

When you want to colonize a Transdim Planet, first you put a Gaia former and then a Gaia Planet token on that planet so that no other player can intervene.

This planet is now considered as a Gaia Planet. Remove the Gaiaformer when you build a mine there.

Phase III: Actions

As the game goes in clockwise order, every player takes a single action on each turn until all of them complete the Pass action. With the Pass, a player ends his game of that phase. Other than Pass, players can take all actions multiple times during the same phase, one action on each turn.

Out of 10, some very crucial actions are:

• Build a Mine:

The first step towards colonizing a planet is to build a mine there. You can see each mine’s cost on the left of the mine on the faction board; it’s 2 credits and 1 ore.

Conditions applied to build a mine on a planet:

1. It has to be empty
2. It should be accessible from your planets and habitable to your faction
3. If not, you first pay the cost to make it habitable.

After paying all necessary costs immediately, place the leftmost mine from the faction board on the planet.

Rules for Transdim and Gaia Planets:

You cannot build a structure on a Transdim planet but can transform it into a Gaia planet with a Gaia Project. To make a Gaia Planet habitable for your faction, you can pay 1 Q.I.C.

• Start a Gaia Project:

Conditions to start a Gaia Project:

1. An available Gaiaformer
2. Access to a Transdim Planet without any pre-existing Gaiaformer on it
3. Spend power as required

After this, you can place your available Gaiaformer on the Transdim Planet. But the entire action finishes on the next round, where you can finish the project and build a mine.

Gaia project will cost you a total amount of power from 3 areas shifted to the Gaia area, determined by your progress in the Gaia area on research board.

• Upgrade Existing Structures:

To gain new resources and advantages, you can upgrade the structures, one at a time. Except for mines, all other structures replace another structure for an upgrade.

Rules to upgrade:

1. Put the replaced original structure back on the faction board on its row from right to left.
2. You pay the cost of upgrade in ore and credits, which is mentioned on the left side of the corresponding structure’s row.

The flow of upgrade of structure goes like this:

Mine ➜ Trading Station ➜ Planetary Institute

Trading Station ➜ Research Lab

Research Lab ➜ Academy

• Form a Federation:

Once you colonize several planets, you can form a federation comprising them. For this, you can choose a federation token from the supply.

Conditions to form a Federation:

1. A total value of at least 7 from the structures on these planets.
2. Build satellites to connect the colonized planets that are not adjacent.
3. Discard 1 power to build a satellite and place them in connecting spaced between the colonized planets, not on top of them.
4. Connect all planets in one action.
5. A new federation cannot be directly adjacent to your existing federation.

• Pass:

When you are done taking all your actions in a round, you pass.

When you pass:

1. Pick one new round booster and return the one you used in this round (except in the final round)
2. Place the new booster facedown to show that you have passed.

Once all players have passed, the action phase ends.

Phase IV: Clean-up

In the clean-up phase, the current round ends and you prepare for the next. Skip this phase after the last round and proceed to scoring.

When you clean-up:

1. Remove all tokens, Q.I.C. s, scoring tile and return them to supply.
2. All players flip their round boosters faceup.

How To Win Gaia Project

The game ends after the action phase of round 6.

Victory points are added up at final scoring. Players gain VP for their progress on the ranking track corresponding to each final scoring tile.

• Highest – 18 VP
• 2nd Highest – 12 VP
• 3rd Highest – 6 VP
• 4th Highest – 0 VP

For a tie, add the VP for the highest remaining rank and divide the score evenly among the tied players.

• Research Scoring: You gain 4 VP for each level (3,4,5) you have reached on the research board.
• Resource Scoring: You gain 1 VP for every 3 credits, knowledge of ore.

Calculate the VPs of each player. The highest-scoring player wins!

Gaia Project Review

“Gaia Project, to me, is an excellent new direction for Terra Mystica. It streamlines the game in ways that make sense while opening the system to new strategic avenues. Yes, the game can be long (probably two and a half to three hours with a full table of experienced players); yes, it is complex; yes, it is a game that rewards skill and repeat play.

But if you are looking for a new gaming world to explore, one that offers new strategies and game situations in each game, and especially if you like your meaty Euros with a side of bacon, you will love Gaia Project. Don’t expect it to tell your stories for you: it requires effort to learn and to become immersed in its charms. But its charms are manifold, and it should repay your investment in the long term.”

FarmerLenny, islaythedragon.com

“Gaia Project represents a perfection of Terra Mystica. If gamers soured on Terra Mystica for its fixed board and steep learning curve, the rules have been simplified and streamlined, while still retaining a heavy strategy experience. There is a huge amount to explore and challenge gamers with every play, a testament to the high quality of the original design. Terra Mystica lovers might be less excited, but holdouts for the best iteration of the game will be overjoyed with Gaia Project.”

Tahsin Shamma, boardgamequest.com

The content of this article is originally from Board Game Geek and groupgames101. For more information and a better understanding of the game, you can watch the videos below.