LEO COLOVINI

WHO WILL OCCOPY THE MOST PRODUCTIVE PROVINCES?

for 2-4 players aged 12 and up

Overview
Alexander moves with army his back and forth across the Persian Naturally, each general tries to acquire the most productive lands for
Empire, conquering the land as he passes. To bring peace to these himself. With more productive lands, the general can levy higher
newly conquered lands and to reward his generals, he gives them taxes, show his worth to Alexander, and win the game!
control of the new lands. The generals establish administration over
the lands and levy taxes on the people living there.

Contents
1 Alexander figure 55 cards, 11 each with the 5 symbols
and colors used on the board:
16 guard figures, the temple - administration, amphora -
troops of Alexander’s army, nourishment, horse - transport,
in 4 different colors lyre – culture, soldier - security

4 scoring discs in the 4 player colors 65 black boundary walls and 10 red boundary walls

1 game board, separated in triangular spaces, most in

open (light brown) with no symbols, the rest in 5 different
colors with 5 different symbols. Preparation
Card supply and discard stack
Each player chooses a color and takes the 4 guards and scoring disc
in that color. Each places his scoring disc at the beginning of the
scoring track.

Place the Alexander figure on the starting space in the upper left of
Empty space the board.

Symbol space Separate the black and red boundary walls and place them next to the
board.

Shuffle the cards and deal one face down to each player. Place two
cards face-up next to the bottom of the board.
Place the remaining cards face down next to the board as a card
supply.

The players choose a starting player using any method they prefer.

2 face-up cards Scoring track

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Playing the game
The players take turns in clockwise order, starting with the starting Alexander to. Then the player moves Alexander to any one of the three
player. On his turn, a player must first move Alexander and then takes points of the triangular space he chose. The player need not choose a
2 further actions. point closest to Alexander, but may choose any of the three points of
The move of Alexander is the basis for a player’s success or failure in the chosen triangle.
this game. Thus, it is critical that the players understand fully all the
possibilities of Alexander’s move. Next, the player places black boundary walls on the triangle sides
between Alexander’s previous position and his new position. The
1. Moving Alexander shortest path must be followed. If there are several shortest paths,
the player may choose freely among them.
On a player’s turn, he first chooses 1 of the 2 face-up cards (which
could be identical) and moves Alexander to the closest empty Figure 2: the player chose the lyre card, added it to his
triangular space with a symbol matching that of the card hand, and drew a soldier card to replace it. Then, he must
chosen. This means: move Alexander to any point of the empty lyre space shown.
Let’s say he chooses the eastern-most point in that space;
- closest: the shortest distance between the point of the next he places 2 boundary walls between Alexander’s previous
position and his new one: it’s the only way to do that,
triangle where Alexander now stands to the closest point of
because any other path would require 3 steps instead of 2.
the triangular space where Alexander could be moved.

- empty: a space is empty when it has no boundary walls on Figure 3: the situation is the same as in the previous
any of its sides and no figure (guards or Alexander) standing example, but the player moves Alexander to the
in it. A point of an empty space can be touching a boundary southern-most point
wall. in that space. Next,
he places 3 black
boundary walls
When moving Alexander, a player tries to reach different goals
between Alexander’s
considering the situation at that very moment; many times he previous position and
simply moves Alexandros in the direction he prefers, but sometimes his new one. Note, that in this
he encloses a productive province that he can occupy (now or later) case a small province has been
or he reduces the size of an opponent’s province. formed with 4 spaces, 2 with and 2 without
symbols. This is not the only shortest way to
Figure 1: Alexander stands on the starting space and the 2 face-up cards show a make the connection. It is also possible, for
horse and a lyre. Thus, the player can move example, to follow the coastline.
Alexander to the closest empty space
showing a lyre or a horse. The red-bordered
1 2 spaces are the 2 spaces where the player may Provided the shortest path rule is respected, a
move Alexander, depending on which card he
1 2 player may choose any kind of path. For
chooses. The player may not (if the player
chose the horse card) move example, a path along the coast (or the edge
2 Alexander to the lower right horse of the playing area where there is no coast) or a
space as it is further (3 triangle path that already includes boundary walls. If he does, he
3 sides vs. 2 triangle sides) from places boundary walls also along the edges, but he does not place a
3 Alexander’s current position. second boundary wall in a space where one already exists.

The player adds the chosen card

to his hand and draws another
card from the supply as the new
face-up card. If there are several
empty spaces showing the symbol
matching that of the card chosen that are the same distance from
Alexander, the player may choose which among them to move

2
 Figure 4: The player takes Players only place black boundary walls during normal turns. The red
the soldier card. He can boundary walls are used for Alexander’s last move in the game (see
choose between 9 different game end below).
points because there are
three soldier spaces at the Alexander’s special move
same distance away: that
is two edges to the nearest It can happen that neither face-up card offers a symbol that will give
points. the player a good Alexander move or that the moves offered gives the
player’s opponents better opportunities than they give the player.
It can often happen that the player sees a good Alexander move, but
He decides to move to the required symbol is not on one of the face-up cards.
the point indicated as In such a case, the player may play a card from his hand and move
shown in figure 5. He Alexander to the next empty space showing that symbol.
now has 3 different ways By doing this, the player loses 2 cards: the one he plays and the one
to place the boundary walls; face-up card he does not take.
he decides, as shown in Due to this cost, a player cannot afford to do this often.
the figure, to cut
the biggest possible
province. The
alternative paths 2. Further actions
are shown with the
dotted lines. Note
After moving Alexander, a player may take 2 further actions in any
that both paths
combination or order. These can be any 2 of the following 4 actions.
would have passed
Also, a player may choose to do the same action twice, except for levy
over a previous
taxes, which a player may only do once in a turn.
placed boundary
wall. In this case
- take a card
only the remaining
- occupy an empty province or take over an opponent’s province
two boundary walls
- levy taxes
would have been placed.
- take back a guard
Players may place boundary walls that cross each other and
also inside closed provinces. As you will see, that’s a very important
- Take a card
point, because you may decide to divide an opponent’s province.
This is the simplest and most common action. The player takes the
The figure 6 shows another possible movement. Here, the player has
top-most card from the card supply or one of the two face-up cards.
decided to go to another
He adds it to his hand, which he keeps secret from the other players.
of the 9 possible points
If the player chooses to take a card as his first action and wants to
(fig.4). In this particular
take another card as his second action, he may only choose between
case, the player simply
the card supply and the remaining face-up card(s). He does not draw a
moves Alexander following
second face-up card to replace one he took until the end of his turn.
the existing path and,
Then he replaces any face-up cards he took. When the card supply is
therefore without placing
exhausted, shuffle the discard stack and place it face down as the new
new boundary walls. The
card supply.
dotted line shows the
only other alternative
- Occupy province
path (as you can see,
it runs inside the closed
A province is a connected group of triangular spaces (with or without
province).
symbols) that are enclosed by boundary walls and the coast (or the

3
edge of the playing area where there is no coast). Provinces Figure 7: red occupies a large
may be of any size, large or small. A newly created province province with 6 symbol spaces
need not be immediately (or ever) occupied and could be later and 9 open spaces by placing
occupied by any player during his own turn. two guards in the province (on
A province should have (but need not) at least one symbol a temple space and a horse
space. Otherwise, it is worthless, as it cannot be occupied. It space) and playing 4 cards
is possible to create a province that is just a single symbol matching the other symbol
space. For such a province, the tax levy will be zero and it spaces in the province:
is unlikely that such a province will be useful. amphora, lyre, temple, and
soldier. If he had a horse card
Profit: the value of a province is determined by the or another temple card, he
number of open (non-symbol) spaces in the province. could have used one of these
Each is worth 1 point when levying taxes. A large cards instead of the extra guard.
province is, naturally, worth more, but is also harder
to occupy because more symbol it has more cards A province may be divided when moving Alexander.
and pieces are necessary.
In figure 8, yellow has just conquered an huge
When a player moves Alexander, he should do so to try to create province, worth 11 points, hoping to keep it until next
provinces with high open to symbol space ratios, so he can then turn when he is plans to levy taxes, but the other players
occupy them. The more open spaces, the more valuable a province is may try to divide this province by moving Alexander inside it.
and the fewer symbol spaces, the less it costs to occupy. Of course, For example, on red's turn, the player may decide to move Alexander
more valuable provinces will be ripe for takeovers from avaricious toward one of the 5 spaces indicated with a white/red dot in figure 10
opponents. (that means 14 different points).

Occupy an empty province:

The players try to occupy provinces so they can use them to levy
taxes and earn the points needed to win the game.
To occupy an unoccupied province (one not occupied by any player), a
player must place at least one of his guards on any one of the symbol
spaces in the province. For each other symbol space in the province,
the player must pay (place face-up on the discard stack) a card from
his hand matching the symbol on the space.
If a player does not have the cards required to occupy a province (or
does not want to use the cards he has), he may use additional guards
in place of the missing cards. In fact, he may use as many of his
guards as he wants (and has left) to occupy a province. He places
each guard on a symbol space in the province and the pays cards (as
above) for any remaining symbol spaces (if any) in the province. Such
a move should be reserved for special cases, as when a player has a
chance to occupy a very valuable province, but is missing a required
card. Without guards, a player will be unable to occupy further
provinces. Also, a player cannot levy taxes or score points for a
province with more than one guard.

4
 He decides to Take over an occupied province:
annoy yellow and
moves to the When a player takes over an occupied province, he not only increases
soldier in the his points, but reduces those of an opponent. Thus, it is more difficult
north, on the most to take over a province than to simply occupy an unoccupied one.
northern point To take over a province a player must first remove all guards in the
(figure 9). occupied province. He does this by playing 2 cards to remove each
guard. Both cards must match the symbol of the space where the
In this way, the guard stands. After the player removes all the guards in the province
large yellow (returning them to his opponent), he then plays his own guard(s) and
province is divided cards as described above for occupying an empty province. Both the
into 2 smaller removing of guards and the occupying of the now-unoccupied province
provinces: the must be done in the same turn. Otherwise, the player may not take
eastern one is still over an occupied province. This counts as one action.
dominated by yel-
low, but it’s only Figure 11: yellow takes-
worth 3 points, over this province from take-over
and the other is red. He plays 2 temple
free (the player cards and 2 horse cards to
may conquer it in remove the 2 red guards in the
the further actions province. Then, he places 1 yellow
of his turn). guard on a lyre space and plays
cards matching the other symbol
spaces in the province: 2 temple
Considering one of the face-up cards shows a soldier, yellow could put cards, horse card, soldier card, and
his guard over the soldier space instead over the horse (figure 10). In amphora card.
this case, in fact, the soldier space would not have been free and
Alexander could The player losing the province gets
not have been his guards back and half (rounded
moved inside the up) of the cards the take-over
province. player played to remove the guards
Red could have and occupy the province. The player
only divided the taking-over the province chooses
province with the which cards to give to the losing
Alexander special player. The player discards the other occupy
move: that is, cards used in the take-over.
playing a horse Exception: when playing with two, the player losing the province only
card, but in this gets his guards back; all the used cards are discarded.
case, the effect
of the division - Levy taxes
would be much
less damaging. To levy taxes, a player must play 1 card matching the symbol on the
space on which his guard stands in one of the provinces he occupies.
A player may only count taxes in a province he occupies and only if
he has just 1 guard in the province. A player may not count taxes in a
province with 2 or more guards. After the player plays (discards) the
necessary card, he counts the open spaces in all his provinces with
only 1 guard. He scores the total of these open spaces and records
this by moving his scoring disc forward on the scoring track.

5
Important: the levy of taxes affects all players. Thus, after the player
who chose to levy taxes as an action scores his points, each other Game end and the winner
player, in clockwise order, scores his tax points by counting the
number of open spaces in all his provinces with only 1 guard and The game ends
moving his scoring disc accordingly. Levy taxes is not always a wise
action: it costs the player a card, an action, and his opponents score - when a player, after moving Alexander, finds there are not enough
points. Only when the player will score more points than his oppo- black boundary walls to place to mark the path – he uses red
nents does levy taxes make sense. boundary walls to complete the move, or
A player may only levy taxes once in his turn. - when one or more players have earned 100 points or more.

Figure 12: red chooses to In the first case, the player finishes his two actions and the game
levy taxes and plays 1 soldier ends. In the second case the game ends immediately. In both cases,
card as he has a guard in a 3 the player with the most points is the winner.
province he occupies standing
on a space with a soldier 6 Special situations
symbol (province 3). Red
earns 8 points for the province 2 It can happen that there are no empty spaces with a symbol that
in Egypt (1) and 4 points for matches one (or both) face-up cards. In this case, the player may take
the province in Syria (2), a the card and use it as a joker, moving Alexander to the space with the
total of 12 points. Red’s symbol of his choice.
province in the north (3) with 4
However, a player may not play a card from his hand as a joker to
8 points does not score as red move Alexander in this way.
has 2 guards there. Similarly, 5 If there are not enough red boundary walls to complete the last move,
yellow scores 4 points for his the player must find another move, which uses fewer boundary walls.
province (4), blue scores 9 1
points (for 6), and green
scores 6 points (for 5).

- Take back a guard

A player may remove one of his guards from a province he occupies at

any time. He may want to do so because he has more than 1 guard in
a province or he has no more guards in his supply.
To remove a guard from a province, the player simple removes the
guard. He need not play any card to do so.

author Leo Colovini

grafic Studio Krüger, Düsseldorf + s mondini, Venice
code ????
Licensed from Venice Connection, Venice, Italy
© 2003 Rio Grande Games - all rights reserved

Rio Grande Games

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