Tzolk'in
Lead your people, build monuments and make offerings to earn the favour of the gods.
Tzolkin: The Mayan Calendar presents a new game mechanism: dynamic worker placement. Players representing different Mayan tribes place their workers on giant connected gears, and as the gears rotate they take the workers to different action spots.
During a turn, players can either (a) place one or more workers on the lowest visible spot of the gears or (b) pick up one or more workers. When placing workers, they must pay corn, which is used as a currency in the game. When they pick up a worker, they perform certain actions depending on the position of the worker. Actions located "later" on the gears are more valuable, so it's wise to let the time work for you – but players cannot skip their turn; if they have all their workers on the gears, they have to pick some up.
The game ends after one full revolution of the central Tzolkin gear. There are many paths to victory. Pleasing the gods by placing crystal skulls in deep caves or building many temples are just two of those many paths...
Number of players: 2 - 4
Game duration: 31 mn
Complexity: 4 / 5
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Play Tzolk'in and 969 other games online.
No download necessary - play directly from your web browser.
With your friends and thousands of players from the whole world.
Free.
Rules summary
Rules are here: http://czechgames.com/files/rules/tzolkin-rules-en.pdf
(A picture of all 18 Age II buildings: https://i.imgur.com/BOGVhXA.jpg )
For Each Round
- Each player takes their turn, going around the table
- On a food day, feed your workers and take your rewards
- Advance the Calendar
Player turn
- Beg for corn: If you have 2 or less corn, you may beg for corn unless you are at the bottom step of all three temples. (Turn in all corn, take 3 corn and move one step down on any temple)
- Either place workers OR pick up workers
-- Placing workers: pay corn for the number of workers you place. The cost for the number of workers you place is 0, 1, 3, 6, 10, or 15 for, respectively, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 workers placed on that turn, plus the cumulative cost noted next to each of your placed workers.
-- Picking up Workers: You may pick up one or more of your placed workers. For each worker picked up either
--- Use the action where your worker was standing
--- Use a lower action on the wheel from where your worker was standing(if not standing on a free action space,pay 1 corn for each step back)
--- Do nothing.
Food Day
Players must feed their workers at the end of Day 8, Day 14, Day 21, and Day 27.
-Feed the Workers Each players must pay 2 corn for each worker they have in play (on a gear or in front of you) with the exception for any farms you own. You must feed as many workers as you have corn for. -- For each worker not fed, you lose 3 points
-Take Rewards
--Middle of Age (Brown days)
--- Receive items shown on the left edge of temples from step you are on and all steps below
-- End of Age (Teal Days)
--- Remove all Age 1 buildings and fill spaces with Age 2 buildings
--- Receive points shown on the right edge of temples for the step you are on.
--- Bonus points on each temple track for the player whose marker is highest. Bonus amount is shown above each temple. For ties, everyone receives half the bonus.
Advance the Calendar
If there is no worker on the starting player space, place a corn on the current Tzolk'in gear tooth and advance the gear one day.
Otherwise:
- The worker on the Starting Player space returns to the player
-- If this person was not the starting player, they take the starting player marker.
-- If they were the starting player, the starting player marker is moved to the player on their left
- Advance the Tzolk'in Gear one day.
- The player that placed their worker on the Starting Player space may decide to advance the gear one extra day if the player board is light side up AND this advance will not push a player off the gears.
-- If you use this option, flip your board to dark side up.
-- This does not avoid food days.
End of Game Scoring
The game ends after the fourth Food Day. The Tzolk'in gear will have made one complete revolution. Players convert all of their commodities to victory points and score their monuments. Then the player with the most points wins. In case of a tie, whoever has the most workers left on the gears wins. If it is still a tie, then all tied players win. Esoteric Note: Technically, the Tzolk'in gear advances one more day after the end-of-Age-2 scoring and before the final scoring. This might push workers off the gears, which could affect the tiebreaker.
Final Scoring
To score your final victory points, do the following:
1. Convert all resources to corn using the exchange rate for the market.
2. Score 1/4 victory point for each corn.
3. Score 3 victory points for each crystal skull you still have.
4. Score your victory points from your monuments.