Ancient Knowledge
Heirs to an exceptional knowledge that has survived the ages, it is now up to you to preserve the vestige of your civilization.
Ancient Knowledge is a strategic card game in which you erect monuments and build artefacts to pass on your knowledge. Time will make your constructions ephemeral,so make the right decision and combine the many cards at your disposal, because all knowledge is doomed to disappear…
It's up to you to find the best synergy so that you can pass down knowledge before the decline of the emblematic monuments you have constructed, monuments we still find nowadays in the four corners of the globe. From Mexican pyramids to the Sphinx of Giza, passing through the famous cities of Tiwanaku and Babylon, only the cleverest builder will shine through the ages and seize victory. In this game, your only enemy is time.
Prove to your opponents that you are the worthly representative of your Legacy! Will your monuments withstand the trial of time?
Number of players: 2 - 4
Game duration: 46 mn
Complexity: 3 / 5
Play Ancient Knowledge and 960 other games online.
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Play Ancient Knowledge and 960 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
Overview
Have the most points after someone obtains 14 cards in their Past
Turn
On your turn, you will perform three steps
• Action
• Timeline
• Decline
Action
You may take 2 the same or different actions between:
• Create
• Learn
• Excavate
• Archive
• Search
Create
This allows you to play either a Monument or an Artifact card
If you play a Monument, discard cards from your hand equal to its cost or it may be free. Place it in the numbered space indicated by the circle. Place a number of knowledge tokens on it equal to the Knowledge symbol. If it has an instant effect, apply as much as possible. A monument can be played in a space other than where it wishes as long as it does not contain the lock symbol, and you discard extra cards equal to the difference between where it wants to be and where you want to put it e.g. if it's a 4 and you want it in space 6, discard an extra 2 cards. For each numbered area, place your first monument on the lower space, and your second monument on the upper space, you cannot have a third monument for each numbered space. If you have two monuments in a numbered space, and the lower monument is removed due to some effect, slide the upper monument down so it becomes the new lower monument. Any effects which mention adjacency only affect orthogonal adjacency.
If you play an Artifact, play it in one of your 5 starting artifact spaces on your player board. Once all 5 spaces are taken, you cannot play more artifacts until some effect gives you an empty space again.
Learn
This allows you to obtain Technologies
Some technologies have requirements in a faded box, others have no requirements
You are free to take any technology you meet the requirements for
Some technologies will have instant effects
You do not refill the technologies when you take one, only when a tile contains a single technology is it discarded and refilled
Archive
This lets you discard any number of cards you wish and discard 1 knowledge off a Monument for each discarded, you cannot discard more cards than you have knowledge on Monuments
It's good to clear Knowledge off your Monuments, but also keeping it may be required for certain card conditions
Excavate
Rotate Monument cards in your Past, for each rotated draw 2 new cards
Monuments do NOT auto-straighten, so to do this again you'll need either play more cards or effects which straighten Monuments
Search
This allows you to draw a single card, which makes it a lot weaker than the Excavate action where you may draw as many pairs of cards as monuments you wish to rotate, this action is intended as a last desperate resort
Regardless of how you draw cards, you can never have more than 10 cards in hand, you may not draw and discard, but are instead blocked from drawing in either way if you hold 10 cards (or 9 and try to Excavate)
Timeline
After you've taken your two actions, Timeline phase begins
Trigger the effects of any active cards you wish (a card in the Past is NOT active)
Decline
Check for Monuments in Zone 1, if there are any, they decline
Some Monuments will have effects when they go into decline, others don't, once finished declining they are in the Past and won't have any effects
Any knowledge on a declined Monument goes into your Lost Knowledge Zone
If there were 2 Monuments in Zone 1, you pick one to fully decline before declining the other, they are then both placed in the Past
If there are 7 Monuments in your Past, flip over one of the level I tech tiles to its Level II side
If there are 14 Monuments in your Past, end game is triggered
After which, slide all your monuments along one space, so 4's go into 3 and so on, 2's which now turned into 1's do not decline until your NEXT decline phase
Game End
The game end is triggered when a player moves their 14th monument into their Past. (It is possible to have 15 Monuments in your past, if on one turn you had 13, moved 2 from 2 to 1, then moved those 2 again from 1 to Past)
Continue until an equal number of turns has been played.
• Monuments in the Past score players based on the number in the middle band
• Past Monuments may have effects which give a player bonus points
• Level II Technologies will award additional points
• Score 1VP for Monuments left in the Timeline
• Lose 1VP for each Knowledge token in your Lost Knowledge Zone
The player with the most points wins!
(If tied, the player with the fewest Lost Knowledge wins.)
