Rulebook

A1. Introduction

As a Renaissance banker,[1] you will finance kings or republics, sponsor voyages of discovery, join secret cabals, or unleash jihads and inquisitions. Your choices determine if Europe is elevated into the bright modern era or remains festering in dark feudalism. Four victories determine the future course of Western Civilization: will it be towards imperialism, towards trade globalization, towards enlightened art and science under the rule of Law, or towards religious totalitarianism?[2]

• Terms. Capitalized Terms are defined in the glossary. Bold indicates the term is being defined.

• Time Scale. Each turn represents approximately two years in the time period from 1460 to 1530.

• Rules Layout. The rules are divided into two parts: sequential and alphabetical. The sequential rules are arranged in the order you meet them in a typical game: components (B), setup (C), sequence of play (D), actions (E), operations (F), trade fairs (G), one-shots (H - K), and victory (L). Although useful for learning to play, they are not comprehensive. The details on general rules are found alphabetically in the glossary, where they make for easily-found reference during a game and do not bog the sequential rules with unnecessary minutia.

A2. Flow of Play Overview

Each player takes a turn in clockwise fashion. On your turn, choose two actions (E1 - E6) and then perform a market refresh (D2).

• Actions. You may purchase a faceup market card to add to your Hand, play a card from your Hand into the row of faceup cards in front of you (your Tableau), sell a card for cash, enable the operations (Ops) of your cards in either the east or west side of your Tableau, discard a facedown market card to stimulate the economy with a trade fair, or declare victory. Note there is no “pass” action.

• Play Card. Upon card play, you may place the Agents depicted according to the Location listed. If you place an Agent on a Map Card City or Map Card Border, this must Repress (replace) any Token already present there.

• One-Shots. Upon card play, cards with the bomb icon allow you to perform the listed one-shot, which can realign trade, or weaken and seize an Empire. For details of one-shots, see coronations (I), conspiracies (J1), peasant revolts (J2), religious wars (K1), or trade shift (H1).

• Trade Fair. Convening a trade fair will Discard the facedown card in either the east or west Market. This starts a trade fair voyage (G2) which distributes profits (G3) and raises Levies (G4) as it follows the east or west Trade Route. If there is not much profit, the voyage will be short (G5).[3]

A3. Objective of the Game

There will be two Comet cards, functionally identical, placed towards the end of each of the two draw decks. If you purchase one from the Market, you immediately choose one of the four victory cards (holy, imperial, globalization, or Renaissance) to become active. Once active, any player may spend an action (E6) on his turn to declare victory if he has met the listed conditions of that particular victory card. See Part L.

B1. Game Contents

• 120 cards. 35 in the east draw deck, 57 in the west draw deck, 10 Empire, 10 Map, 4 Player, 4 Victory.

• 40 Cubes. 10 Pawns (8mm cubes) in each of four player colors (yellow, orange, green, blue).

• 15 Bishops. Five chess bishops in each of the three religious colors (white, black, red).

• 24 Cylinders. Ten white, seven black, and seven red cylinders represent Rooks.

• 24 Horsemen. Ten white, seven black, and seven red horsemen represent Knights.

• 37 Florin Disks. Thirty-three yellow disks worth 1 Florin each, and 4 red disks worth 5 Florins each.[4]

• 3 Busted Disks. 1 white and 2 black disks, representing busted Emporia.

• Optional Expansion. A 60-card expansion is planned, see www.sierra-madre-games.eu.

B2. Player Cards

You start with one of the four Player Cards (C2) in your Tableau. The reverse side is a player aid.

B3. Empires

There are 10 two-sided empire cards, which form Empires in the empire stack. One side (crown) is the King, and the other side (scroll) is the Republic.[5] An Empire in play is only ever either a King or Republic, depending on which side of the card is faceup. Whenever you acquire an Empire, whether through a one-shot (E2), vote (F6), or campaign (F9), place it into your Tableau with its King side up.

• Op and Prestige Icons. If present, these are as described in Part F and B4.

B4. Tableau Cards

The east and west tableau cards represent personalities who inhabited Europe from 1460 to 1530. The following card features are listed from top to bottom:

• Agents. This depicts a number of Agent Tokens, and their religious color. These Tokens are sometimes placed when you play the card into your Tableau (E2). If an Agent is a cube in four colors, the Pawn placed is a cube of your color.

• Chess Pieces. This icon indicates if the card is a King (B3), Queen, Knight, Rook, Pirate, Bishop, Pawn, or (expansion only) Vitruvean Man (i.e. polymath).[6]

• Prestige. Some cards have an oval Prestige Icon in the upper right corner, relevant for victory.

• Operations (Ops) Row. The possible Ops a card can perform during an Ops action are in this row.

• Abilities. Some cards have an Ability listed. Unlike Ops, Abilities are active even if the east or west ops are not activated.

• One-Shot. A bomb icon indicates that the play of this card can trigger a one-shot like trade shift, coronation, conspiracy, peasant revolt, crusade, reformation, or jihad as indicated.

• Location. Agents are placed in the indicated Location, either set on a Map Card (Knights or Rooks), on the Borders of a Map Card (Pawns or Pirates), or on a Tableau Card with the listed Location (Bishops). See E2.2 for placement and glossary for details on Location.

• East/West. All cards are marked if they come from the eastern or western philosophy. East cards are found only in the east Market row, and west cards in the west Market row.[7]

B5. Map Cards

There are ten two-sided Map Cards, which form a map of Europe and the Mediterranean with ten Empires. One side shows the starting medieval state, often with Cities of different Religions.[8] The other side shows a Theocracy, marked with a large religious icon. Note that two Map Cards (Papal States and Mamluk) start in a Theocracy, and when flipped go to a different Theocracy.

• Name. The Empire name is in the center of the card. On the starting side, right after the name there is a small shadow symbol of a crucifix, cross, or crescent, indicating what Religion the other (Theocracy) side will be if it is flipped.

• Cities & Trade Routes. The Cities are Knight or Rook icons, and each is of a color indicating its Religion. One City on each map card named in all capital letters is the Capital. The white and black lines are Trade Routes, running from a start Emporium (marked by a star) to its end (marked by an arrowhead).

• Concessions. These are cubes placed in Borders, the gap between two Map Cards. Four Concessions, marked with a player emblem in Lisbon, Florence, Augsburg, and Alexandria, are starting concessions. Each player in the game starts with one of his cubes lying in the space between the Map cards indicated.

• Emporium. A City surrounded by a twenty-pointed star is called an Emporium. Two of them (Spice Islands and Trebizond) are white, and three of them (Tana, Novgorod, and Timbuktu) are black. Important: Only one white and one black Emporium is in play at a time (i.e. not busted by a disk). Any Emporium covered by a disk is not in play, does not generate Levies, and cannot have Agents played in it. Any Tokens on an Emporium that becomes covered by a disk (due to a trade shift) are immediately Repressed.[9]

B6. Comet & Victory Cards

There are four Comets, which are mixed into the last 12 cards of both draw decks during setup (C5). There are four victory cards which start inactive (facedown) in a public area. One is flipped to its active side each time someone buys a Comet. Thereafter, if any player spends a victory action (E6) and has met the conditions listed on an active victory card, the game ends and he is the winner.

C1. Forming the Map

Position the ten starting Map Cards in a 2 X 5 matrix. Each of these cards depicts one of the ten empires on the map: England, France, Holy Roman Empire (HRE), Hungary, and Byzantium to the north, and Portugal, Aragon, Papal States, Ottoman, and Mamluk to the south. Eight Map Cards start on their medieval (non-theocratic) side. The two exceptions are the Papal States and Mamluk, which start on their Catholic and Islamic Theocracies respectively, but depict an opposing Theocracy on their respective opposite sides.

• Leave a small amount of space (10mm) between each card. These gaps are called Borders and are used to place Concessions or Pirates.

• Busted Emporia. Place a black disk over Timbuktu and Novgorod, and a white disk over the Spice Islands. An Emporium (B5) is not in play and can hold no Tokens until and unless the disk covering it is moved to another Emporium through a trade shift one-shot (H1).

C2. Players

Each player randomly receives a Player Card. The player colors are also visible in the back color of the respective player shield. Up to four players can play: Fugger Bank:[10] Orange cubes (starting Concession: Augsburg, between France/Holy Roman Empire) Medici Bank:[11] Yellow cubes (starting Concession: Florence, between Aragon/Papal States)

Cœur Bank:[12] Blue cubes (starting Concession: Alexandria, between Ottoman/Mamluk) Marchionni Bank:[13] Green cubes (starting Concession: Lisbon, between England/Portugal)

C3. Player Tableaus

To start his Tableau, each player places his Player Card in front of him. He will play east Tableau cards to the right of this card, and west Tableau cards to the left.

• Pawns. Each player receives the 10 cubes of his color and places them near his Player Card.

• Starting Concession. Place one of each player’s cubes on the Map in the Border between the Map Cards indicated with the bank’s shield (see side of box and the Player Card).

C4. Starting Tokens

Place one Token of the shape and color indicated in the capital of each Map Card. The capital has the name of the City all in capital letters (e.g. PARIS). Other Cities start empty. See the map on the previous page.

• Constantinople starts with three Tokens (two black Knights and a black Rook).

C5. Preparing the East & West Decks

Separate the tableau cards into two piles, one east and the other west.

• East Draw Deck. Take 12 random facedown east cards and shuffle the two east Comet cards into them. To the top of this 14-card deck add 4 additional random east cards for each player in the game (e.g. for a three-player game add 12 cards, so 26 in total). This forms the east draw deck.

• West Draw Deck. Do the same for a draw deck containing the west cards and the two west Comet cards, placed just below the east draw deck (see next page).

C6. The Market, Empire Stack, & Victory Cards

• Market. Deal 6 cards from the east draw deck to form a row of six faceup cards to the left of the draw deck, and then flip the furthest one from the deck facedown. Do the same for the west draw deck. These two facedown cards represent the east and west trade fairs (Part G). See illustration next page.

• Empire Stack. The ten Empires are placed in an open faceup public stack near the Market. Players are always free to inspect these cards at any time.

• Victory Cards. The four Victory cards are placed side by side on their inactive side in a public area.

C7. Starting Florins

Randomly determine a first player. If the Fugger Bank (orange) is in the game, this player is always the first player.[14] The first player receives 3 Florins (3 yellow disks), the second player (clockwise) = 4 Florins, the third player (if any) = 5 Florins, and the fourth player (if any) = 6 Florins.

• The remaining Florin disks go into a pool called China.

• The first player now takes his turn.

D1. Action Phase

On your turn, you will perform 2 actions (Part E), chosen from the list below. They can be performed in any order. The first three can be performed twice in one player turn, and the others once: 1. Purchase Market Card (E1). By paying Florins to the Market, take a faceup card into your Hand. 2. Play Hand Card (E2). This plays a card from your Hand into your Tableau, and optionally introduces Agent Tokens (Bishops, Knights, Rooks, or Pawns) onto the Map or Tableau. If the card has the one-shot (bomb) icon and you trigger it, see Parts H, I, J, K. 3. Sell Card (E3). Discard one card from your Hand or Tableau and receive 2 Florins from China. 4. Perform Eastern Ops (E4). Each card in your eastern Tableau can perform one of its depicted Ops. This action can be performed only once per player turn. 5. Perform Western Ops (E4). As above but in your western Tableau. 6. Convene an Eastern Trade Fair (E5). By Discarding the facedown card in the east Market, you embark on a voyage following the black Trade Route. Along the way, the owners of Concessions get paid, and Empires raise Levies. This action can be performed only once per player turn. See Part G. 7. Convene a Western Trade Fair (E5). Same as Eastern, except the voyage follows the white Trade Route. 8. Victory Action (E6). This action wins the game if you meet the requirements per Part L.

D2. Refresh Market Phase

Starting with the leftmost card, move each card in the Market (along with any Florins on it) to the leftmost empty position in its market row. Then draw new cards to fill any remaining empty market positions so there are again 6 cards in each row. To do this, draw cards from the respective east or west draw deck and fill the rows up from the leftmost empty slot. Flip both cards in the zero cost column (i.e. the leftmost cards) to their facedown (trade fair) side. These cards may no longer be purchased, and their historical protagonists are deemed to have withered into obscurity without financial backing.

• If one deck (east or west) runs out, start drawing from the other instead. This will put west cards into the east Market or vice versa.

• Continue play clockwise with the next player and his action phase.

E1. Purchase Market Card [15]

Purchase a card from the Market into your Hand.

• Hand Size. You can never buy a card going into your Hand if you already have two in your Hand. Note that purchased Comets and commenced Trade Fairs are Discarded and do not go into your Hand. If over your Hand Size you must Discard down.

• Cost. The purchase price of a card depends on its current column in the Market. The first faceup Market card costs 1 Florin, the next 2 Florins, then 3 Florins, etc. Pay this cost by placing 1 Florin on each card in the same row to the left of the card you are purchasing. To claim the facedown (zero cost) card, thus commencing a trade fair, see action E5.

• If a market spot is vacant, pay the card in this spot in the other market row. (This situation might occur if you purchase two cards in one round.)

• Take any Florins on the card you purchase (but you can’t use them toward that purchase).

• If you place a Florin on a market card for any reason, you may not purchase that card this turn (but you can commence a trade fair per E5).

• If you purchase a Comet it is played immediately per L1.

Example: You purchase the fourth card from the left in the Market by spending 3 florins. Place the first florin on the far left card (see below), the second florin on the next card to the right, and the last florin on the next card to the right. Although there are 2 florins on the fourth card you are purchasing, you cannot use them towards this card’s purchase. You now take the fourth card into your Hand and take the 2 florins on that card.

E2. Play Hand Card & Place Agents

Place an east card from your Hand to the furthest right side of your Tableau, or a west card to the furthest left of your Tableau (next to existing cards). If the played card has a bomb icon,[16] you must first decide and announce if the listed one-shot occurs (1) or doesn’t occur (2). 1. One-Shot Occurs. If the one-shot is a civil or religious war, you must deploy the card’s Rook, Knight, and Pawn Agents as attackers in a Battle per Part J (conspiracies and peasant revolts) or Part K (crusades, reformations, and jihads). If they have survivors, they are victorious and cause a Regime Change. For the other one-shots (trade shift and coronation), there is no Battle and you deploy Agents per the bullets in E2.2 rather than as attackers. Bishops never fight, instead place them per E2.2 (first bullet).

Example (peasant revolt one-shot): You play the Flanders Guilds card, a Pawn Card located in France, and triggers its peasant revolt. The card’s Pawn Agent is the only attacker, see J2. There are no Ruling Class to defend, so the revolt is victorious. The French Empire is still in the empire stack, so you claim it into your western tableau. This Regime Change allows you to place an additional Pawn, for a total of two Concessions, placed in two separate borders next to France.

2. No One-Shot. If you choose to ignore the one-shot, the placement of Agent Tokens is optional. You may place all, some, or none of them. If so, place the number and color indicated on the Map or Tableau per the following bullets.

• Place Bishop Agent. Place it directly on the Tableau card played. Alternately, you may place it on any Tableau card (even in an opponent’s tableau) that has the same printed Location as the Tableau card being played. If you place it on a card with a Token, apply the Diet of Worms Rule or the Pacification Rule (F1).

• Place Knight & Rook Agents. Place these into your choice of Cities on the Map Card specified. If you choose a City occupied by a Token, you must Repress it, and pay 1 Florin for each Token repressed. A placed Agent can even Repress a Token of the same type and color in this manner. Important: The city icon (rook or knight) is irrelevant when placing a Token due to card play! Remember that Constantinople holds up to three Tokens.

• Place Pirate Rook Agents. Take a Rook of the specified color and place it as a Pirate into one of the Sea Borders surrounding the Map Card specified. A Sea Border is one that is crossed by an active or inactive Trade Route. If there is already a Token there (Concession or Pirate), it is killed for no cost.

• Place Pawn Agents. Place one cube of your color into your choice of Borders surrounding the Map Card specified. If it is already occupied by a Concession, you must pay 1 Florin to Repress it (see glossary). You cannot place a cube into a Border occupied by a Pirate. You can place a cube into a non-Sea Border.

• If you run out of Tokens, see Token Management (glossary).

• Strawman. You may always play an one-shot or an Op against your own cards or Tokens. This is called a strawman, and is sometimes useful to gain enough Repressed Tokens to perform a victorious Civil War, or to overthrow your own King to create a Republic.

Example (no one-shot): You play the Flanders Guilds card as in the previous example, but do not trigger the one-shot. Instead you place one of your Pawns in a Border as a concession. The east border is occupied by an enemy concession, and you don’t want to spend a florin to Repress it. So instead you install your concession into an empty border. The west and south borders are open, but the south one is not on a Trade Route and is not likely to be profitable. So you choose to place your cube in the west border.

E3. Sell Card [17]

Discard a card and receive 2 Florins from China. The card sold must come from your Hand or your Tableau. If the latter, Discard all Queens, Vassals, and Tokens on the sold card. See “Discard” in the glossary.

E4. Perform Ops (East or West)

If you choose to activate the east Ops as an action, you may perform one Op in each of the cards in your east Tableau. This is the same in the west. Each card can be used once, for only one of its Op icons (even if the card has more than one icon). See Part F for a list of the Ops.

• Order. You may perform your Ops in any order.

• Target of the Op. You may use an Op only against the targets depicted in the Op icon (see back of each Player Card). The target may be a Florin in the Market (commerce op), a Tableau card (behead or vote ops), a Token on a Tableau Card (inquisitor op), or a Token on the Map (repress, tax, or any of the three military ops).

• “The East” or “The West” Locations. See “Location” in the glossary.

• Target Location. For the Repress, tax, corsair, and siege ops, the target must be Token(s) on the Map Card matching the acting card’s Location (see glossary). (Remember that the Location of a Concession is both Map Cards that it borders.) For the campaign op, the target must be Adjacent to the acting card’s Location. For the behead op, the target must be a card with a Location matching the acting card’s Location. For the inquisitor, commerce, and vote ops, the Location does not matter.

• Strawman Target. You may target your own Tableau cards or Tokens (e.g. Repress one’s own Pawn to gain a florin, avoid taxes, and/or fuel a future civil war). If victorious, a strawman vote op (F6) against your own King creates a Republic.

Easily Missed Rule: Cards and Tokens are independent of each other. If you target a card, the card’s Agent Tokens are unaffected. If you target Agent Tokens, the card that originally generated the Agents is unaffected. You do not keep track of which cards deployed which Tokens.

Example: You have two adjacent tableau cards with the commerce op in your west tableau, but one is silenced by a red Bishop (see below). You also have a bishop card allowing you the inquisitor op (F1*) for red bishops. For an action, you activate your west tableau. First, you perform the unsilenced commerce op, then the inquisitor op to move the bishop to the adjacent commerce card, and then perform the second commerce from the now unsilenced card.*

E5. Perform Trade Fair (East or West) [18]

Use this action to Discard the facedown card in the east or west Market, which convenes the corresponding Trade Fair per Part G. Remember that you do not claim the Florins on the card, which instead go towards general profits (G1).

• You may never purchase a facedown card into your Hand.

E6. Victory Action

Use this action to declare victory per L2.

Ops (short for “Operations”) are activated by action E4. There are four colors of Ops:

• Religious Op. This Op icon (inquisitor) is light blue and moves a Bishop of the indicated Religion. This is the only Op not silenced by the presence of a Bishop (F1).

• Economic Op.[19] This Op icon (commerce) is light orange, and targets Florins in the Market.

• Political Ops. These Op icons are purple, and target the Ruling Class Tokens or cards as shown on the icon. They behead (F3), tax (F4), repress (F5), or elect (F6) their targets.

• Military Ops. These Op icons are dark red, and target the Ruling Class or Pirate tokens shown on the icon. They kill their targets, see corsair (F7), siege (F8), and campaign (F9).

F1. Inquisitor (Religious Op)

Use this Op to move a Bishop token of the color specified by the inquisitor icon either from one tableau card to an adjacent card in the same Tableau, or to another card (in any Tableau) that has the same Location as the one it currently sits on.

• Diet Of Worms Rule. If the destination card contains a Bishop (of any color), both Bishops are killed in an exchange.

• Pacification Rule. Otherwise, if the destination card moved to contains any Repressed Tokens, you may choose one to Kill. There is no cost.[20]

• Move Restrictions. You cannot move a Bishop onto a Player Card. This often means that it cannot cross between east and west (because the east and west are separated by a Player Card in each Tableau).

• The East/West. If a Bishop starts on a card with a Location listed as “The East”, it may move to any card on the right side of any Tableau. Conversely, it may move from any card on the right side of any Tableau to any card with a Location listed as “The East”. Similar for “The West”.

• Silenced Ops. The presence of any Bishop on a card prevents some of its Ops from being used. Only its light blue (religious) Ops can be used.[21]

• Silenced Abilities. A Bishop also silences any listed Ability, e.g. ransom or Stadtwechsel.[22]

Example: You have three reformist cards with the inquisitor icon in your Tableau. Each card so used allows you to move a red Bishop by either one card or to jump to another card sharing its current card’s Location. If you use all three inquisitor ops on the same Bishop, you could move it three cards in either direction, or back and forth. You may optionally kill a Repressed Token on each Empire card moved to (if any). Each card moved to has its non-religious ops silenced until the Bishop moves on.

F2. Commerce (Economic Op) [23]

Use this Op to take one Florin, either from any card in the east Market card row or the west Market card row as specified in the commerce icon.

F3. Behead (Political Op) [24]

Use this Op to Discard one card in any Tableau. The Location of the beheaded card must share that of the beheading card. However, a card cannot behead itself.

• Assassin. If used to Discard an Empire, the card used to behead is itself killed.

Example: Your opponent is using his Qizibash card to siege all the eastern empires to the point that he can campaign all of them. To stop him, you use your “Grim” card to behead the Qizibash. The “Grim” is located in the Ottomans and the Qizibash is located in “The East”. Therefore, the “Grim” is allowed to target the “Qizibash”. (See the Location entry in the glossary).

F4. Tax (Political Op) [25]

Use this Op to target one Concession bordering the Location of the card used to tax. The target’s owner must either pay a Florin to China or Repress the Concession, and then that owner must place a Levy within the taxing Empire. Taxation cannot occur if the target Empire is Saturated.

Example: You have the Holy Land Crusade in your tableau, allowing taxation of Mamluk Egypt. The city of Cairo is empty. You use the tax op and target the Cœur Concession, located between Mamluk and Ottoman. He pays 1 florin to place a rook in Cairo. Since the City icon for Cairo is a white Rook, the Levy is a white rook.

F5. Repress (Political Op)

Use this Op to remove one Token (Knight, Rook, or Pawn as depicted on the repress op icon) from the Map in the acting card’s Location and place it as a Repressed Token on the corresponding empire card in play.[26]

• Empire Not In Play. If the Empire for that Map Card is not in play (i.e. is still in the empire stack), then Kill the Repressed Token instead of storing it on a card.

• Profit. Using this Op to remove a Token from the Map gains you one Florin from China.

Example: You activate your west tableau, including Queen Isabella married to the King of Aragon. You use her “Alhambra Decree” repress op to remove a Concession in Aragon to become a serf on the Aragonese King. You earn 1 florin. Because her icon shows both a pawn and a rook, you could have removed a rook instead.

F6. Vote (Political Op) [27]

Use this Op to cause a Regime Change in an Empire (which awards you a Concession). The Empire can be in any Tableau, but must be in an east or west Tableau as specified on the icon. It cannot be in the empire stack, and it cannot be a Vassal.

• Cost. Pay to China a number of Florins equal to the Empire’s Repressed Tokens (Serfs, Knights, Rooks).

• Majority Rule. To perform this Op, you must have more Concessions than any other player in the Empire’s Borders.

Easily Missed Rule: A successful vote against your own King flips it into a Republic.

Example: You have the French King (Louis XI the spider) with a vassal (The Papal States) containing three serfs. You have two concessions on the Papal States borders, while your opponent has one. You have the Sindicat Remenca card, allowing a western vote. As part of a western tableau action, you use this card to vote, paying 3 florins to flip the Pope to its republic side and move it to your leftmost tableau position. The Papal States retain the three serfs. You gain a Papal concession. All three Papal borders are occupied, so if you wish to add a concession you must Repress your opponent’s concession to place your cube. This costs a florin and adds a serf to the Papal States.

F7. Corsair (Military Op)

Use this Op to move a Pirate Rook in a Sea Border of the card’s Location to another Sea Border in the card’s Location. This Pirate must be of the color specified by the corsair icon, and cannot move to a Border occupied by a Pirate of the same color.

• Sea Battle. Moving automatically kills any Concession or Heretical Pirate in the Border moved to. There is no cost.

Easily Missed Rule. The corsair op moves a Token on the Map, in a similar way that the inquisitor op (F1*) moves a token in a Tableau. In both moves, only one Token is allowed in each Border/card. But there is a big difference. The corsair op can only be used in the Location printed on its card, while the inquisitor op can be used to move a token regardless where it is positioned in a Tableau.*

F8. Siege (Military Op)

Use this Op to kill one Rook, Knight, or Pirate of any color in the acting card’s Location.

Example: You have the Conquistador card located in Aragon with the siege op. In Aragon there is one white Knight and one black Rook, and a black Pirate in the border with Portugal. If you undertake a siege, you may kill any one of these Tokens.

F9. Campaign (Military Op) [28]

This Op is found on King cards only. As indicated by the battle icon, use it to create a Battle in a defending Map Card Adjacent to the King’s Location (note this includes diagonals).

• Attackers. All Knights (of every color) in the King’s Location are the attackers.

• Cost. This Op costs 1 Florin to China for each attacker. To make a campaign, all Knights must attack and all must be paid for.

• Defenders. All Ruling Class Tokens in the defending Map Card are the defenders.

• Repressed. Repressed Tokens in either Map Card do not participate in the Battle.

• Campaign Resolution. A Battle is fought (see last page). If victorious, the defending Empire suffers a Regime Change (see glossary) and is claimed as a Vassal (next bullet) of the attacking Empire.

• Claiming Vassals. Place the defeated Empire on its King side below the victorious King Card in your Tableau, to show his vassalage to your King (now called a Suzerain). Discard all Bishop Tokens, Queens, and Vassals of the defeated Empire. All Repressed Tokens remain repressed on the Vassal, unless you choose to Emancipate them in the Regime Change (see glossary).

• Movement. This Op moves no Tokens among Map Cards. Thus a newly conquered Vassal Map Card contains only Emancipated Tokens (if any) and its Pirates and Concessions (if any).

• Strawman. If a Suzerain successfully campaigns against his own Vassal, or if a Vassal campaigns against another Vassal under the same Suzerain, there is no Regime Change (and thus no Republic is formed).

• Campaigns by Vassals. If a Vassal wins a campaign, the conquered empire ends up as a Vassal under the same Suzerain. However, a Vassal cannot campaign against its Suzerain.

Example: You invade France using the Holy Roman Empire campaign op. The HRE has two knights (red and white, but their color does not matter in a campaign), so you must pay two florins. Note you are disallowed to invade with just one knight for economy. Since France has no Ruling Class, there are no defenders. The HRE wins, and you gain a French concession. You also claim the French Empire card, which was in your opponent’s tableau. Because the HRE is a vassal of the Ottomans, France also becomes a vassal of the Ottomans. France had 2 Repressed Tokens: a rook and a serf of your color. You decide to emancipate both of them, placing the rook into Lyon and the pawn as a 2nd concession into the east border. Otherwise, France would have remained depopulated, because the attackers return to their posts.

If as an action (E5) you Discard the facedown card at the end of the east or west Market, you convene an east or west trade fair respectively.[29] This creates profits (G1), traces a voyage (G2) along the black (east) or white (west) Trade Route, disperses profits (G3) to yourself (the initiator) and all those owning Concessions along the route (until profits run out), and finally raises Levies (G4) along the route. See last page.

G1. Profits

Take 1 Florin (if 2 player game) or 2 Florins (if 3 or 4 player game) from China, and add them to the market florins lying on either the east or west facedown card, as appropriate. Together, these Florins are called profits.[30]

• Discard the facedown card out of the game, leaving an empty space behind.

G2. Voyage

To determine how profits and Levies are dispersed, trace a voyage starting either from the black Emporium and following the black route (if east) or from the white Emporium following the white route (if west).

• Embarkation. The starting Emporium must be the one that is not busted (C1).

• Emporium Profits. The player who convened the trade fair receives 1 Florin out of profits.

G3. Voyage Profit Dispersal

The voyage proceeds from one Map Card to the next, following the Trade Route.

• Concession. If any player has a Concession in the Sea Border between two Map Cards, he receives 1 Florin out of profits as the voyage passes.

• Piracy. If a pirate (of any color) sits in the Sea Border between these two Map Cards, as the voyage passes remove 1 Florin out of profits and into China.

G4. Levies [31]

Each Map Card the voyage enters, starting with the one containing the Emporium, receives one Token, called a Levy. A Levy is placed upon one of the unoccupied Cities on the Map Card, and must be the color and shape indicated. The player who convened the trade fair chooses which City gets the Levy.

• Constantinople. The City of Constantinople is considered unoccupied if it holds less than three Tokens.

• Saturation. If all its Cities are occupied, that Map Card is saturated and can accept no more Levies.

G5. Voyage End

The voyage ends when it reaches its arrowhead, either in the Holy Roman Empire if white or Mamluk if black. However, if the profits run out before this, the last Concession or Pirate to take a profit marks the end of the voyage, and no Levies are raised beyond this point.

• Leftover Profits. If Florins are leftover, they remain in the empty space left by the trade fair card and will be placed on the new trade fair card during the market refresh phase (D2).

Example 1: You convene an eastern trade fair, which starts at Tana. There is a yellow concession between Byzantium and Hungary, and a blue one between Ottoman and Mamluk. If the trade fair has only 2 profits, then one goes to you (the initiator of the trade fair), and the second goes to Player Yellow. The voyage stops there, so Player Blue gets no profits, and only Byzantium raises a Levy. Both Trebizond and Caffa in Byzantium are empty. You choose the latter, which places a white Knight in Caffa.

Example 2: In the example above, suppose there were 3 profits instead of 2. This allows your voyage to go to the Ottomans, stopping at the border where the blue concession takes the last profit. This voyage potentially raises Levies in Hungary and the Ottomans as well as Byzantium. However, Hungary is saturated with 2 tokens. In the Ottomans, all the cities are filled except Constantinople with 2 black knights, and its black rook space free. You have no choice except to place its third token (a black rook).

G6. Bankruptcy Variant (optional)

If you convene a trade fair, you do not receive 1 Florin out of profits, contrary to G2. If you run out of cards, Florins, and Concessions, you are eliminated from the game, simulating that banks can and did fail.

H1. Trade Shift One-shot Effects

If you trigger a Trade Shift one-shot, move the busted disk (C1) (if any) covering the specified Emporium to cover (and deactivate) an uncovered Emporium of the same color. This deactivation Represses any Token that may be there. This reroutes the Trade Route for any future trade fair actions taken of that color.

• Spice Islands Route. You must have had at least one Discovery Prestige in your Tableau (not counting the card being played) before you can trigger this trade shift. If so, move the Spice Island white busted disk (if present) to cover the Trebizond Emporium. This move is permanent, and subsequent trade shifts for the Spice Islands have no effect.[32]

• Kremlin Route. If you play this card, move the black busted disk covering Novgorod to the black emporium that is uncovered (either Timbuktu or Tana).

• Sonike Wangara Route. If you play this card, move the black busted disk covering Timbuktu to the black emporium that is uncovered (either Novgorod or Tana).[33]

All Queens have the coronation one-shot, which if triggered marries her to a King. The King must be an Empire listed on the coronation icon, and must still be in the empire stack (C5).[34]

• A coronation is a Regime Change (see glossary), so you can claim a Concession in that Empire.

Easily Missed Rule: A coronation always produces a King. It cannot produce a Republic, which can only be formed from a strawman (E2.2*) on a King already in your own Tableau.*

I1. Cruciform Orientation

If you decide to perform a coronation one-shot, place the Queen card into your King Tableau attached to the Empire that you received from the coronation. Place the King in landscape (lengthwise) with the Queen card underneath in portrait so that her Ops and Prestige (if any) are visible. The resulting configuration of the two cards is shaped like the “+” sign (an example is shown on page 26).

• Location. The King-Queen pair go into your east or west Tableau according to the Empire Location. A coronated Queen always has a Location in the Empire she is attached to.

• Tableau Ops. The coronated King-Queen pair are treated as two separate cards during an Eastern/ Western Ops action (E4), so that each can perform an Op. But they are treated as one card for Bishop movement/silencing (F1).

I2. Old Maid Queens

If you play a Queen unmarried (i.e. do not trigger her coronation), store her card under your Player card. She is not part of your Tableau and may not perform Ops or Abilities, but add her prestige (if any) to your total at the end of the game (L2).

There are two types of Civil War: conspiracies and peasant revolts. If you play a card with a “Conspiracy” or “Peasant Revolt” one-shot, you first specify if there is a Civil War or not.

• No Civil War. If no, there is no Battle. You may place the card’s Agent Tokens per E2.2.

• Civil War. If yes, there is a Battle, see glossary or last page. Important: In a Civil War or campaign, the color of the attackers and defenders is irrelevant!

• Succession. If the attackers have at least one survivor, the Civil War is victorious, causing a Regime Change (see glossary). See J1 or J2.

J1. Conspiracy One-shot

• Conspiracy Attackers. Place all of the Agents of the acting Card next to the Map Card specified. If there are any repressed Knights or Rooks (but not Serfs) in that Empire, place them next to the Map Card as well. Although they are not physically moved, bordering Pirates join the Battle as attackers as well.

• Conspiracy Defenders. All Ruling Class Tokens (i.e. Tokens in Cities) are defenders in the Battle.

• Theocratic Conspiracy. If your conspiracy in a Theocracy is victorious, you can decide to flip its facedown Map Card to its starting (medieval) side.

Example: You play the House of Borgia and declare that its conspiracy one-shot occurs. This card is located in “The West”, and you announce the target is Aragon. The Agent for the Borgia card is a bishop, but he does not fight. Instead, the attackers consist of a repressed red knight on the Aragon empire card, and one Barbary pirate adjacent to Aragon. Aragon defends with one Ruling Class Rook. Two against one, so the conspiracy succeeds, with one survivor. You choose the knight to be the survivor, and set him in Valencia. The pirate dies. You claim the Aragon empire card from your opponent’s tableau. France, a vassal of Aragon, gets returned to the empire stack. You place a concession adjacent to Aragon for the Regime Change. Finally, you place the Borgia Bishop on any tableau card in the west.

J2. Peasant Revolt One-shot [35]

Peasant Revolts are the same as Conspiracies except:

• Peasant Revolt Attackers. Agents placed due to the one-shot and any Serfs on the empire card are automatically attackers. Any of your Concessions, or pirates of any color, in the location’s Borders also join as attackers.

• Repressed Knights and Rooks do not participate.

Example: You play the Flanders guilds to launch a peasant revolt against the French vassal in your own tableau. The attackers are the Pawn shown on the card, plus (in the French Borders) a Pirate and a concession of yours. There are two Ruling Class defenders, so you win with one survivor. You choose a Pawn to survive, which you place as a concession. You get another concession for the Regime Change. Flip the French empire to its Republic side, and move it to become your leftmost tableau card.

K1. Crusade, Reformation, or Jihad One-shot [36]

If you play a card depicting a crusade, reformation, or jihad one-shot, you can trigger a Religious War in that Location. This creates a Battle (see glossary or last page for resolution).

• Religious War Attackers. Place all non-bishop Agents depicted on the acting card next to the Map Card specified. These Agents, plus all Knights, Rooks, and Pirates on or bordering the Map Card of the same color as the color of the Agents of the card being played, plus any Knights of the same color in Adjacent Empires (these Tokens do not move, but can inflict or be taken as casualties), are the attackers.

• Defenders. The Location’s defenders are Heretics, i.e. all the Knights, Rooks, and Pirates of any other color.

• The Bloody Rule. The Religious War cannot be triggered if there are no Heretics to kill in the target Location (neither Heretic Ruling Class nor bordering Heretic Pirates).

• Repressed Tokens. Repressed Tokens do not fight in a religious war (and thus can’t be used for the “bloody rule”).

Easily Missed Rule: Ruling Class and Pirate tokens do not “belong” to any player. Any player may use them for a religious war, holy victory, etc. regardless who caused them to be placed.

K2. Crusade, Reformation, or Jihad Effects

• Map Card Change. A victorious crusade flips the Map Card if the other side is Catholic. A victorious jihad flips the Map Card if the other side is Islamic. A victorious reformation flips the Map Card if the other side is Reformist.[37] Transfer all Ruling Class to the same Cities on the other side.

• Regime Change. A victorious Religious War causes a Regime Change (see glossary).

Example: You play the Jesuits and start a crusade in Aragon. The attackers are a white rook in Aragon, a white knight in neighboring England, and a white pirate on Aragon’s eastern Sea Border. In the battle the sole defender, a black Algerian rook, dies, and you choose the white Valencian rook as your casualty. The victorious crusade flips Aragon to its theocracy side. Because Aragon is already a kingdom in your tableau, this victory flips it to its republic side, and you can place a concession.

L1. Purchase & Discard the Comet Card

If you buy one of the four Comet cards, you must Discard it immediately and flip over one of the inactive victory cards of your choice to its active side.

• If a Comet reaches the zero cost row of the Market, like any other card it is flipped and no longer available for purchase. It is Discarded out of the game without effect if used to convene a trade fair (G1).

L2. Game End

The game ends if a player uses an action (E6) to declare victory in a particular activated victory card. He must fill the victory conditions listed in L3-L6 for that victory card.

• Patron Victory. The game also ends if both the east and west draw decks are emptied of cards during market refresh (D2). If so, the player with the most Patron Prestige wins.[38]

L3. Holy Victory (Torquemada)

To win, you must have more Prestige in the supreme Religion than any of your opponents. A Religion is supreme if it has: (1) More Bishop Tokens of its color in play than both other Religions combined, and (2) more Tokens (Knights, Rooks, and Pirates) of its color in play in its Theocracies than both other Religions combined. Count only unrepressed Tokens whose color match their Theocracies.

Example: The only Bishop in play is a black token on a Hungarian Tableau card. The only Theocracies are Mamluk (with one black rook), and Papal States (with one white knight). If the Ottoman Navy is played, placing a pirate rook in the Mamluk border, then Islam becomes supreme.

L4. Imperial Victory (Charles V)

To win, you must have at least two more empire cards on their King side (doesn’t matter if Suzerains or Vassals) than any of your opponents. In a 2-player game, it must be three more.

L5. Globalization Victory (Columbus)

To win, you must have: (1) Two more Concessions than any of your opponents and (2) more Discovery Prestige than any of your opponents.

L6. Renaissance Victory (Leonardo) [39]

To win, you must have: (1) More Republics than any of your opponents and (2) at least two more Law Prestige than any of your opponents.

Ability (B4)

A special rule listed on a card is effective as long as the card is unsilenced and in a tableau. Ability effects are cumulative.

Adjacent

Two empires are adjacent if their map cards share a Border, or if they are diagonal to each other on the map. Two tableau cards are adjacent if they are next to each other in a Tableau.

Agents (E2.2)

Tokens placed on the Map or Tableau as the result of the play of a card. The Agents are chess Bishops, Knights, Rooks, or Pawns, as depicted in the corner of its card.

Battle (See last page)

To resolve a campaign (F9), civil war (I), or religious war (J), each attacking Token kills one defending Token, but is itself killed in exchange. The attacking player chooses all casualties. The attacking Tokens are victorious if they have at least one survivor.

• Ruling Class and Pirates. These Tokens never move as a result of a battle.

• Bishops. These Tokens never fight in a Battle.

• Placement of Victorious War Attackers. Any surviving Agents or Repressed Tokens used as attackers in a battle must be placed in the conquered map card (until it is saturated). Any remaining Repressed Tokens on the defending Empire may be Emancipated (see Regime Change). Knights and Rooks go into empty Cities (ignoring the city icon), and Pawns (cubes) go into empty Borders. If there is not enough room in Cities or Borders because of Saturation, place the excess on the Empire Card as Repressed Tokens.

Bishop (F1)

A bishop chess piece on a Tableau card in one of the three religious colors, representing a religious inquisitor or missionary. Bishops are always located on (and travel among) Tableau cards per F1. Thus Bishops are not Ruling Class and never fight in Battles nor become Repressed. The presence of a Bishop silences (i.e. inactivates) all the card’s Abilities and all its Ops except the Religious (light blue) ones. If a card is removed from play, any Bishops on it are removed as well. If a Bishop enters a card occupied by another Bishop, both are killed in exchange. Otherwise, if there is a Repressed Token on the Empire he arrives at, he may “pacify” (i.e. Kill) it.

Border (C1)

The gap between two Map Cards. For instance, England has two Borders, one to the east and one to the south. A Sea Border is a special border that is crossed by an active or inactive Trade Route. For instance, all three of the Ottoman borders are Sea Borders. Each Border can hold either one Concession (Pawn) or (Sea Borders only) one Pirate (Rook). Only a Concession on a Sea Border can receive trade fair profits (G3).

China (C7)

A pool where Florins that are out of circulation are stored. Florins enter the game during a Trade Fair or by selling (E3), and leave the game if paying for repressions by Agents, campaigns, and taxation. China represents the foreign market.

City (B5)

Colored Token icons printed on the map cards are cities. The color and shape of the icon tells you what type of Levy will be placed there, but during the placement of Agents or victorious attackers, any Token or color can occupy a city. Because each city can contain just one Token, the number of cities on a map card effectively limits the maximum number of Ruling Class tokens a Map Card can contain.

Civil War

A collective term for conspiracies (J1) and peasant revolts (J2).

Comet (B6)

One of four cards that forces you to activate a Victory Card if you purchase it for discard. Comets reflect both the science and superstition of this age. The four, identical except in name, are Copernicus, Nostradamus, Regiomantus, and Excommunication of Halley’s Comet.

Concession

A Pawn in one of the player colors located in the Border between two Map Cards. It represents both merchants and the permission to sell at a local port. When a trade fair is convened, Concessions in the Sea Borders along the activated white or black Trade Route line are paid from the profits. A Concession participates in voting, can join peasant revolts as attackers, and helps in a globalization victory. It can be attacked by taxation, Repression, and piracy.

Discard

Cards (and the Tokens on them) are discarded as a result of selling cards (E3), beheading (F3), trade fairs (G1), or Comet purchase (L1). Remove discarded cards from the game, except return discarded Empires (including Vassals) to the empire stack. Return discarded Tokens and Florins to the reserves.

Emancipation

See Regime Change.

Empire (B3)

The 10 public cards with a King (crown shape) on one side and a Republic (scroll shape) on the other. Each corresponds to a Map Card. Each empire starts in the empire stack (C5), but can be added to your Tableau by a Regime Change.

Emporium (B5)

A City marked by a twenty-pointed star is called an Emporium. It can be either white (for commoner luxuries such as spices and silks) or black (for nobility luxuries such as gold and slaves). All Trade Routes start at an emporium, either the white one (if you choose west this turn) or the black one (if you choose east). At any given time only one white and one black emporium are not busted (C1). A busted disk on an Emporium means it is not in play, and so it cannot raise Levies or accept Agents. Novgorod, Timbuktu, and the Spice Islands start busted.

Florins (C7)

Florins, as represented by yellow disks (1 florin each) or red disks (5 florins each), will circulate among players during the game. Florins are depicted on cards (and these rules) as gold florin icons. Florins are added to the game during trade fairs and by selling cards, representing the foreign and domestic markets respectively. They also enter by the Repress Op, representing the slave trade.

• The florins provided in the game are not a hard limit. Use spare disks if required.

• The number of florins you have is public knowledge.

Hand

If you purchase a card from the Market other than a Comet, place it in your Hand. Your Hand size is strictly limited to two cards. You cannot purchase a card if you have two cards in your hand.

Heretic

Any Token of a religious color different from the Agent color of the card used for the Op or Agent placement. If it is the same color as the card’s Agent, it is a believer (i.e. non-Heretic).

Kill

Same as Discard.

King

The side of an empire card containing the king chess piece icon. Each Empire has a King on one side, and a Republic on the other.

Knight

A horseman Token in one of the three religious colors, representing armored cavalry. Knights are important in campaigns and Religious Wars.

Levy

A Levy is a Ruling Class Token placed in a City as a result of a tax op (F4) or trade fair (G4). It cannot be placed in a fully occupied City, and must match the Token type and color indicated on the Map.

Location

The bottom of each Tableau Card indicates which Map Card or Cards (including their Borders) its Agents are placed into and where its Ops take place. Note Player and Queen cards have no Location.

• Religious Ops. The Location of a card used for the inquisitor op (F1) does not matter.

• “The East” Political & Military Ops. During your phase, you can consider a card (in any Tableau) with a Location listed as ‘The East’ to be in any one of the four eastern Locations (Hungary, Ottoman, Byzantium, Mamluk). Thus it acts as a wildcard for one-shots (E2.1), Agent placements (E2.2), and targets of political and military ops (these are purple and dark red in color, see Part F). You must pick one Location for the card, and the next player on his turn can pick a different Location. Example: A behead op in Mamluk can be used against a card with the “Mamluk” location, or against a card with “The East” location.

• “The East” Economic Ops. If the Location of a card is “The East”, its commerce op (F2) can be used only in the eastern Market.

• “The West”. Same as ‘The East’, except it operates in the six western Locations (England, Portugal, France, Aragon, Holy Roman Empire, and Papal States) for Agents, politics, and military operations, and the western Markets for commerce.

• Concession and Pirate Tokens. These Tokens lie in the Border between two Map Cards and are considered to be located in both. Pirates are confined to Sea Borders.

• Bishops. The Location listed on a Bishop card indicates which tableau cards that a Bishop can start in, rather than the Map Cards it can start in.

Map Card (B5)

One of the ten cards that form the map in a 2 X 5 layout, each depicting one of the ten Empires: England, France, Holy Roman Empire, Hungary, and Byzantium to the north, and Portugal, Aragon, Papal States, Ottoman, and Mamluk to the south. Between each card is a gap called a Border. Eight Map Cards start on their medieval side, and two (Papal States and Mamluk) start on their Catholic and Islamic Theocracy sides respectively.

Market (C6)

The Market has two rows: east and west. Each row has 6 cards. The first card in the each row is facedown, and all the rest are faceup. Obtain faceup cards by the purchase action (E1). If you Discard the east or west facedown card, perform the east or west Trade Fair action (E5).

OP (F1-F9) - Most Tableau cards offer Ops which are shown as a row of icons across the lower middle of the card. As an action (E4), you can activate one Op from every card in your east or west Tableau. Each card in your Tableau can only be used for one Op per turn.

Pawn

A cube Token in one of the four player colors, representing a Concession when in a Border and Serfs if on an empire card. A Pawn Agent is depicted as a multi-colored cube.

Player Card (B2)

Start with one Player Card in your Tableau, representing your merchant-banker. This card has no location and Bishops cannot move onto it.

Pirate (F7)

A Rook Token placed into a Sea Border by a pirate card. This placement kills any Concession or Heretical Pirate already occupying the Sea Border. Pirate Rooks take 1 Florin from Trade Route profits (G3) and participate in Civil & Religious Wars (J1, J2, K1). Pirate Tokens cannot be Repressed. They can be moved by the corsair op (F7). They are killed either by the siege op (F8) or by Heretic Pirates entering their Sea Border, either during placement (E2.2) or by the corsair op.

Prestige

There are six kinds of Prestige: Catholic, Islamic, Reformist, Law, Discovery, and Patron. These are depicted in ovals in the upper right corner of certain Tableau Cards, and are important for certain victories (L2, L3, L5, L6).

Queen

A card with the Queen chess icon. Playing a Queen does not place Agents, but can be played either initiating a coronation (I1) or as an old maid (I2). See illustration on page 26.

Regime Change

This occurs in an Empire during a coronation (I1) or if you wage a victorious vote (F6), campaign (F9), or Civil or Religious War against that Empire.

• Empire Stack Regime Change. If the Empire is still in the empire stack (C5), move it to your Tableau on its King side.

• Opponent’s Empire. If the Empire is a King or Republic in an opponent’s Tableau, move it to your Tableau on its King side. Discard any Queens and Vassals but retain all Tokens that were not fighting (Bishops, Serfs, etc.).

• Own Empire. Except in campaigns (see next bullet), if the Empire is in your own Tableau, flip it to its other side. Discard any Queens and Vassals but retain all Tokens. If it was a Vassal, move it to your outermost Tableau position, rightmost or leftmost depending on if it is east or west. Successfully attacking your own Empire is called a strawman regime change, and is the only way to create a Republic.

• Campaign Regime Change. If the Regime Change is caused by a victorious campaign (F9), the winning Empire becomes a Suzerain and the loser its Vassal.

• Concession. If you cause a Regime Change, you may add one cube as a Concession (as indicated by the Pawn Agent depicted on the acquired Empire). Place this Concession in one of the Borders of the Empire. If the Border chosen is already occupied by a cube, you must pay 1 Florin to Repress it.

• Emancipation. If you cause a Regime Change in an Empire that has Repressed Tokens, you may move them (even if they did not fight in a Battle) from the Empire’s Map Card, into either empty Cities (with its repressed Rooks and Knights), or its empty Borders (with repressed Pawns).

Religion

All Tokens except Pawns are in one of three colors indicating its religion: white = Catholic, black = Islamic, and red = Reformist (or Eastern Orthodox).[41] Religious Ops (F1) are light blue in color.

Religious War (K1)

Collective term for a crusade, reformation, or jihad. These are identical except crusades are Catholic, reformations are reformist, and jihads are Islamic.

Repress

This removes a Ruling Class or Concession Token from the map, which is either Killed (if that Empire is not in play) or becomes a Repressed Token (if that Empire is in play, including Vassals).

• Cost. If you repress as a result of Agent placement (E2.2) or Regime Change, the cost is 1 Florin. If you repress as the result of the repress op (F5), you gain 1 Florin. If there are more victorious survivors after a Battle than Cities or Borders to house them, repress them for no cost.

• Serfs. The Location of a card used to repress a Concession determines which Empire it goes into as a Serf.

Repressed Tokens

A Pawn, Rook, or Knight stored on an Empire (including Vassals and Republics). They represent serfs, slaves, and disenfranchised nobility and guildsmen.

Republic

One side of an empire card. It is created by flipping a King in your own Tableau by a strawman Regime Change (either vote, Civil War, or Religious War), and is important for a Renaissance victory (L6).[42]

Rook

A cylinder Token in one of the three religious colors, representing either a noble in his castle (if on a Map Card), or a Pirate (if in a Sea Border).

Ruling Class

All the Knight and Rook Tokens on Cities, regardless of color. Any Rook or Knight placed as a result of a Levy, Agent, or victorious Battle becomes Ruling Class.

Saturation

If all Cities on a Map Card are occupied by Ruling Class Tokens, then the Map Card is saturated. Similarly, if a Border of a Map Card is occupied by either a Concession or a Pirate, then the Border is saturated.

• Levies cannot be added to a saturated Map Card (F4, G4).

• Constantinople is considered unoccupied if it holds less than three Tokens.

Sea Border

See Border.

Serf

All cubes, regardless of color, stored as Repressed Tokens on an empire card as a result of Repression. See illustration next page. Serfs must join as attackers in peasant revolts (J2).

Suzerain

The overlord of a Vassal, see Vassal.

Tableau (C6)

This is a row of faceup cards under your control. Your east tableau is to the right and your west tableau to the left, separated by your Player Card.

THEOCRACY[43] - Rule by a state religion where the priests or mullahs are also politicians. A Theocracy is indicated by a religious icon on the Map Card, and can be either a King or a Republic. Only the Papal States and Mamluk start as a Theocracy, but all the Map cards can flip to a Theocracy as a result of a Regime Change during a victorious Religious War. Ruling Class and Pirates in a Theocracy count towards religious supremacy during a holy victory (L3). Theocracies can be reversed by a conspiracy (J1).

Tokens

Wood pieces on the Map and Tableau. Bishops = inquisitors. Horsemen “knights” = heavy cavalry. Cylinders “rooks” = castles, nobles, and pirates. Player cubes “pawns” = Merchants with concessions (on map borders) or Serfs/slaves (on Empire cards).[44]

Token Management

Each player has 10 cubes, and each Religion has 5 Bishops. There are 10 white, 7 black, and 7 red Rooks. There are 10 white, 7 black, and 7 red Knights. Collectively these are called Tokens. If during card play you wish to place a Token but none remain, you may remove the necessary Tokens from any Repressed Tokens, or (if this is not possible) from any position.

Trade Route (G2)

Two trade routes are active at any one time: the west (the white line) and the east (black line). Each one starts at a 20-pointed star called an Emporium, and ends at the arrowhead. Although there are two white Emporia (Trebizond and Spice Islands), one is always covered by a busted disk (C1) so there will be always just one west trade route. Similarly, although there are three black Emporia (Tana, Novgorod, and Timbuktu), two of them are always busted at a given time leaving one unbusted.

Vassal

If a King conquers another Empire in a campaign (F9), the losing Empire is called a Vassal. The Vassal King card is placed adjacent and below that of its conqueror to indicate vassalage (see illustration). A Vassal’s Prestige and Ops remain active.

• Vassal-Suzerain Combination. The overlord of a Vassal is called a Suzerain. Like the cruciform orientation (I1), a Vassal and its Suzerain are treated as two separate cards during an Eastern/Western Ops action (E4), but are treated as one card for Bishop movement/silencing (F1). A Bishop moving to a Suzerain is considered to be on its Vassals as well and vice versa.

Free Banks in the 15th and 19th Centuries, and Implications for Today

There is no evidence for the peculiar theory that the black plague was responsible for the decline of feudalism. Indeed, no pandemic or famine has ever been seen to have an overall positive effect in the short or long run. The best that can be said is that demand for labor rose, and so did city wages (despite government efforts to hold wages at pre-plague levels). Serf continued to be unpaid slaves, hunted down if they escaped. And although the plague was Eurasian in extent, feudalism was replaced by capitalism and banking in only a few commercial centers, particularly Florence.

It was in the course of their entrepreneurial adventures that Florentines gradually eroded these traditional religious and social prejudices against their activities, while at the same time laying the foundation of a different, capitalist culture. Those in the vanguard built up an international commerce, banking, and finance network that extended throughout much of Europe. They drove the economy.

The golden age of banking in the 15th century produced the Renaissance and ultimately the Western World. In America, a similar era of free banking under a republic and the gold standard brought a similar golden age of prosperity and growth during the 18th and 19th centuries. According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, the Postbellum period of 1865-97 saw a steady real GNP growth of 4% per year and a price level decline of 2% per year. Financial intermediation trended up during this time, as measured by the deposit-to-currency ratio and the loans-to-GNP ratio. This increase of profits demonstrates that the falling prices are caused by increases in production and do not represent deflation.

The free banking era ended with the Federal Reserve’s seizure of the money supply, which forcibly seized all private gold, issued fiat “paper” money instead, and turned banks into heavily regulated government bureaucracies. Under the fiat money system, at the touch of a few computer keys, a central bank such as the U.S. Federal Reserve System regularly credits the checking account of the Treasury. Money is created without limit and without cost, allowing a politician to print his way out of debt. The falling prices and prosperity were replaced by constant inflation, punctuated by episodes such as the Great Depression of 1929.

The U.S. Housing boom of 2001-06 and the subsequent bust were not the results of laissez-faire or deregulation in the monetary system (which remains firmly under governmental control). The boom and bust were the results of the interaction of an unanchored government fiat monetary system with a perversely regulated financial system. Overly expansionist monetary policy fueled impudent lending (e.g. HUD affordable-housing mandates to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) that was incentivized by “too big to fail” and other regulatory distortions.

Why Not the East?

There have been other occasions in human history where technology, trade, and cultural priority combined to create an opportunity where a renaissance, a radical shift away from top-down rule and towards individualism, could have sparked.

The aptly-named ‘Golden Age of Islam’ contained many of the ingredients needed to turn the tide against monarchy and feudalism.  Caliphs subsidized great scientists and thinkers, and were viewed favorably for doing so.  Some of the earliest universities and observatories were founded.[1]  Islamic thinkers sought out and translated Greek, Persian, Egyptian and other ancient works, and used them as stepping stones to their own scientific achievements.  Philosophy, science, medicine, optics and every other endeavor to determine the ‘whys’ of the universe were united under a single rationally-derived discipline, falsafa.  That respect for logic and natural law found its way into the Islamic legal system, providing at least the building blocks with which concepts of individual rights and free thought could have emerged.  Unfortunately falsafa fell victim to the rise of the Ash’ari, a religious movement predicated on the belief that human knowledge could only be attained by direct revelation from god or his prophets.  Their charismatic eventual leader, an exscientist-turned-mystic named Muhammad al-Ghazali, argued that the orderly patterns of nature (e.g. the rising and setting of the sun, the changing of the seasons, things falling when you dropped them) were an illusion, therefore rendering the study of science and logic pointless.[2]  Al-Ghazali’s philosophy also had grave legal consequences as he championed the unification of Sharia law, until then predicated on principles of rationalism, with Sufism, a then somewhat obscure mystical self-purifying sect of Islam.  Instead of a spark of progress, Ash’arite doctrine triggered a collapse of the political, religious and scientific progress in the Islamic world.  While the battle for science, free thought, and the hearts and minds of the Islamic world didn’t end with al-Ghazali,[3] the Mongol destruction of Baghdad in 1258 (then the world capital of science and learning), did.  The Middle East has never recovered.

Another potential cradle for political and economic freedom could be found further east. The Chinese Song Dynasty featured the trade-fueled political transformation of warlords into civil servants, religious evolution away from mysticism and towards a rational ethos (neo-confucianism), as well as advanced banking, moveable type printing, poetry and literature, math and architecture, wild gadgetry that would make da Vinci jealous… oh and gunpowder too.  The dream died in the 1270s when they were conquered by Kublai Khan and the Mongols.  China had another shot when they kicked out the Mongols and started the Early Ming Dynasty in 1368.  Still the heart of global trade, and with the world’s largest navy, the Ming abandoned the (Song invented) paper currency, and spread and established trade hubs across the Indian Ocean.[4]  The hope for a Ming renaissance was undone by political isolationism due to the threat of invasion by, who else, those damned Mongols.  This threat was born out by the embarrassing capture of the Ming emperor in battle in 1449.[5]  The Chinese trade fleets were ordered home, leaving a naval and economic vacuum that would be filled by the Portuguese once they found their way around the Cabo das Tormentas. The Chinese tradition of isolation and xenophobia was born.

Western Europe dodged the two bullets that killed the hopes of an Eastern Renaissance… they had surviving religious conventions founded in Natural Law (thanks to Thomas Aquinas), and they were far away from the Mongols.[6]

By Emily Lau.

Columns cover the three battle types. Conspiracy and Peasant Revolt are the two kinds of Civil War; Religious War covers crusade, jihad, and reformation.

Battle Resolution

Resolution is an Exchange in all four columns. For a Religious War, casualties must be greater than 0.

Action E5.

1. What do you know about Renaissance bankers? That they were rapacious, greedy, and fabulously rich? That they purchased Kaisers and Kings? What you don’t know is that they were the first capitalists, the first to overcome the tyranny of warlords. As they vanquished medieval feudalism, they steered the Western World out of the Dark Ages and into the world of 747s, skyscrapers, and Coca-Cola. Such is the thesis of the game.

2. Today’s intellectuals and professors routinely label the Renaissance as an irrelevant and eurocentric illusion of progress. Indeed, they smear all of history as “written by the winners”, denigrate all knowledge as “culturally biased”, and dismiss all truth as “subjective”. Plato would have been proud. Small wonder that students find history irrelevant - why waste time studying a set of dates and power struggles if knowledge and meaning are impossible? But history is relevant to one’s own time. One can understand other times and cultures. Westernization replacing serfdom is a good thing. A recommended book is “The Swerve, How The World Became Modern” by Stephen Greenblatt (2012).

3. “It took more than a revival of antiquity to make the Renaissance…it took money - small bourgeois money: the profits of skillful managers and underpaid labor, of hazardous voyages to the East and laborious crossing of the Alps, to buy goods cheap and sell them dear, of careful calculations, investments, loans, of interest and dividends accumulated until enough surplus could be spared from the pleasures of the flesh, from the purchase of senates, signories, and mistresses, to pay a Michelangelo or a Titian to transmute wealth into beauty, and perfume a fortune with the breath of art. Money is the root of all civilization…Doubting the dogmas of the Church, no longer frightened by the fear of hell, and seeing the clergy as epicurean as the laity, the educated Italian shook himself loose from intellectual and ethical restraints, his liberated senses took unabashed delight in all embodiments of beauty in woman, man, and art,…” Will Durant, 1953

4. The Republic of Florence was already over a century old when it first privately minted the florin in 1252. This coin reintroduced the gold standard to Europe, and the reputation of the Florentine banks quickly made the florin the dominant trade coin of Europe. Thus a Republic became the birthplace of banks, capital, and the Renaissance. Unlike other currencies, the florin was never debased (diluting gold with base metals, or manipulating the gold-silver ratio), a common form of disguised taxation by royals. The only comparable European region with such conservatism in mint policies was England, whose strong Parliament blocked royal greed.

5. Republics in Italy and Flanders were the first time that merchant guilds supplanted landowning aristocracy in governance, and constitutional Law supplanted royal whim. The fragmentation of these regions favored the Renaissance. Statism promotes order and power rather than liberty or art. What Italy and Flanders lost in the capacity to defend against foreign invasion, they gained in the conversion of the populace to rivalrous merchants able to sponsor architecture, sculpture, painting, education, scholarship, and poetry.

6. As in other Pax games, the cards and Tokens are divided into two social classes: agents of persuasion and agents of force. The agents of persuasion (serfs, merchants, slaves) are pawns. These commoners have no power but earn their sustenance through voluntary transactions with others, offering goods and services. The agents of force (royals, ruling class nobility, pirates) are the remaining chess pieces. They have the swords and armies to enforce involuntary transactions. Defining a government as the agency with a monopoly of force, these include government bureaucrats, viziers, inquisitors, tax collectors, and warriors.

7. Today, the East-West dichotomy is most apparent in the inward-looking religions and medical practices, usually associated with the East, with their outward-looking Western counterparts. Eastern thought is today dominated by the idea that consciousness controls existence, and true knowledge comes from introspection, bypassing the external world. Western philosophy holds the opposite, that consciousness is a subset of existence, and that knowledge of existence comes only from objective extrospection. An Eastern doctor uses meditation, acupuncture, and the occult to find a patient’s “inner power” of self-healing, in sharp contrast to the microscopes, X-rays, and surgery of Western Medicine. “Mind over matter” versus “Nature bats last”. This division is clear in today’s world of anti-West suicide bombers, but in the Middle Ages it was the Islamic world that was “Western” in its philosophy while Europe was steeped in mysticism. The Renaissance represents a fundamental role reversal in thought.

8. At the game’s start, medieval feudalism had dominated for a thousand years, and could have easily lasted another thousand. The warlord in his castle was a micro-government, overseeing toiling serfs in his fields. The serfs, indistinguishable from slaves by most definitions, were legally tied to the land and owned by their lord. They had no hope that their sons might do better, or even a concept of betterment. Those who claim that money is the root of all evil should note that there was no capital in medievalism, few rural lords and even fewer serfs had even seen coinage. Endless warfare ensued as neighboring fiefs battled each other for land, the only commodity. Liberation from feudalism came from an unlikely source with no swords and no power: the merchants and bankers.

9. Banking promotes the economy by facilitating lending, payments, and trade in risk. While lending often steals the limelight, the role of the banks in facilitating payments and trade in risk is no less essential. The Italian bankers cashed checks, issued letters of credit, exchanged merchandise as well as credit. Florentine bankers invented double-entry bookkeeping (since at least 1382), the written order of payment, and insurance for voyages. The Florentine rates of exchange (about 10%) fixed the rates for all the currencies of Europe. Meir Kohn, 1999

10. Jakob Fugger sponsored German smelting technology, increasing silver output fivefold in his lifetime. He owned silver and copper mines in Tyrol, Hungary, and Silesia, and quicksilver mines in Spain. His bank financed the “Humanist Pope” (Leo X) and after 1508 obtained the right to mint Papal money. He lent immense sums to Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I (never repaid) and secured the 1519 election of Charles V by bribing the electors. His bank assumed control of much of the Medici holdings before its ruin by the rapacious Habsburgs in 1557.

11. Cosimo de’ Medici was a humanist banker who spent vast sums sponsoring Florentine artists and scholars. He is often (but falsely) described as the “de facto” ruler of Florence 1415-64. But in this half century he never held public office, remaining nothing more than a rich and respected bank manager (albeit one who accepted responsibility for fortifications and defense). His opinion was respected in the Signoria (Florentine ruling council of guilds), but the council retained final say in constitutional interpretation of the Florentine Republic, and indeed, when bribed by rival banks, imprisoned and exiled him twice. He obeyed meekly, as a banker he commanded no arms. His son, Lorenzo the Magnificent, carried his tradition after barely surviving an 1478 assassination attempt by a rival bank. In 1494 the Medici were exiled from Florence for 18 years, and their bank burned by a mob incited by the Pope and the mad friar Savonarola.

12. Resembling Lawrence of Arabia, the great French merchant Jacques Cœur pioneered the spice trade with the Levant. He owned a fleet of galleys, a great warehouse in Montpellier, and banks in Barcelona, Avignon, Lyons, Paris, Rouen, Bruges, and the Levant. For financing Charles VII’s invasion of Normandy in the Hundred Years War, Jacques was summoned to Paris, knighted and made master of the mint. But in 1451 Charles had him arrested on trumped-up charges and confiscated everything he owned. Jacques escaped two years later, and narrowly eluded his pursuers to start his career over in Rome.

13. The Marchionni family imported slaves, mainly females, from Caffa in the Crimea to work as domestic servants. After Caffa was shut down by the Turks in 1475, the family sent their scion Bartolomeo to Lisbon, to work in the nascent West African slave trade. Starting as an office boy in the Florentine Cambini Bank, he became Portugal’s wealthiest banker and trader in African slaves from Guinea. Even after the Cambini Bank went bankrupt in 1482, Bartolomeo Marchionni maintained a lease on the Niger Delta, and financed Vespucci and Vasco de Gama in their voyages. In 1518, one of his sons went to the Indies.

14. Like the Renaissance, banking was Italian by birth. Italian banks dominated until about 1480, when the Fugger and other German banks arose in the free cities of Augsburg and Nürnberg. Although the German banks were free of the papal usury prohibitions the Italian banks suffered under, they lagged far behind the Italians in accounting methods, such as double-entry bookkeeping.

15. Northern Italy was more urban and industrial than any other European region except Flanders. It had never suffered full feudalism, but had subjected its nobles to its cities and merchant class. For a century, the capitalist city-state of Florence was the cultural capital of the world. Will Durant, 1953

16. These bombs are actually Renaissance grenades. The first cast iron models appeared in Europe in 1467.

17. “Sell” represent the profits from the internal money-lending market. The earliest bankers such as Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici made their fortunes from small investors. They offered a reward to the shyest investor, bring credit within reach of the petty trader and craftsman, and making mere entries in books of account a flexible substitute for disbursements of cash. Farmers and peasants wiped out by a crop failure could recover with a bank loan. For instance, when scab had reduced the sheep production to zero in England, the shepherds could not have recovered, and English wool exports could not have reached such high levels, without the injection of Italian capital. Such loans were safe and profitable, because the infrastructure is locked to the land and not going to disappear.

18. There are no Islamic banks, i.e. institutions dealing in money as a specialized pursuit. Indeed medieval Arabic has no word for banks or banking, nor for the abstract notion of money. The Islamic world, like Italy, absolutely prohibited interest of any kind. Also prohibited is the notion of deposit, where the depository keeps funds and uses them for commercial purposes. Buying and selling on credit was an accepted and widespread commercial practice, providing funds for enabling trade, an outlet for surplus capital to be profitably used, and lubricating business when coins were unavailable. Merchants provided their own money changing and books for merchant banking, based upon their hierarchal social status and reputation. Suftajas were issued by and drawn on well-known bankers. Unlike the Bill of Exchange, so central to European banking, a Suftaja is more akin to a check without an exchange of currencies. Status and social hierarchy formed the basis for credit and merchant banking activity. Clever Islamic money-lenders could bypass usury prohibitions through the use of non-profit donations, establishing the elaborate waqf system still used today.

19. It’s a common fallacy, both in the Renaissance and in today’s era of political correctness, to see all productive activity as manual labor. This was true in feudalism, a non-division-of-labor society where production means nothing more than the toiler in the field or at the loom. But in a capitalist society, beginning with the first ones in Florence Italy, the vast majority of productive activity is accomplished by unsung middlemen: bankers, traders, retailers, advertisers, and entrepreneurs. All these activities are viewed with suspicion by anti-capitalists, although they fuel the economy and enrich the lives of all who employ their services. It could hardly be otherwise, since use of their services is voluntary, and only proceeds if a value is gained on both sides. The Renaissance and the ending of serfdom represented a quantum leap in the lives and destinies of humanity and civilization.

20. Simulation-wise, this represents bishops pacifying the oppressed with a fatalistic philosophy and dreams of the afterlife, rather than actually killing them.

21. This silencing effect reflects the general religious condemnation of banks and financing in Europe. The charging of interest is condemned in Deuteronomy 28:20: “Unto a foreigner thou may lend usury; but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend usury.” Catholics and Moslems interpreted “brother” to refer to any human being, whereas the Jewish interpretation (stemming from the High Middle Ages) identifies a “brother” as a fellow Jew. These interpretations allowed Jews to dominate money-lending throughout Europe and the Ottoman Empire, from neighborhood pawnshops to international financing. But they also sparked anti-Semitic pogroms during the Spanish Inquisition and Luther’s reformation, as well as England, France, and Austria. What fueled such hatred? Those clans who specialize as intermediaries between producers and consumers, the so-called “middleman minorities”, have always been persecuted throughout the world. Examples are the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, the Ibo in Nigeria, Chinese in Southeast Asia, the Tamils in Sri Lanka, the Lebanese in Sierra Leone, the Koreans in the USA, the Gujaratis in South Africa, and the Jews in Nazi Germany. The widespread hostility against middlemen minorities is not due to religion, race, or creed, since they differ from one another in all these regards. What they have in common is their much resented economic role - regardless who performs that role. Although bankers perform invaluable services, they are falsely accused of being exploitative, greedy, miserly, rapacious, and redundant. They are blamed for high rates, despite the fact that they would be shut out by the free market if they raised prices arbitrarily and the real cause is taxes, inflation, or crime. If forced to pay off public officials to keep their business, they are accused of corruption, a clear case of blaming the victim. From the expulsion of the Medici to the Holocaust of WWII, irrational prejudice against bankers and middlemen continues today. Thomas Sowell, 2006

22. “Stadtwechsel” is German for “Letters of Credit”, a conditional guarantee of payment. This 1504 accounting innovation gave German banks the lead in international banking.

23. Like all games in the Pax series, wealth is created by voluntary transactions, especially trade, rather than by “resources”. In a feudal society this is not possible, since there were no divisions of labor (other than lord and serf), and no voluntary transactions. In the Renaissance, the business class was organized into guilds. Today’s western lawyers are still usually organized along guild lines.

24. Bankers are routinely accused of having politicians in their pockets. Indeed, trying to protect their earnings from arbitrary seizure, bankers such as the Fuggers and Medici used their wealth to influence votes and elections. But just who is in whose pocket here? A king can behead a banker, but not the other way around. A banker commanded no armies, no police, and no tax collectors. He could not force a single transaction. If his customers came to mistrust him, they simply went to a rival bank. At any time a ruler could seize all his gold for any reason, or no reason. Or perhaps worse, seize his ships for use in war or crusade. Emperors need bankers who they can manipulate and control, rather than the other way around. A banker does not need Empires, only customers.

25. This represents not just taxation but also royal loans made under threat of seizure, closure, or imprisonment. All the banks in the game, obtained their enormous wealth from small short period loans. A typical customer is a farmer suffering a crop failure, who needs capital to restart next year. This loan is safe for the banker, as the farmer is tied to his land and is not going anywhere. From these humble examples millions of florins were made. However, because bankers are powerless commoners, they can only try to stave off forced loans by whatever means of persuasion they possess. The Fuggers of the Deer, for example, were bankrupted when their reserves were emptied by the ruling Habsburgs, and Lukas Fugger was appointed as “King of Atlantis” in “compensation”. The King of France seized the vast assets of the rich banker Jacques Cœur, baselessly accusing him of poisoning his mistress. Jacques eventually escaped from prison and restarted his career from the ground up in Rome. The Medici bank, headquartered in a Republic (Florence) rather than a Monarchy, fared better, but nevertheless faced exile with confiscation of property in 1433, 1494, and 1527. Despite the injunction of Cosimo Medici to the Medici branches to “never lend to princes, courts, or the upper aristocracy”, forced loans closed the Medici banks in Milan, Bruges, Lyons, and London.

26. As commoners bankers held no power to repress or tax, but could influence the royals and nobles who held such power.

27. The Renaissance Republics that sprung up in the mercantile zones along the coasts of the North, Tyrrhenian, and Adriatic Seas were ruled by the vote of committees of guild elders. Although England and the Holy Roman Empire were not republics, they also had electoral colleges whose vote became important for freedoms and reform. In a Republic, rulers are subject to the laws just like anyone else, and have been stripped of the power to arbitrarily change them. Some form of separation of power maintains political stability, rather than the divine right to rule.

28. The use of loans to launch campaigns revolutionized military history, with a far greater impact than the introduction of the firearm. Armies had a greater proportion of paid men, including mercenaries, and could stay in the field longer. The Italian bankers operating in England, France, Italy, and Germany were casually repaid from the proceeds of customs duties. In this way, revenues can be anticipated, and the cost of an expensive campaign spread over several years, avoiding intolerable short term tax hikes. The bankers requested that the monasteries serve as loan guarantors, and also as safe houses for the storage of gold, jewels, and plate. The King of England considered loan guarantees to be an outrage, and demanded the Italian bankers to be “menaced as they deserved”. When he decided to seize all private deposits, it was the monasteries that were searched, not the Italian residences. Prestwich 1979.

29. The black Trade Route represents the slave and gold trade. The white Trade Route represents the silk and spice trade from the Orient, originally over the Great Silk Road from China. In 1488, Bartolomeu Dias discovered a maritime route around the southern tip of Africa. He called it the “Cape of Storms”, but the King of Portugal quickly renamed it “The Cape of Good Hope”. This made for better PR, much the same way as Greenland was named. Whatever its name, the discovery of this route made Oriental imports far cheaper, within the reach of the mildly affluent, thus increasing the demand 10X. Thus the rise of Atlantic ports such as Lisbon and Antwerp.

30. In capitalist theory this represents demand, which increases when cheap foreign goods become available (such as when a bank convenes a trade fair). This causes an initial outflow of gold, reducing prices and wages in the nation (and increasing them in the Orient). These changes make the country’s producers more competitive, both domestically and abroad. Some part of the domestic market initially lost to imports would be regained and an expansion of exports would take place. The country would end up both importing and exporting more. Fewer citizens would be involved in the domestic market, and more in import and export (and banking). The net gain of the citizens would be that the additional imports they obtained represented more and better goods than they could produce with the same labor devoted to producing the domestic market. The citizens of the Orient would correspondingly benefit.

31. In the Renaissance, kingdoms rose and fell depending on how the trade routes were aligned, and how many levies kings could raise from customs fees. The biggest annual fleet were those of Venice and Genoa. The Signoria of Venice granted a yearly commission to bank investors to take trade goods from Venice to Flanders via four great galleys. They stopped at ports in Africa, Spain, and England, and returned with goods and gold, especially Flemish wools for the Italian weavers. Armed with 30 crossbowmen per galley, they risked pirates and having their boats seized by kings needing war vessels, but given a salary of 600 ducats and, upon safe return, a bounty of 3500 ducats for their efforts.

32. Unlike the other trade route shifts in the game, the Portuguese discovery of a maritime route around Africa to the Orient quite suddenly turned the Mediterranean from the hub of the world to a quiet backwater. Especially the Ottomans and Venetians who saw their customs revenues dwindle to almost nothing. The caravel, the only ship capable of such a voyage, was invented around 1451 under the sponsorship of Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal. A modification of a fishing boat design, the lateen sails of the caravel gave it speed and the capacity for sailing windward, and its construction allowed it to cross open waters.

33. As the game begins, Western Europe returned to gold coinage for the first time in half a millennium, which proved to be an excellent remedy against money shortages and inflation. Genoese and Catalonian bankers obtained gold dust from the Wangara Saharan caravans from Timbuktu with a terminus in Safi, a port in Morocco. Since the western banks and mints were mostly privately owned, the rulers had to request or demand funds from the bankers. Some rulers such as the King of Aragon established public banks in Barcelona, Valencia, Majorca, and Gerona. Despite outlawing private competition, the state banks all quickly failed and forfeited the depositor’s money. Meanwhile, in the Byzantine and Islamic worlds, the emperor or sultan regulated the mints and controlled the money supply.

34. Normally only an unmarried prince could get married to a queen, but King Henry VIII would disagree.

35. The wave of Renaissance peasant revolts and serf emancipations was the death knell for feudalism in Western Europe and eventually all slavery. But Eastern Europe, slower to industrialize and urbanize, saw a “second serfdom” that was particularly onerous, and whose long shadow still divides Europe into the West and the East.

36. Politics and military conquest were more important than religion to the Ottoman sultans. Although the Empire had a state religion (Hanafi Sunni), it maintained a secular legal system (Qanun), with authority over its non-Muslim majority. Practice of non-Islamic religions was allowed as long as one paid a special communal tax (jizya) or individual tax (maktu). These funds helped finance an elite force of slave warriors (Janissaries), a large fleet, and all of the administrators, civil servants, and judges needed to control a diverse empire and enforce tariffs and customs fees. If the Ottoman Empire had instead become a theocracy, if it attempted to impose Sharia on all of its subjects, (or forcibly convert them like Catholicism did during the Reconquista), its administrative advantages would have been lost. The mighty Janissaries would have been preoccupied putting down religious revolts, or rebelling themselves due to lack of payment (yes Janissaries were paid slaves; it was… complicated). The greatest structural weakness of the Ottoman Empire was its reliance on a Sultan to give top-down orders. When a Sultan died, the transition of power got messy, with mass fratricide being legal rather than criminal. Matt Eklund, 2016.

37. As part of his effort to make the Catholic Church less worldly, the evangelist of protest Martin Luther attacked Aristotle and objected to the intrusion of logic into theology. “Whoever wants to be a Christian should tear the eyes out of reason,” he said, reversing some of the successes which the spread of Aristotle’s philosophy of reason had brought to Renaissance culture. Burgess Laughlin, 1995.

38. What sort of man was Cosimo de’ Medici? He rose early, went nearly every day to his office, like an American millionaire. He dressed simply, ate and drank temperately, and (after begetting an illegitimate son by a slave girl) lived a quiet and orderly family life. He was normally humane, mild, forgiving, reticent, and yet known for his dry wit. He was generous to the poor, paid the taxes of impoverished friends, and hid his charity, like his power, in a gracious anonymity. He donated 400,000 florins ($10,000,000?) to public works and private charities, twice as much as he left to his heirs. Along with his descendants Lorenzo the Magnificent, Leo X, and Clement VII, the Medici patronized learning and art to a degree unequaled by any other family in the history of mankind. Will Durant, 1953

39. What underpinned all the great artistic, literary and architectural achievements that we now see as quintessentially ‘Renaissance’ was an equally momentous revolution in trade and finance. Ever since the Crusades of the 12th century, a politically fragmented and economically undeveloped Europe looked to the cultures of the east for luxury, wealth and new ways of doing business. Dr. Jeremy Brotton, 2011.

40. The Renaissance was named for the revival of the philosophy of the ancient Greeks, in particular Plato and his student Aristotle. Plato was the first thinker to systematize other-worldliness, rather in line with the inward “mind over matter” subjective philosophy associated with eastern mysticism (see footnote 7). Aristotle was the first thinker to systematize worldliness, the objective “matter over mind” philosophy identifying the importance of understanding this world with objective reason and logic. Aristotelian ideas were introduced to the Islamic East by Al-Farabi and later Ibn Rushd (Averroes), but tragically lost through the influential preachings of the Muslim mystic Al-Ghazali. Although dead in the East, the ideas of Averroes reintroduced Aristotelian philosophy to the West, especially with the support of the great philosopher and theologian St. Thomas Aquinas. This led to the rise of the universities and ultimately the Renaissance. In Italy, logicians at the secular University of Padua developed an Aristotelian method of proof and discovery, inspiring treatises on bookkeeping and arithmetics. This culminated in the integration of mathematics and experimentation into the formulation of the logic of scientific discovery, the work of Padua’s famous professor of mathematics Galileo. Long before Galileo however, the rival Florentine Platonic School came to dominate European intellectual thought - except for logicians and scientists. The humanist approach to political and economic problems were lacking both in basic principles and logic and shunned science with its instruments and measurements. Although Cosimo de’ Medici was the greatest of the humanists, very little of note was accomplished by them. Sadly, Platonism remains the dominant philosophy of intellectuals today (even scientists).

41. Although early game prototypes had 4 religions, unfortunately all Christians with issues of Papal Supremacy have been shoehorned into “Reformist”. The “Islamic Reformation” of Shi’a also proved impractical to accommodate.

42. The republics of the Renaissance were not democracies, although the two are frequently confused. A democracy is an unlimited majority rule, a social system in which one’s work, property, and life are at the mercy of any gang that may muster the vote of the majority at any moment for any purpose. In a republic, the majority has no say over the basic principles of governance, which are instead based upon discoveries of the nature of man as documented in a constitution. The USA was founded as a republic, not a democracy. Ayn Rand, 1976.

43. The separation of Church and State is an indispensable prerequisite for freedom. One of the artists for this game is a friend who faces death in her nation of birth (Iran) because she has become an atheist. Nevertheless, a theocracy has an advantage over democracies or autocracies where the rule of law is inconsistent or arbitrary, which is even more debilitating for individuals and their transactions than a complete (but predictable) tyranny.

44. This game’s chess piece motif reflects medieval units that were made obsolete by the Renaissance. Kings and queens became figureheads in proper republics. Pawns (serfs) became merchants in a new business class, which today includes all employers, employees, and freelancers. Bishops are still with us, but have lost their political clout in a separation of church and state. Knights lost their “mafiosi” role of demanding protection money from the cities, and became mercenaries and police. The castles of the landowning aristocracy (rooks) were helpless before Renaissance artillery. Since then, land has become less and less valuable compared to the value of ideas, and landowners produce less wealth than entrepreneurs.

45. The Al-Azhar University in Cairo might be the first ever built (ca. 970). Like most Islamic institutions of learning of its time, it was integrated with a Mosque. Learning about God and learning about the Laws he created to govern the world (Science! Math!) were the same pursuit. To know Natural Law was to know God.

46. For example Al-Ghazali convincingly argued that fire does not burn things, God does.  Anytime something burns, it was an example of God reaching down and directly intervening in the natural world.

47. The great Islamic legal scholar Muhammad ibn Rusd (Averroes) was still fighting the good fight 50 years later. His defense of Aristotle over Ash’arism inspired the later work of Thomas Aquinas.

48. Led by superhero explorer Zheng-He, who proved you don’t need balls to have big ones.

49. He outnumbered his Mongol opponents something like 30:1.

50. However almost not far enough. Vienna was famously saved when Ogedei Khan (the immediate successor to Ghengis), died of alcohol poisoning in 1241.

Design: Phil and Matt Eklund, Sierra Madre Games © 2016.

Development: Stefano Tiné.

Cover: Foreground by Marinus van Reymerswaele, 1541. Background by Sheyda. Layout by Karim Chakroun. Citation from the Niccolò novels of Dorothy Dunnett, 1986.

Rules: Kyrill Melai, Nikolaj Brucker, Ken Sinn, Josh Rea, Roel van der Hoorn.

Battle Table: Emily Lau.

Playtesters: Chris Peters, Andy Denison, Raimund Ruppel, Jenny Bradbury, Mikko Heikela, Jon Manker, Ingeborg Asplund, Phirax.

Genoa Playtesters: Stefano Tiné, Mauro Cella, Fabio Santamaria, Diego D’Arrigo.

Vassal Module: Alfonso Velasco.

Special Thanks: Liz’bet Campbell, who introduced the Renaissance to me.

Website: www.sierra-madre-games.eu

“At first sight, the economy consists of two enormous areas: production and consumption. One completes and destroys; the other renews and starts afresh…But between these two worlds slides another, as narrow but as turbulent as a river, and like the others instantly recognizable: exchange, trade, in other words the market economy—imperfect, discontinuous, but already commanding the centuries.” Fernand Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–18th Centuries, 1979.