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Dominate the mythological Aegean!
Be prepared to travel to the Cyclades archpelago during the golden age of the ancient Greece.

With the blessing of the Gods of Olympus and the support of Mythological Creatures, recruit troops, build ships, create fortresses and construct metropolises. The struggle to bring your people to their highest glory will be legendary!

With Cyclades, Bruno Cathala and Ludovic Maublanc (Mr. Jack, Dice Town) reinvents development and conquest games. In a ninety minutes game, live through an incredible adventure in which soldiers, philosophers, mythological creatures and gods are common.

Civilization has dawned upon the Aegean Sea. Settlements are appearing across the islands of the Cyclades, on Naxos and Mykonos, Paros and Thira. Priests are making sacrifices to the gods on newly-hewn stone altars. Heroes are battling the monsters that haunt the sea’s depths and the vicious creatures that prowl among the rocks. As a leader of men in Cyclades, you have a chance to found a legendary metropolis and rule the Aegean. All you have to do is earn the favor of the gods.

Designed by Ludovic Maublanc and Bruno Cathala, Cyclades is a board game of city building and savage battle for two to five players. Your goal is to be the first leader to control two metropolises in the Aegean. In order to do so, you’ll have to earn the favor of Olympian gods, establish the buildings of civilization, defeat your enemies in war, and tame mythological creatures to your will.

All Things Are From the Gods
As heroes like Perseus and Cadmus know, nothing can be accomplished without the help of the gods. In Cyclades, five Olympian gods—Zeus, Poseidon, Ares, Athena, and Apollo—determine what actions you can take and when you may take them. They enable you to move your ships, recruit troops, and build cities, but the gods do not aid mortals freely. With the sole exception of Apollo, you must give them offerings if you want their help.

You begin a round of Cyclades by randomly revealing which gods will be involved in your affairs that turn and when each will act. In a game of fewer than five players, some of the gods will turn their attention away from the Aegean, cutting you off from the actions those gods enable. Then, you have a chance to draw revenue from your islands and ships. Once you have taken that revenue, you make an offering of gold to whichever god you need most that round. Apart from Apollo, gods grant their favor to only one leader at a time, so if another player has already made an offering to the god you hoped to win over, your offering must be larger in order to be successful. If another player outbids you, you must turn to another god.

Ares, the god of war, enables you to build fortresses, recruit troops, and move your troops into position to attack. Similarly Poseidon, god of the sea, lets you build ports, recruit fleets, and send your ships against an enemy fleet. Athena, goddess of wisdom, lets you build universities and recruit philosophers (four philosophers creates a metropolis for free). With the aid of Zeus, you can recruit priests who contribute to your offerings, build temples that attract mythological creatures, such as the Sphinx, the Cyclops, and Pan, and change which creatures roam the Aegean.

Apollo, god of sunlight, the arts, and oracles, operates quite differently from his kindred. He demands no offerings, and offers his aid to more than one player at once. He provides money: four gold to a player who controls only one island, one gold to a player with multiple islands, and a prosperity marker to the player who chooses him before any other player. You can place that prosperity marker anywhere in your territory, and it provides you with revenue every round.

Gold is as essential to victory as the gods. Not only do you need gold to make your offerings, but you must pay gold to recruit additional troops, fleets, priests, and philosophers, to construct buildings, and to call upon mythological creatures. Therefore, while Apollo may not seem as powerful as the other gods at first, you must have him on your side to win.

Cities Built on Riches
The gods’ favor and a heap of gold are the only means to your true goal: controlling two metropolises in the Cyclades archipelago. The question is whether you will use the gods’ help to construct your own metropolises, conquer another’s, or combine both approaches and alternate between peace and war.

There are two ways to construct a metropolis. Once you possess all four different buildings (port, fortress, temple, and university) anywhere on the islands, you must demolish them to create a metropolis which comines all of their functions. Similarly, if you recruit four philosophers, you must immediately discard them to place a metropolis somewhere in your territory. Since you cannot build two metropolises on a single isle, you want to ensure that more than one isle is under your control.

Any building or metropolis that you construct may be conquered. If you leave an isle undefended, another Aegean power can simply invade and occupy it. But with enough troops stationed, and perhaps a fortress or port, you may fend off the enemy attack. Combat works essentially the same way on land and sea: each player involved rolls one die and adds the number of troops and fortresses (if on land) or fleets and ports (if at sea) in the combat zone to the result. The player who rolls the lowest result loses one unit of troops or a fleet. Both parties then have a chance to retreat before the battle continues on. If neither party retreats, the battle lasts until only one player has a military presence in the combat zone.

Fleets cannot occupy land or attack troops, and vice versa. To move your troops to a new isle, you must create a chain of fleets between isles to convey them, and you must control all the fleets in that chain. You cannot move troops onto land through an enemy blockade, which means that although fleets can't fight on land, a blockade can be used to effectively defend your buildings. No matter where you send your forces, you need the help of the gods to move them: only Ares lets you move troops, and only Poseidon allows you to move fleets.

Beasts of Myth
All four gods enable you to enlist the aid of mythological creatures—as long as you can afford to pay some gold, of course. Every round, three mythological creatures appear, each bearing a unique power. When a mythological creature first arrives, it costs four gold to call upon, but if not called up immediately, it will accept less gold the next round. You must use the power of a creature as soon as you enlist it. These temperamental beings do not linger around humans, waiting to do the will of others.

The powers of mythological creatures affect all aspects of the game. If you can persuade a Dryad to help you, she will steal a priest from the player of your choice. A Cyclops takes a building of your choice and refashions it into another type of building, even when this transformation results in creating a metropolis. Five of the creatures are particularly powerful in war: the Minotaur, Chiron, Medusa, Polyphemus, and the Kraken. Any of them may hand you glorious victory, even in dire circumstances when you anticipate defeat.

Civilize and Conquer
Until now, the Cyclades isles have been a rocky, uncultivated wilderness where monsters roam and the gods are neglected. Now is the time for you to introduce civilization and transform the Aegean’s chaos into prosperity. Peace is impossible: war will reign until one great leader dominates the Aegean in Cyclades.

Contents:
1 Modular game board
2 special dice
98 gold pieces
16 prosperity markers
4 large God tiles
40 building tiles

Multilungual: FR/EN/DE

Authors: Bruno Cathala and Ludovic Maublanc

Players: 2-5
Age: 13+
Gametime: 90 minutes