edge of the playing area where there is no coast). Provinces
may be of any size, large or small. A newly created province
need not be immediately (or ever) occupied and could be later
occupied by any player during his own turn.
A province should have (but need not) at least one symbol
space. Otherwise, it is worthless, as it cannot be occupied. It
is possible to create a province that is just a single symbol
space. For such a province, the tax levy will be zero and it
is unlikely that such a province will be useful.
Profit
: the
value
of a province is determined by the
number of open (non-symbol) spaces in the province.
Each is worth 1 point when levying taxes. A large
province is, naturally, worth more, but is also harder
to occupy because more symbol it has more cards
and pieces are necessary.
When a player moves Alexander, he should do so to try to create
provinces with high open to symbol space ratios, so he can then
occupy them. The more open spaces, the more valuable a province is
and the fewer symbol spaces, the less it costs to occupy. Of course,
more valuable provinces will be ripe for takeovers from avaricious
opponents.
Occupy an empty province:
The players try to occupy provinces so they can use them to levy
taxes and earn the points needed to win the game.
To occupy an unoccupied province (one not occupied by any player), a
player must place at least one of his guards on any one of the symbol
spaces in the province. For each other symbol space in the province,
the player must pay (place face-up on the discard stack) a card from
his hand matching the symbol on the space.
If a player does not have the cards required to occupy a province (or
does not want to use the cards he has), he may use additional guards
in place of the missing cards. In fact, he may use as many of his
guards as he wants (and has left) to occupy a province. He places
each guard on a symbol space in the province and the pays cards (as
above) for any remaining symbol spaces (if any) in the province. Such
a move should be reserved for special cases, as when a player has a
chance to occupy a very valuable province, but is missing a required
card. Without guards, a player will be unable to occupy further
provinces. Also, a player cannot levy taxes or score points for a
province with more than one guard.
Figure 7
: red occupies a large
province with 6 symbol spaces
and 9 open spaces by placing
two guards in the province (on
a temple space and a horse
space) and playing 4 cards
matching the other symbol
spaces in the province:
amphora, lyre, temple, and
soldier. If he had a horse card
or another temple card, he
could have used one of these
cards instead of the extra guard.
A province may be divided when moving Alexander.
In
figure 8
, yellow has just conquered an huge
province, worth 11 points, hoping to keep it until next
turn when he is plans to levy taxes, but the other players
may try to divide this province by moving Alexander inside it.
For example, on red's turn, the player may decide to move Alexander
toward one of the 5 spaces indicated with a white/red dot in figure 10
(that means 14 different points).
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