Polski
English
Deutsch
Who came up with the thought of two architects designing the same basilica? That’s how it ends when you have a dispute with a bishop, but you don’t want to attack the Church … By the way, it turned into a small competition. The one who builds the greater part of the temple will be rewarded. Profusely rewarded…
The legendary Basilica is back in a new refreshed form! Łukasz M. Pogoda’s game (ORP Orzeł, Savanna) has a new version, and within it a mini-extension – Festum Fatuorum with special Basilica tiles and Altar tokens. Medieval Florence. Two architects were delegated to build the world’s most magnificent basilica, but only one of them will make history as the genius of his time. Build more fragments of the vault, give orders to builders, and when necessary… copy your opponent’s moves. After all, if you want to be famous, all the tricks are allowed…
In the new version of Basilica, instead of a single game board, you will find two separate ones: the Basilica board and the Scoring board. You will encounter an even nicer form of 58 Basilica tiles, 8 Scaffold tiles, 8 Training tokens, and the Builder cubes have been replaced with climatic pawns. The biggest treat, of course, will be the Festum Fatuorum mini-expansion, thanks to which you will add 8 new Basilica tiles and 14 special Altar tokens to the game.
Before you start designing, prepare all of the elements. Place the Basilica board in the center of the table and place 3 Basilica Vault tiles (the front side of the Basilica tile) and 2 Order tiles (the back of the Basilica tile) in the indicated places. From the remaining Basilica tiles, make a pile to replace the missing tiles on the board. Then add 6 Builder pieces, 4 Promotion tokens and 1 Coin to your supply. Next to the Scoring board, place one Builder pawn (this will be your score marker) and a Queen pawn to show the scoring phases. Place the remaining components – Scaffold tiles, Stained Glass tiles, and Score markers – next to the board.
During your turn, you must perform three of the following available actions: Place Vault, Place Builder, and Execute Order. The actions in the turn may be repeated, however, you can only take the Place Builder action immediately after the Place the Vault action. And what are these actions exactly?
When performing the Place Vault action, you take one of the three Vault tiles available on the board and add it to the Basilica. The basilica is made up of 5 by 5 squares on the table adjacent to the board. Each subsequent tile must either be adjacent to the board or a previously placed tile. On the other hand, you cannot put two two-color tiles, i.e. Jokers, next to each other.
When choosing the Place Builder action, take a Builder pawn from your supply and place it on the Vault tile that you placed earlier. If all of a player’s Builders are already in the Basilica, that player may not choose this action.
To perform the Execute Order action, you take one of the three Order tiles available on the board, resolve its action, and place it in the discard pile. If the chosen Order tile has a Coin symbol, your opponent will be able to perform a so-called Paid Order. To do this, he gives you a Coin (if he does not have a Coin, he cannot perform a Paid Order), and then copies the effect of your Order, gaining an extra action outside his turn.
Order tiles work in many ways. Some of them affect Vault tiles – thanks to them you can place Stained Glass, split up the Basilica with scaffolding, and even remove tiles that were placed earlier. Others, in turn, affect the Builders themselves, who you will be able to assign different specializations, such as Architect, Master Mason, and even Juggler. All of these actions, when used properly, can greatly increase your score during the scoring phase
How do we score points? Well, there are four colors of the Basilica tiles – yellow, blue, red and green, as well as Jokers, i.e. two-color tiles. Vault tiles placed in the Basilica are divided into areas. An area is a group of tiles of one color adjacent to each other with at least one side. This means that a single area can be made up of even one tile, while Jokers can belong to two areas at the same time. During the scoring phase, you check the number of your Builders in each area of the Basilica. The player who has the most of his Builders in a given area scores points equal to the number of tiles in that area. His opponent, in turn, will receive as many points from this area as the number of Builders he has in it.
Whenever you take a Vault or Order tile from the board, you must immediately replace it by adding the appropriate tile from the reserves. If there are not enough tiles in the reserves, shuffle the already used tiles to make a new pile. If the reserve pile is exhausted twice before the third scoring, the game will end early. Normally, the game continues until the third scoring. Scores are measured by the Queen’s pawn on the scoring board, which moves up and down the board each time you have a Crown symbol on any tile you use. This means that you can influence the scoring time to some extent, setting it in your favor.
And once you’ve gained some experience in Basilica, you’ll be able to spice up your gameplay with the Festum Fatuorum mini-expansion. The expansion introduces two new elements to the game: Altar Order tiles, as well as Altar tokens. During setup, shuffle the new tiles into the pool of main tiles. By selecting such a tile during the game, you will be able to Execute the Altar Order. To do this, take two Altar tiles from the pool and place them on two different ceiling tiles. During the scoring phase, tiles with both Stained glass and Altar tokens add 4 points (instead of a basic 2) to their area value. Furthermore, the tiles with the Altar token are protected from being destroyed by the Disaster Order.
Is everything clear? Then grab your pencils and sketchbooks and start designing!
