Evolution
Hosted by @Jane
In the game Evolution, players adapt their species with traits to
survive in an ever-changing ecosystem. Food is scarce and carnivores
run rampant. Your choices will determine the fate of the world’s
species: which will survive, which will thrive, and which will
disappear from the planet forever
The game is played around the watering hole 
(This is basically flavor and doesn’t mean anything significant)
The game contains 129 Trait Cards. These cards are assigned to a Species during the Play Cards Phase, and give it certain effects. There are
17 Carnivore Cards.
7 Ambush Cards.
7 Burrowing Cards.
7 Climbing Cards.
7 Cooperation Cards.
7 Defensive Herding Cards.
7 Fat Tissue Cards.
7 Fertile Cards.
7 Foraging Cards.
7 Hard Shell Cards.
7 Horns Cards.
7 Intelligence Cards.
7 Long Neck Cards.
7 Pack Hunting Cards.
7 Scavenger Cards.
7 Symbiosis Cards.
7 Warning Call Cards.
Each Player starts with one Species Board. Food is reset every round. Population and Body Size both start at 1.
Ex:
1 2 3 4 5 6 Food ( /
)
Population (Ex. )
Body Size (Ex. )
In this example, the Species with a Population of 3 and a Body Size of 1 obtained 2 .
Food will be represented by or by . It indicates how much food the Species can take during each Feeding Phase. How to obtain / will be explained during the Feeding Phase
Population will be represented by any animal of the user’s choice. Population determines how much / the Species can take. The Population of a Species can be increased by discarding a Species card during the Evolution Phase.
Body Size will be represented by any animal of the user’s choice. The Body Size of a Species can be increased by discarding a Species card during the Evolution Phase.
Each player also has a Food Token Bag (Which is where you’d put the food you’ve collected but that isn’t really required here, so also flavor).
The game is divided into rounds. Each round has 4 Phases (excluding the Set-Up)
Phase 0: Set-Up
- Each Player selects an animal to represent their first Species. To speed up this process, please do this while signing up.
- The Deck of Trait Cards is shuffled.
- The Starting Player is randomly determined. The Starting Player is represented with the
. After each round, the person who signed up after the Starting Player becomes the new Starting Player.
Phase 1: Dealing Phase
- Each Player is dealt 3 Trait Cards + 1 Trait Cards for each Species they have.
- If there are not enough Trait Cards left, this will be the last round of the game. The Cards from the Discard Pile will then be shuffled and the Dealing Phase wil continue.
Phase 2: Watering Phase
- Each player secretly chooses 1 Trait Card from their hand. These are the “Food Cards” that will be revealed during the Feeding Phase to determine how much Plant
Food will be available for the round.
Phase 3: Evolution Phase
During the Evolution Phase, each Player may perform one of 3 actions. A Player does not have to perform all 3 actions each phase.
-
Play a Trait/Evolve
A Player may secretly assign one or more of their Trait Cards to one of the Species. These will be revealed at the end of the Evolution Phase. A species may not have any duplicate Trait Cards and may not have more than 3 Trait Cards.
If a species already has 3 Trait Cards, a player may play a Trait Card on that species by first
discarding a Trait Card that is already on that species into the Discard Pile. -
Create a New Species
A player may discard a Trait Card face-up into the Discard Pile to get a new species, and must select an animal to represent this new species. The new species must be placed to the left or the right of his existing species; they may not be placed between existing species. -
Increase Body Size/Population
A player may discard a Trait Card face-up into the Discard Pile to increase the Body Size
or Population of one of their species by 1. A species cannot move its markers beyond 6.
Play passes to the next player who signed up. After the last Player’s turn, the played Trait Cards are revealed.
Phase 4: Feeding Phase
The Feeding Phase proceeds in 4 steps:
-
Reveal Food Cards
The Food Cards from the Watering Phase are revealed, and are added to the Watering Hole according the Food Numbers (Bottom right) of the cards. If the
total on the Food Cards is a negative number, that amount of Plant Food is removed from the Watering Hole. The revealed Food Cards are then placed face-up on the Discard Pile. -
Trait Cards that have a leaf symbol in the upper right-hand corner have effects that
occur at this time. Players may choose the order in which their traits activate. -
Feeding Species:
Beginning with the Player and continuing clockwise, each player must feed one of their Hungry species. A species is Hungry if it has less food than its Population. When a species takes food, it is placed in the space above the Population track
starting with the “1” Population space. Any food eaten will
be worth 1 point at the end of the game.
Feeding Non-Carnivores:
1 Plant Food is taken from the Watering Hole and placed onto the Species Board of the species.
Some traits (like Foraging) may modify the amount of food that will be taken from the Watering
Hole, but in no case can food be taken from the Watering Hole if it would give a species more
food than its Population.
Feeding Carnivores:
Carnivores can never eat Plant Food, even with the help of traits such as Long Neck or Cooperation.
They feed by attacking other species. A player may attack any species, including their own.
Carnivores can continue to attack even if the Watering Hole runs out of Plant Food.
An attack can be made if:
• The Carnivore’s Body Size is greater than the Body Size of the Species being attacked.
• The Carnivore has the traits necessary to overcome the attacked species’ defensive traits (if any).
If the attack is successful:
• Meat Food is placed on the Carnivore’s Species Board equal to the
attacked species’ Body Size.
• The Population of the attacked Species is reduced by 1. If this reduces its Population to below the amount of food already eaten, place the excess food in the attacked
player’s Food Token Bag. If this reduces its Population
to 0, it goes Extinct. (See Extinction)
Important Feeding Rules
• Non-Carnivores normally eat Plant Food, but they can also eat Meat Food with traits such as Scavenger or Cooperation. A Carnivore may never eat Plant Food.
• A species must eat if it is Hungry and there is food available. This means a Carnivore must
eat a species with Horns if it is the only legal target.
• A species can never take more food than its Population.
- End of Feeding
Feeding ends when all species have food equal to their Population, or when
all Hungry species are no longer able to eat.
-
If a species did not eat food equal to its Population, reduce its
Population to the amount of food eaten. If a species did not eat any
food, it goes Extinct. (See Extinction) -
Each player places all of the food eaten by his species
into his Food Token Bag. -
Any player with no surviving species gets a new species.
-
The next Player becomes the new
Player.
Extinction
If the Population of any species is reduced to 0, it goes Extinct. Discard the *Species Board and Trait Cards on that species, and draw a number of Trait Cards equal to the number discarded. If the deck needs to be shuffled, the next round will be the last round of the game. Any food
that was on a species killed by a Carnivore is placed in that player’s Food Token Bag.
Scoring
- Each food in a player’s bag is worth 1 point.
- Each species is worth points equal to its Population.
- Each Trait Card on a surviving species is worth 1 point.
If there is a tie, the player with the most Trait Card points is the winner. If there is still a tie, the player with the most Population points is the winner. If there is still a tie… well… uh… shit?
Please read the rules (I know, they’re long) before signing up.
Players:
- Apprentice (
) - Moleland (
) - thepigeonnyc (
) - an_gorta_pratai (:
) - Trochilidae (
) - Whysper (
)
