OBJECT OF ALTIPLANO: The object of Altiplano is to earn the highest number of points throughout the game.
NUMBER OF PLAYERS: 2 to 5 players
MATERIALS: Seven Location Tiles, Fifty-Six Game Cards, Five Road Markers, Five Player Pawns, Fifteen Carts, Fifty Coins, Twenty-eight Extensions, One Scorepad, Two Hundred and Nine Goods Tiles, Seven Role Tiles, Five Scoring Overviews, One Extension Strip, One Start Player Marker, Five Cloth Bags, Five Warehouses, and Five Action Boards
TYPE OF GAME: Strategic Card Game
AUDIENCE: 12+
OVERVIEW OF ALTIPLANO
Thriving in the mountains of South America can prove to be difficult. Goods and resources are getting harder to find and stores are diminishing quickly. Find new income, build new roads, and store things in the warehouse in an attempt to survive and thrive. If you are clever and adaptive the tough conditions will give you no trouble at all!
SETUP
Before beginning to setup the game, determine the number of goods and cards to use throughout the game using the chart. Shuffle the order cards and remove six random cards if there are two or three players, remove four cards if there are four or five players.
Place the location tiles randomly, positioning them in a way that all locations are adjacent to two others, forming a circle in the middle of the table. This is what will form the plateau. All food tiles as well as coins are placed in the middle creating the supply.
On the Market location, place the order cards and glass tiles, on the Farm place the alpaca tiles, cloth tiles, and wood tiles, on the Mine place the stone tiles, ore tiles, and silver tiles, on the Forest place the wood tiles and cacao tiles, on the Harbor place the fish tiles and boat cards, on the Road place the corn tiles, and in the Village place the house cards and cards.
Place all extensions that aren’t needed for your number of players back into the box. Place the other extensions into four stacks, facing down, depending on the backs of the cards and shuffle all of the stacks individually. Create one large stack by placing the D stack first, then C, then B, then A on top. Put the extension strip onto the table, and then position the top five extensions in the five slots on the right side of the extension strip.
Player Prep
Once players choose their colors, they will receive one action board, one warehouse, one player pawn, one road marker, one container, one cart, and one cloth bag. Players’ road markers can be placed on the top space of the road. Their carts are placed on their own action board in the designated space. The youngest player will receive the start player marker.
Next, assign roles to each player. Shuffle the seven role tiles and ensure that each player receives one. Depending on their role, players should take the good tiles, food tiles, and coins that their card prompts them to grab. Good and food tiles are placed into the bag and coins are placed on the side of the action board.
GAMEPLAY
Gameplay takes place throughout numerous rounds, and each round consists of four individual phases.
Phase One: Drawing
This phase occurs for all players at the same time. Before drawing tiles form your bag, instead, you can gather tiles that have been previously placed on your action spaces and place them on planning spaces that are unoccupied. You may also retrieve coins that have not been spent from your extensions. You cannot remove tiles that are in your warehouse or orders and place them on planning spaces.
If you choose to draw tiles out of your bag, they must be at random. Every time, you will draw the number of tiles that are equal to the number of planning spaces that are not occupies that you have available. You may only take up planning spaces one, two, three, and four at the beginning of the game.
If there are not enough tiles available in your bag for planning spaces that are unoccupied, draw what tiles you have left and empty your container into your bag to refresh it. Then proceed to draw the tiles you need to finish your more.
Phase Two: Planning
This phase also occurs for all players at the same time. You can now place tiles that were on your planning spaces onto action spaces that are unoccupied. Each area shows which tiles need to be placed in order for the action to be taken. You do not have to use all of the tiles in your planning spaces.
Only one tile may be placed on each action space. Once a tile is placed on an action space it may not be relocated until you take the action or retrieve the tile. Each player will then announce their planning is complete in order for the group to move to phase three. You may not move your tiles after you have declared planning to be complete.
Phase Three: Actions
The start player will begin the game. Each turn, players take one action. They will continue to take actions until they must pass. They are no longer able to take any further actions.
During your turn, you can take one action as long as you meet the requirements to complete the action and your pawn is at the right location tile in the plateau. You do not have to take actions if you do not want to.
You may move your pawn before or after you take your action. You may choose to move by foot, one space at a time, or by card, three spaces at a time. If you choose to move by foot, you must use one food from a movement action space to move one step to an adjacent location. If you choose to move by cart, you can move three steps to adjacent locations by using a cart. A player may only use their cart one time each round.
When a player begins to fill their warehouse, they must fill from the bottom up, fill left to right, only have one good type in each row, and only one incomplete row for each good type. Food tiles can never be stored in the warehouse. Corn must be stored immediately. It may act as a substitute for other goods, and they take priority.
You may fill your container by gaining tiles while taking actions. When spending coins, they are always placed back into to the supply after they have been used. Coins will never go in your container or your bag, but they are kept on the side of your action board. Once all players pass, the group may continue to the final phase of the round.
Farm Actions: While on the Farm, you may choose to produce food, produce wool, or produce cloth.
Forest Actions: Producing wood and trading cacao are the two actions that can be completed in the Forest.
Mine Actions: In the Mine you can produce silver and produce stone.
Harbor Actions: In the Harbor you can construct a boat, trade fish, and produce food.
Village Actions: While in the Village, you may construct a house, store goods, or purchase a cart.
Market Actions: The Market allows you to sell goods, purchase an extension, obtain an order, and deliver goods.
Road Actions: While on the road, you may build a road.
Phase Four: Cleanup
Cleanup allows the group to get ready for the upcoming round of gameplay. The next player obtains the start player marker from the first player. This continues clockwise around the group. All cards that were previously used throughout the round are then moved back to the left-hand side. If there were extensions bought during the previous round, and slide all of them downwards to fill any gaps. Discard extensions at the bottom if none were lost.
END OF GAME
The end of the game begins when any location has no more items or there are not enough available extensions to refill slots of the extension trips. When this happens, players will complete the round and play a final round before scoring begins.
To begin scoring, remove all tiles from everywhere but your warehouse and order cards and sort them by type. For Wood, Stone, or Cacao you earn one point. Wool or Ore is worth two points, Cloth and Silver are worth three points each, and Glass is worth four points each.
Every boat card is worth two points, and a house card is worth four points. For each type of good listed on the house card, you score one point for goods tiles that match that type. Listed points of any orders that have been fulfilled are added to your total. Each row that has been competed in your warehouse earns you the listed points. Score points for each completed mission card.
When all the points have been accumulated and added up, the player who has the most points wins the game!
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