¶ Game Setup
- Arrange the map in the middle of the table, for two (2), three (3) or four (4) players. Place a two-sided starting province (A) for each player. Divide all of the one-sided province tiles into two piles - (B) four mono tiles with all hexes of the same terrain type (forest, mountain, desert or sea), and the remaining one-sided tiles (C). Shuffle each pile, fill the space between the starting provinces with random tiles from the pile (C), and place a random mono tile (B) in the center.
- Place the track board next to the map. Mark the initial prices of goods - put the transparent markers on the spaces in the middle of the scales. Mark round 1 with the same marker.
- Shuffle all 4 achievement decks and reveal 1 card from each.
- Shuffle the event cards and put the deck next to the map.
- Shuffle the technology cards of age I and arrange the technology grid - the layout of 3х4 or 4х4 (for 2 & 3 or 4 players, respectively) of faced up technology cards.
- Shuffle the Wonders deck and reveal the top 3 cards.
- Place the cube supply aka bank where each player can reach it. There are neutral, black and colored cubes (a color per player). You can divide them into a couple of piles, if that is more convenient.
- Place the coins supply aka bank where anyone can reach it.
- Put the relic tokens next to the map.
- Put the religion cards and their tokens next to the map.
- Put the battle bag and the check bags somewhere on the table.
Each player chooses their color and prepares their player zone:
- Take the player mat and place 3 cities, 3 castles, walls, Wonder and 24 buildings on the corresponding areas there.
- Put 6 action cubes in your personal supply on your player mat.
- Put 8 starting action cubes next to your player mat.
- Gain the starting resources: +3
+ 3
+ 3
.
- Gain the starting 25
.
- Take all the unit tokens of your color and place them nearby for easy access.
- Take 3 different government cards and place them faced down in your player zone.
- Take 2 random achievement cards from the deck, choose 1 to keep and 1 to discard.
- Locate your capital (the fourth city token remained in the box) in the central hex of your starting province.
- Place 5 units of peasants on any hexes around your capital. There can be maximum 4 units on one hex.
- Place your cube from the box next to Glory track.
- Choose a nation card at random or use a draft method for experienced players. You may skip this step entirely in your first game.
- Choose the first player in any convenient way. You can, for example, put one cube for each player into the bag and draw one at random – the owner of the drawn cube becomes the first player.