Technopoly

Game World

The world of Technopoly contains Objects, some of which have special Attributes assigned during their initial invention or discovery.

Although Objects may be given appropriate units of measurement (tonnes of rock, square metres of textiles, heads of sheep), these units are equivalent for game purposes - it takes a Robot equally long to build or mine one unit of anything, and endgame scoring is simply a totalling of units.

Objects are either Machines or Fuel - those with attributes which include an "Activate:" trigger are regarded as Machines, the rest are Fuel.

A particular type of Machinery already exists, and is immediately available to all Players - the Robot.

Game Cycle

Each Player starts with a hand of three Attribute Cards, and two Robots in play. If a Player ever runs out of Robots, a single, new Robot is immediately airdropped to them.

Players take turns, in sequence. During each turn, they may either:-

• Control their Robots.

  Each Robot (or Automatic Machine) belonging to the Player may be assigned a task - these tasks are defined in the next section.

  Tasks may be assigned en masse ("With 10 Robots, I shall build 7 Spy Satellites and 3 more Robots") or one after the other (using one Robot to invent a new Machine, and letting the others start building it if it proves useful).

• Carry out research.

  The Player skips their entire turn to either draw a new Attribute card from the draw pile, or draw back up to a hand of three cards. (There is no maximum hand size.)

When everyone's taken their turn, that's the end of a round. At the end of every round after the tenth, roll a 20-sided die; if the roll is equal to or less than the round number, then the game ends.

When the game ends, the Player who owns the greatest number of Objects (excluding Robots, or any Objects whose Attributes affect scoring) is declared the winner.

Robot Tasks

• Invent a new Object.

  The Player declares that they are inventing (or discovering; the terms are interchangeable) a new type of Object. Initially, such an Object is a generic Fuel with no particular qualities.

  The inventing Player may choose to play an Attribute card from their hand, to add a feature to the new Object. If he or she does so, then each other Player may respond by adding another Attribute from their hands (typically a negative one), to the design.

  The inventing Player may then add another Attribute card from their own hand; again, each opponent may respond. This process repeats until the inventing Player stops playing cards.

  Once invented, the new Object should then be named appropriately by its Inventor, and - in the case of Fuel - given an arbitrary unit of quantity (the amount that one Robot can mine in one turn), for future reference. Any names are acceptable, but a newly invented Object cannot share a name with a previously invented Object.

  After inventing a Fuel, the Player has sole Mining Rights for that Fuel. After inventing Machinery, the Player is the only one with the Technology to build such devices.

  Example: Aleric declares that one of his Robots is inventing a new, Invulnerable Object; he plays the Invulnerable card. Boris accepts this, but Colin responds by playing the Inert card onto it.

  Aleric declines to play any more cards onto it. He has now invented, and has the sole Mining Rights for, an Invulnerable, Inert Fuel, which he chooses to call "Granite", and which he chooses to manufacture and score by the tonne. He then orders five of his Robots to mine five tonnes of Granite.

• Create an Object which the Player has the Mining Rights or Technology for.

  The Robot creates one unit of the specified Object.

  Remember that Robots are always able to create new Robots, as all Players have the Technology for them.

• Activate a Machine.

  Some Attribute cards have effects which require a Robot to manually activate. Each Machine can only be activated once per turn.

  If a Machine has several "Activate" Attributes, only one of them may be used during a turn.

  Example: Boris has two Robots, one Cloning Machine (Copier, Unique) and a Sheep (Fuel). The first Robot uses the Cloning Machine to clone a Sheep. The second Robot cannot use the Cloning Machine to clone another Sheep, however, as the Machine has already been used this turn.

• Attack another Object.

  A Robot may attempt to attack a specific instance of an Object. Take a twenty-sided die and attempt to roll equal to or below the number of such Objects belonging to the Object's owner. If successful, one instance of the specified Object is destroyed.

  If a Robot attacks another Robot and loses, the attacking Robot is destroyed.

  Example: Boris sends a Robot to attack Colin's enviable stockpile of Uranium (a Hazardous Fuel). Colin has 6kg of Uranium, so Boris needs to roll a 6 or lower. He succeeds, destroying 1kg of Uranium. Boris attacks again with another Robot, now requiring a 5. He fails. He tries with a third Robot and fails, and decides to stop at that point.

• Monitor a High-Maintenance Object.

  Objects given the "High-Maintenance" Attribute need to have Robots assigned to monitor them, every turn, to stop them disappearing.

Fuel

Some Machines require Fuel to create or operate, and some Fuels require other Fuel to be expended in their mining.

During the Invention of an Object, cards may be played specifying that that Object "requires Fuel". In such an event, the inventing Player must nominate a type of Fuel from those that have been discovered, excluding those which were discovered by the inventing Player. If no such Fuel is available, he or she must wait until one becomes available, and select that.

(If a Player plays a "requires Fuel" card on one of their own inventions, however, they are allowed to choose their own Fuels for it.)

In the case of cards which require two or more Fuel, the inventor may either choose multiple copies of the same Fuel, or a variety, with the same restrictions above.

When Fuel is "burnt", it is destroyed. You can only burn Fuel which you own.

Trading

Players can agree to trade at any time, even during other players' turns - the game stops while the trade is debated and either resolved or abandoned, and play then continues.

As well as trading Objects with one another, Players may also agree to trade Technology and Mining Rights (giving other players the ability to create or mine particular Objects). Players may choose to either share or surrender such rights, when trading. ("I'll give you joint mining rights for this Kryptonite, if you give me sole possession of your Phonebox Technology.")

Players may also trade Attribute cards from their hands - either displaying them openly, announcing them without showing them, or simply trading them as unrevealed face-down cards.

Trading can involve a promised game action, as either assistance or threat ("If you give me ten Soil, I'll give you back half the Nitrates that my Earthworms produce from it", "Give me ten Gold or I'll attack your Robots!"), but it's up to the traders to trust that their opponent will remain true to their word.

Attribute Cards

Playing Face-to-Face

Technopoly can either be played with massses of counters on a tabletop (where each type of Object is represented by a different token; coins and glass beads are good), or by each player simply keeping track of their status on a sheet of paper.

If playing with counters, you might like to agree beforehand that each type of counter is a finite resource - if you run out of a particular type of Object counter, then no more of that Object can be mined or built (at least until the existing stockpiles are destroyed or burnt).

Playing Online

Technopoly can be played online using any medium that implements a shared deck of cards, although you can play cardlessly by numbering the Attribute Cards and assigning them by a die roll, if you trust your opponent and don't mind getting duplicates.