Building Economies - Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design - page 209

sTaTiOns
In the game, the players build different types of stations. Stations are represented
by stacks of tokens (initially just one) of their own color. Any station can store ice,
ore, or both by stacking them. If a station is a mine, it stores whichever substance
it mines, but any station can also store ice or ore received through transportation.
Players can build the following stations:
n Ice mines. A station that touches an ice lode is an ice mine.
n Ore mines. A station that touches an ore lode is an ore mine.
n Way station. A station that doesn't touch either an ice or an ore lode is a way
station. Ice mines and ore mines whose lode is depleted automatically change into
way stations.
PLaYinG The Game
Players take turns, and in each turn they may perform a number of actions. To
determine the number of actions a player may perform, divide the number of sta-
tions he has by two and round up any fractions. Because the game always starts
with three stations for each player, in the first turn each player will always get two
actions. In each action, the player may choose to do one of the following:
n Mine for ice . Take one ice token from the ice lode next to one of his ice mines and
store it on the mine (a station can have any number of ice or ore tokens stacked on it).
n Mine for ore. Take one ore token from the ore lode next to one of his ore mines
and store it on the mine.
n Transport resources. Move one ice or one ore token between two of his stations.
The two stations cannot be farther apart than the short side of a playing card.
n Build a new station. Remove an ore token stored in any station and discard
it. Place a new station of the player's color somewhere on the surface, close to the
station from which the ore came. The distance between the new station and the
original station cannot be longer than the short side of a playing card.
n Expand station. Remove an ice and an ore token from a station (it must have at
least one of each), discard them, and add an additional station token to the stack.
The size of a station is the number of tokens of the player's color in its stack.
n Produce energy. As a single action, any station with ice stored in it can produce
energy. To produce energy, remove any number of ice tokens from the station and
discard them. For each ice token removed, the player receives as many energy tokens
as the size of the station. (In other words, if the station is two tokens big and he
removes three ice tokens from it, he will get six energy tokens.) Energy tokens are
not stored in the playing area but held by the player.
n Research. Players can spend energy points to buy a technology (see the next
section, ”Technology”).