Zealous

A game of prophets, followers, and starting over. 3–6 players · about an hour

At a glance

All three steps are optional, taken strictly in order, with no going back.

• You may never place a follower on your prophet's own tile, on a tile with an opponent's prophet, or on a tile not connected to your prophet's tile. With 3–4 players, never on a Birth Site.
• When you die: keep your followers and your points, and draw a Divine Intervention. At the start of your next turn, stand your prophet on any free Birth Site and play as normal.
• Place vs. Add: Place follows all the normal placing rules. Add goes exactly where the card says and ignores your prophet.

What you are trying to do

You are a prophet. You have one lifetime, a handful of followers, and a board that rises in rings towards a Holy City you do not yet control.

Every round, every follower who stands on the board earns your religion a point. Hold more than half the followers on a tile and your religion proliferates there on its own, adding another follower without you lifting a finger. Ground taken early pays out for the rest of the game.

But your prophet can be killed. Any opponent whose prophet walks onto your tile ends your life — and you come back at a Birth Site of your choosing, holding a Divine Intervention that no living prophet could ever draw.

How long the game lasts is chosen when the game is opened:

• Beginner: the game ends at the end of the round in which anyone reaches 50 points.
• Intermediate: the same, at 75 points.
• Advanced: the game ends at the end of round 10, whatever the score.

The board

The board has 16 tiles in three rings around a centre.

• The Holy City sits at the centre. Followers standing there are worth 2 points each instead of 1.
• Three Judgment tiles surround the Holy City, the inner ring. Move your prophet to one and you draw a Judgment card.
• The outer ring has six tiles, alternating: three Miracle tiles (move your prophet to one and you draw a Miracle card) and three Empty tiles (no symbol, no card, nothing but a place to stand). That is by design — it keeps the Miracle and Judgment tiles worth fighting over instead of every step handing out a free card.
• Six Birth Sites sit outside, one behind each outer tile. They are where prophets start the game and where they return when they die.

Connected tiles

Two tiles are connected when they touch. A prophet moves only to a connected tile, and you place followers only on tiles connected to your prophet's tile.

• The Holy City is connected to the three Judgment tiles, and nothing else.
• Each Judgment tile is connected to the Holy City, the other two Judgment tiles, and the two Empty tiles in front of it.
• Each Empty tile is connected to the two Miracle tiles beside it on the outer ring, two Judgment tiles, and its own Birth Site.
• Each Miracle tile is connected to the two Empty tiles beside it and its own Birth Site — and to no Judgment tile. From a Miracle tile, the centre is always at least two steps away.
• Each Birth Site is connected only to the outer tile it sits behind. Birth Sites are never connected to each other or to the Holy City.

The app's i button, at the corner of the board, shows what each tile does.

Birth Sites: it depends on how many play

• With 3–4 players, Birth Sites are only doorways for prophets. No follower can ever be on one — not by placing, adding, moving, swapping or Proliferation. A prophet can't walk onto a Birth Site either (Exodus included); the only ways onto one are the start of the game and coming back from death. So a prophet standing on a Birth Site can't be killed.
• With 5–6 players, Birth Sites work like ordinary tiles for followers: you may place followers there, they score 1 point each, and the tile can proliferate. Prophets may walk onto a Birth Site, and kill a prophet standing there.

Your turn

A round is one turn each. The app sets the turn order at random when the game starts, and it never changes. Your turn has three steps, and you take them in this order:

1. Play a card → 2. Move your prophet → 3. Place a follower

Every step is optional. Once you have moved past a step you cannot go back to it.

Step 1 — Play a card

You may play one card per turn. One. Not one of each kind — one, total. Vision and Salvation say otherwise on their face, and those cards mean what they say.

Miracles and Judgments are always played here, before your prophet moves. This means a card you earn this turn cannot be used until your next turn at the earliest. Divine Interventions print their own timing — see Reading your cards below. They still count as your one card.

A card can only be played if it would actually do something. Stone with no opponent's follower on a tile connected to your prophet's tile, for example, can't be played; the app tells you "This card isn't valid this turn." Vision, Salvation and Famine can always be played.

Played cards go face-up on a discard pile beside their deck. When a deck runs out, its discard pile is shuffled into a new deck. If both are empty, nothing is drawn.

You keep unplayed cards in your hand, hidden, with no limit on how many you hold.

Step 2 — Move your prophet

Move your prophet one tile, to any connected tile — or leave it where it is.

• Move your prophet to a Miracle tile and you draw a Miracle card.
• Move your prophet to a Judgment tile and you draw a Judgment card.

You only draw on the turn you move there. Standing on a Miracle tile for three turns draws you one card, not three. Stepping off and coming back later does draw again. The Holy City, the Empty tiles and the Birth Sites give you nothing.

If you move onto a tile where another player's prophet is standing, that prophet dies. See When your prophet dies.

Step 3 — Place a follower

Take one follower from your supply and place it on a tile connected to the tile your prophet now stands on.

You may not place a follower:

• on your prophet's own tile
• on a tile where an opponent's prophet is standing
• on a tile that isn't connected to your prophet's tile
• on a Birth Site, with 3–4 players

That first restriction surprises people. Your prophet is a preacher, not a settler — the crowd gathers around them, never underfoot. Your prophet may walk onto a tile where your followers already stand; you just can't place new ones there.

When your prophet dies

The moment an opponent's prophet steps onto your tile:

• Your prophet leaves the board. Your followers stay exactly where they are, and your score does not change. Death costs you your position and nothing else.
• Draw a Divine Intervention at once. You can play it from your next turn on.
• At the start of your next turn, before anything else, choose any Birth Site with no prophet on it and stand your prophet there. Then take your turn as normal from there: card, move, place.

There is no extra turn: you keep your normal place in the turn order. While your prophet is off the board, nothing that needs your prophet can happen to you.

Running out of followers

Followers that are removed or sacrificed go back to their owner's supply and can be used again. But if all 20 of yours are on the board:

• You can't place or add a follower.
• Cards still work as far as your supply allows. Be Fruitful adds as many as you have left, and you choose where.
• You can't convert. Conversion sends the old follower back to its owner and puts one of yours from your supply in its place.
• If your religion should proliferate on more tiles than you have followers left, you choose which tiles get them.

The end of the round

When the last player has taken their turn, two things happen, in order. The app does both and shows them on the board.

First, Tallying

Every follower on the board earns its owner points:

• 2 points for a follower in the Holy City
• 1 point for a follower on any other tile
• Birth Sites score 1 point per follower with 5–6 players (with 3–4 players, no follower can be there)

Followers score again every round they survive. This is not a one-time payment, it is rent — and it is why holding ground early matters so much.

Nothing in this game ever takes points away. Once a point is scored it is yours forever, even if the follower who earned it is removed next turn.

Second, Proliferation

Look at every tile. If one religion has more than half of all the followers on that tile, add one more follower of that religion there.

• Exactly half is not enough. Two followers each means neither religion proliferates.
• Most is not enough either: it must be more than half. In the Holy City, if three religions have 1 follower each and a fourth has 2, that is 2 out of 5 — not more than half — so nothing proliferates.
• A tile with only your followers on it always proliferates (unless a Famine was played on it).
• An empty tile adds nothing.

Work out every tile from how the board looks right now, then add all the new followers together. A follower added this way does not help win any other tile this round.

Then the next round begins, in the same turn order.

Winning

The game can only end at the end of a round — after Tallying and Proliferation.

• Beginner / Intermediate: if anyone has 50 / 75 points or more, the game is over. Reaching it in the middle of a round does not stop play: always finish the round.
• Advanced: the game is over at the end of round 10.

The highest score wins. If scores are tied, the tied prophet closest to the Holy City (fewest steps) wins; a prophet who is off the board counts as farthest away. Still tied after that, share the victory.

Reading your cards

Cards use a small set of words very precisely. They look similar. They are not.

The difference between place and add decides most rules arguments. Place hands you an ordinary placement and all its restrictions. Add ignores your prophet completely and puts a follower exactly where the card points. Proliferation is always an Add.

Sanctuary protects against every card. An opponent's card of any kind, Divine Interventions included, can't remove, move, convert or swap a protected follower. Cards that hit "every follower" on a tile (Exile, Flood) simply skip protected ones.

Miracles — 18 cards

Miracles build. No Miracle ever removes a follower. All are played in step 1, before your prophet moves.

• Pilgrimage moves two different followers; one follower can't move twice. You must move at least one.
• Sanctuary protects the tile: any of your followers on it, including ones that arrive later. Proliferation and your own cards are not affected. A follower you move away loses its protection.
• Vision: the card you don't play goes to your hand for a later turn. If neither can be played, both go to your hand.

Judgments — 20 cards

Judgments tear down, usually at a price. All are played in step 1, before your prophet moves — so you strike from where you were standing, not where you are going.

• Stone reaches only tiles connected to your prophet's tile, not your prophet's own tile.
• Samson and Reckoning work on any tile where you have a follower to sacrifice. Samson needs at least one other religion on that tile.
• Banishment can pick a follower on any tile; only where it goes must be connected to the tile it was on.
• Conversion compares you only with the religion you are converting, not with every opponent.
• Upheaval may even swap two followers of the same religion, or two on the same tile.

Divine Interventions — 14 cards

You cannot earn these by walking. You get one only by dying. Every Divine Intervention happens on the tile your prophet is standing on — you never choose a distant tile; you choose where to walk beforehand.

Each card says when you may play it. "After you move" means after moving and before placing. A Divine Intervention is still your one card for the turn.

• Exodus is an ordinary move in every way. It goes one tile, draws a card if it moves your prophet to a Miracle or Judgment tile, and kills a prophet standing where it lands. It simply brings your followers along.
• Salvation: you choose the order, and you must play each drawn Miracle that can be played. One that can't is discarded.
• Redemption converts as many as your supply allows.
• Salvation and Vision let you play more than one card in a turn. They are the exceptions to the one-card rule, and they override it. Salvation then Vision is fine; Vision then Vision is fine. Exodus then Exile is not: that is two cards.

A first round, played out

Three players: Ada, Bo and Cy, in that order. The game is Beginner.

Where everyone starts. Ada stands on the Birth Site behind a Miracle tile — call it Ada's Miracle tile. Bo picks the Birth Site behind the Empty tile on the far side of the ring from Ada. Cy picks the Birth Site behind one of the Miracle tiles connected to Bo's Empty tile — Cy's Miracle tile. Between Cy's and Ada's Miracle tiles lies one Empty tile; call it the shared Empty tile.

Round one

Ada has no cards, so she skips step 1. She moves her prophet from her Birth Site onto her Miracle tile and draws a Miracle. Now she places a follower on a connected tile. She cannot use her own tile, and with three players she cannot use her Birth Site, which leaves the two Empty tiles beside her. She takes the one away from Cy — Ada's Empty tile.

Bo moves onto his Empty tile. It has no symbol, so he draws nothing — but it is connected to two Judgment tiles. He places a follower on one of them — Bo's Judgment tile.

Cy moves onto his Miracle tile, draws a Miracle, and places a follower on the shared Empty tile.

Tallying. Each player has one follower on the board, worth 1 point. Scores: Ada 1, Bo 1, Cy 1.

Proliferation. Every occupied tile holds one religion only, so each religion has more than half there. Each gains a follower: Ada now has 2 on her Empty tile, Bo 2 on his Judgment tile, Cy 2 on the shared Empty tile.

Round two

The order stays the same, so Ada goes first again, and now she has a card she can use. She plays Revelation in step 1: Place 1 follower. Her prophet still stands on her Miracle tile, so she places on the shared Empty tile, challenging Cy there.

She then moves onto her Empty tile, where two of her followers already stand. That is fine: she just can't place there. She places her normal follower on the connected Judgment tile that Bo doesn't hold.

Bo has no cards. He moves onto his Judgment tile and draws a Judgment. The Holy City is connected to it, and he places a follower there.

Cy has a Miracle in hand: Multitude, Add 1 follower to a tile where you already have at least 2 followers. He adds one to the shared Empty tile, then moves onto Bo's old Empty tile (now free). Of its two Judgment tiles, Bo's prophet stands on one, so Cy places a follower on the other.

Tallying. Ada: 2 on her Empty tile, 1 on the shared Empty tile, 1 on her Judgment tile = 4, taking her to 5. Bo: 2 on his Judgment tile + 1 in the Holy City (worth 2) = 4, taking him to 5. Cy: 3 on the shared Empty tile + 1 on his Judgment tile = 4, taking him to 5.

Proliferation. The shared Empty tile holds Cy 3, Ada 1: Cy has 3 out of 4, more than half, so Cy gains another. Every other occupied tile holds a single religion, so each of those proliferates too — including Bo's lone follower in the Holy City.

Notice what just happened to Ada. Her challenge on the shared Empty tile cost her a card and didn't stop Cy from proliferating there, because one follower against two leaves Cy with more than half. Breaking a hold takes enough followers to bring the leader down to half or less.

Bots and kicked players (online games)

• Before the game starts, the host may fill empty seats with bots. A bot plays by the same rules as everyone else, and counts toward the 3–6 players.
• The host may kick a player who has left. A bot takes over that seat for the rest of the game, keeping its hand, followers, prophet and score — it can still win. The kicked player can keep watching.
• If the game is waiting on the host and nothing has happened for 60 seconds, any other player may kick the host. The host role passes to the next player in turn order who isn't a bot.

Zealous v0.14.2