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Bison
Authors: Wolfgang Kramer & Michael Kiesling
Publisher: Phalanx Games
Year: 2006


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Go and get your Indian suit out of the closet, because we are going to play ‘Indians’! But this time no trains are robbed or innocent westward trekking colonists harassed; the Indians had a private life too, besides acting in Indian films, yes they did: hunting on the prairies for bisons, to earn their living. Besides that, they sat at the river banks for the occasional fishing, and went after Thanksgiving turkeys. Meanwhile the players, rivalling tribes as they are, niggle each other from four to six rounds, after which the amassed trophies yields a winner.

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At the start of play each player gets an inventory card on which he marks the bisons, turkeys and fish at 10; so far for the easy part of the hunt. Also two wigwams, two canoes and four Indians (cubes in the player’s colour) are part of the starting equipment. The rest of the stuff: Indians, canoes and wigwams, are put aside and form the general supply. The three initial tiles are placed in the center of the table, and the rest of the tiles are shuffled to form a blind stack. x
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At the beginning of a round each player starts by taking a landscape tile from the stack. A landscape tile has always three animals on it, in varying combinations, on one or more types of terrain: bisons on prairie, turkeys in mountains, and fish in rivers. By placing Indians in an area, players try to form majorities in their colour which gives them the full catch of animals for that area at the end of a round, when all areas get scored. When scoring, a player simply adjusts the amount of animals on his inventory track.

The same type of terrain can stretch over more than one tile, thus enlarging the area that might possibly earn more animals for a player who manages to get a majority for an area. On each of the three types of terrain on a tile, there can only be one player at a time, but of course there can be up to three players on a tile, each of them occupying a different type of terrain.

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A round lasts four turns, and each player marks his actions with neutral colored cubes. When an action has been marked, it cannot be chosen again in the same round. Once in a round a player is forced to place the landscape tile; he can put from his personal supply as much Indians as he likes on one of the three types of terrain in the same action. This is the only possibility to get Indians into the game!

Each placement of Indians has to be paid with animals from his inventory; a player adjusts his track accordingly. Also on this card is a chart of the costs for the actions.

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A player may freely decide with what type of animal(s) he wishes to pay for his action, and in what combination, except when he wishes to bring in items from the general supply; these have to be paid for in equal amounts of bisons, turkeys and fish. Because of this, a player takes care to have all three types equally represented on his inventory track, and this subsequently means that he will be hunting in all three terrain types. He is allowed to trade in one type of animal for another, but this will go against 3:1 odds and therefore a player will hesitate to trade against such unprofitable odds.
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The wigwams and canoes can be placed to upgrade the Indians on an area; they have small diamonds on them which represent the amount of Indians, from one to four. When for example a player has two Indians (cubes) in a river, he can trade these in from his personal supply for a canoe with two diamonds. The action ‘canoe’ is marked with one of his four neutral cubes on his player card, the player pays for the action of two Indians and adjusts his inventory accordingly. When a player would have had no canoe, wigwam, or insufficient Indians in his personal supply, he could buy or hire one or more from the general supply first. Buying on this market can be done at any time, and costs no action.
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The reason for a player to upgrade to a (higher marked) wigwam or canoe is that when determining the majorities in an area a wigwam of one is more than any number of Indian cubes. Consequently,  a 2-wigwam is higher than a 1-wigwam. Numbers are NOT added, so a 3-wigwam is still more than two 2-wigwams in an area. Runners up get half the score added on their inventory, and numbers three and four get scored for the amount of animals for the area of the tile they are in. This could possibly be more than the runner up! After the scoring a new round is begun.
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Indians can be moved by three other actions, but the most convenient way to get them back in the personal supply is building canoes or wigwams for them; with this action the cubes return to the personal supply. Wigwams and canoes are in a strange way permanent and a bit contradictive to the nature of the Indian way of living.
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