Each player controls the development of a city state. Temple, theater and oracle, a harbour with ships, vineyard, winegrower and much more can be built on the Greek peninsula. The board quickly gets cramped and so it's important for the players to block the route of their adversaries and ensure the fertile districts for themselves. But building is expensive. You can save by using the natural resources of the land or by building successive buildings in sequence.

The Winner is the first player to perform one of the following actions
- Build all 30 buildings available
- Connect any two sanctuaries with a string of their own buildings.

On your turn, you may perform one of the following actions:
a) Draw building cards (2 times)
b) Build a building (3 times)

Drawing a building card:

The player clicks on one of his 4 building stacks. The revealed card is shown then right aside. If the player wants to pay the building costs (see Building Rules; click in the left upper corner of the board the needed resources) he can immediately place the building on the map. Otherwise he has to place the building on his storage board.

This action can be performed twice.

Build a building:

The player takes a building of his choice from his storage board (picture on the left; this opens by clicking on the own name), clicks the suitable building costs (again on the upper left) and places it on the board.

This action can be performed three times.

If a building is chosen, and you don't want to or cannot build, it can be put back and you can choose another with the green arrow on the upper left.

taking resource cards:

A player can pass all or part their moves "drawing" or "building" You get one resource card for each action passed. Click on the red arrow on the left upper corner

Where can buildings be built?
Each empty space on the board can be use as building lot, independent of any symbol on it. If there's already a building or a sancturary you cannot build there.

Cost to Build:

The basic costs of a building are both on the card itself and on the stoarge board. Any Resource symbols on the board, which are on the building lot itself or one the fields directly next to it, are subtracted from the basic costs. The remaining costs have to be paid from the player with suitable resources, that have to be clicked on the upper left,before the building will be built

You can use any 2 resources as a "wildcard" to substutite for a missing resource.

Building of free:

If you build your buildings in the proper sequence they can be built for free. The arrows on the storage board show the build order : - The building which an arrow comes from has to be already on the board. - If the player now places the building on which the arrow ends directly next to the building, he can build it for free. In the following cases you can't build for free: - reverse: the tower (Turm) is already placed, the fortress (Festung) will be placed - missing building: the quarry (Steinbruch) is already placed, the fortress is not placed, the tower will be placed - wrong colour of the player: hampelhorst wants to build next to the fortress of Lammkeule his own tower - main building (white font on black ground): a main building has always to be paid.

When you can build for free:

When you have a building that may be built for free, a Red Diamond will appear on the board on the location that you can build next to.

To build a Street(Straßen)

To build a street you have to pay any 5 resources, substracted all territory symbols, which are on the building lot itself or one the fields directly next to it. The build order: Since streets are connected with arrows to each other on the building mat, you can see that you are allowed to build a street for free next to an existing street.

What is a settlement?

Two or more adjacent buildings of one player (same colour), compose a settlement. A new settlement is built, when a a player builds a building that has no contact to other buildings of the same player. (In the picture on the left there are one yellow and one blue but two red settlements).
If a new settlement is built, there are extra costs in addition to the basic costs. For each existing settlement of the player he has to pay one more optional resource from his pool. (Thus the 3. Settlement of a player costs two more resources.)
Later if you connect two settlements, they will only count as one for the cost calculation when starting new settlements.

Amphoras
Each building is part of a thematic group. There are 7 of such groups like "defence" or "seafaring". If you have built all buildings of one entire group, you receive an amphora which you can use to add one action to one of your turns later in the game.
If the pool of 15 amphoras is empty, the player receives a resource instead of the amphora.
To use an amphora at the end of the move, the player has to click on an amphora left to his name. Then you get an additional action(must be the same "draw" or "build" type of action as the rest of your turn. Behind their own name is the number of available activities, shown in brackets. If a player has an amphora and he don't want to use it, he has to click on the red arrow in the upper left to go on. Attention: It's easy to forget that!

Expanding the board

If a player draws the last card of one of the 4 building stacks, he places his building like normal on the board or the storage board. Afterwards he has to expand the board. The new board section can be turned by clicking the right mouse Button and is placed by clicking the left mouse button.

Where can the new board segment be placed?

The player has to place the new board segment so that it connects to at least one other part of the board It's possible that there emerge openings beetween the board segments as long as it's still one island.

Radar

The pictures in the top right corner are solely a game aid. Here a smaller view of each player's building mat is shown.