Ants

Set up the main board in the center with objects on diamond icons and leaf tiles in designated slots. Shuffle and reveal base cards on the board, and arrange resource tokens, resource cubes, and room tiles nearby. Each player receives an ant-hill board, a random ant-hill tile, their color's disks, room tiles, incubation tiles, and starting disks placed on the nuptial flight track, incubation tiles, and production spaces. Distribute start tokens, emergency food cubes, and initial room tiles. Draw room cards and starting cards, keeping four in total. Players take turns starting from the first player.

The goal of Ants is to grow and develop your ant society by exploring the garden, gathering resources, digging your ant hill, and expanding your colony. Players compete to be the bravest and most organized, guiding their colony to victory through strategic planning, resource management, and tactical combat.

Players take turns one at a time starting from the first player. On your turn, you must perform one of six possible actions: Dig, Explore, Forage, Play 2 Cards, Play 1 Card & Defeat 1 Enemy, or Incubation. Digging lets you expand your nest with room tiles and gain stars. Exploring allows you to uncover map hexes, collect resources, and encounter enemies. Foraging lets you collect resources from map vertices and emit pheromones. Playing cards gives you powerful effects and room upgrades. Incubation evolves your ants through life stages and increases production.

Victory points are scored at the end of the game from several sources: obtained stars, your position on the nuptial flight track, played cards, defeated enemies, special objects, your productions, and one point for each ant on your board. Penalties from emergency food storage are subtracted. The player with the most points wins.

The end of the game is triggered when the stars track is completed. Finish the current round, then play one final round where all players perform a mandatory incubation action. After this final round, calculate victory points from all categories to determine the winner.