AuZtralia

To set up the game, first randomly distribute 13 of the 27 survey tiles onto hexes that have a survey triangle. Flip these tiles over and rotate them so the arrow points north. Next, seed the map with resources (coal, gold, phosphates) and Old Ones based on the indications on the survey tiles. Old Ones are always placed face down and must match the level indicated on the map; if a hex is indicated to receive an Old One from multiple directions, its level is upgraded. Resources are never placed in coastal hexes. Separate the event cards by level (1, 2, 3), shuffle each level deck, and draw five cards from each. Layer these drawn event cards with level 3 at the bottom and level 1 at the top. The remaining 15 event cards are returned to the box unseen. Shuffle the personality cards and display five face-up next to the deck. Finally, shuffle the Old One cards.

The primary objective in AuZtralia is to accumulate the most victory points by the end of the game. Players can earn victory points through various activities such as establishing and maintaining farms, mining valuable resources like phosphates, and engaging in combat to defeat the Old Ones. A crucial secondary objective is to protect your port from being destroyed by the Old Ones, as losing your port results in an immediate game end for all players.

Player turns are determined by their position on the time track. The player whose time marker is furthest back (or on top of a stack of markers) is the active player. Players perform actions by placing their cubes on action spaces on their player board, which costs time points. The Old One player's disc always moves just one time point at a time. Whenever the Old One disc lands on an odd-numbered space on the time track, a new event card is flipped and actioned. Additionally, at each purple move, two Old One cards are flipped to check for Old One movement. Face-up Old Ones on the board that appear with a white circle on the flipped card are triggered to move towards the closest target farm or port, with direction determined by the card if there's a choice.

At the end of the game, victory points are calculated from several sources. Each farm still in good condition earns 2 victory points. Each phosphate resource collected is worth 3 victory points. Players also earn 3 points for participating in the shared slaying of a loyalist Old One. Finally, points are awarded for Old Ones killed: face value for revealed Old Ones and double the face value for unrevealed Old Ones. Additionally, extra points are awarded for farms blighted by Old Ones.

The game can conclude in one of two ways. The most abrupt ending occurs if any player loses their port, which happens if they have no military units or sanity tokens left when their port is attacked by an Old One. In this scenario, the game ends immediately for all players. Alternatively, the game ends when all players have moved their time markers past the 55th time point on the time track, triggering the final scoring phase.