Cooper Island

Setting up Cooper Island involves arranging the modular island boards in specific layouts according to the player count. Each player receives a player board with worker placement spaces, storage areas, and development tracks, along with initial worker meeples, ships, statues, and starting resource tiles. Common supplies like coins, resources, building tiles, and bonus cards are placed near the main board within easy reach of all participants.

The main objective of Cooper Island is to score the most victory points by developing your section of the island. Players achieve this by exploring uncharted territory, raising the terrain level of hex tiles to gather rarer resources, clearing ruins, building ships to sail around the archipelago, and constructing various structures like houses and factories.

During a turn, players assign their workers to different action spaces on the central board to perform key tasks. These actions allow players to lay new island tiles, move their ships along coastal tracks, gather wood and stone, clear ruins, build structures, and trigger special abilities. Worker placement is restricted, and careful planning is required to maximize efficiency each round.

Scoring happens dynamically throughout the game and during final scoring phases. Players earn points by advancing their ships along coastal tracks, building settlements, completing specific public and private objective cards, placing statues on discovered ruins, and managing their resource storage effectively.

The game concludes after a predetermined number of rounds, usually five. Once the final round finishes and all player turns are completed, final scoring is tallied, combining accumulated points from buildings, ships, card objectives, and remaining resources to determine the winner.