Federation

To set up the game, first place alteration tokens face down on the blue 6Moon planet, matching the symbols on the planets, then reveal the tokens for the first planet. Keep any remaining alteration tokens aside. Place the four mages of the four player colors on the starting planet. On the purple Atalum planet, place one face-up erudite card at level 3, three erudite cards at level 2, and three erudite cards at level 1, revealing the first level 1 card. Place honor medals around all planets in their designated spots. Place intrigue (black) and accreditation (grey) tokens on the Senate board, equal to the number of players. Prepare resource tokens by type: Lavandium (purple), gold diamonds (yellow), Copernium (green), and Oceanium (blue). On the orange Neo planet, place four random asteroids and four inert asteroids face down, along with the four miners, all covered. These will not be refilled. On the green E81216 planet, place four random or pre-printed megastructures, and six robots of the four player colors. Place Deep Space tokens, one more than the number of players. Place a funding indicator on each Grand Project, including the joint one, with one player indicator for each player on their respective track. Divide the law tiles by color, shuffle them, and place them face down in their designated spaces, revealing the first one. If two revealed law tiles are identical, set the rightmost one aside and reveal another until they are different. Choose the first player and give them the Senate President token. Randomly draw initial tiles, one more than the number of players. Starting from the player to the right of the first player, and proceeding counter-clockwise, each player chooses one initial tile, immediately gains its related benefit, and places it on their player board.

The primary objective of Federation is to accumulate the highest number of prestige points by the end of five rounds. If multiple players achieve the same highest score, they share the victory.

A round in Federation is divided into two main phases: the Ambassador Phase and the Executive Phase, played in clockwise order starting from the first player. The Ambassador Phase involves two steps: first, playing an ambassador (mandatory), where a player places an ambassador token on an empty space in the Senate, optionally using an alteration token to change the symbol on the played token, and choosing to play on the vote side (optionally using an assistant die) or the funding side (immediately gaining the indicated resource or placing a special mission token on their player board if no resource is available). Second, sending a spaceship (optional), where a player sends one spaceship to complete a special mission, provided the mission is unlocked and they have sufficient accreditation. The Executive Phase involves several steps: gaining income from production structures with a player's robot (optional, from left to right), paying the accreditation cost (if applicable, based on the accreditation track, retreating if unable to pay, with Oceanium acting as a wild resource), advancing on Grand Projects (moving the indicator on the corresponding column's Grand Project track for each funding, or on the joint project track for impossible advancements), and approving laws (the player with the most votes for each plan gains prestige points equal to their accreditation level, with ties allowing all tied players to gain the bonus; the law with the most votes is approved, with the President breaking ties).

Final scoring occurs at the end of the fifth round. Players earn prestige points for: gold medals (value is the lowest visible on the track), advanced resources (1 VP per 2 crystals, 1 VP per gold diamond), unused alteration tokens (1 VP each), spaceships in the hangar (1 VP each), completed special missions (including initial and Deep Space missions), Grand Projects (points based on ranking, with 10 VP for first, 7 VP for ties, 4 VP for second, and 2 VP for ties, provided the influence gap is 1 or 2 compared to first), and planets/honor medals (claimed by meeting requirements, with the first available medal claimed and placed on the highest available track, only one medal per color can be collected).

The game concludes after the completion of the fifth round, at which point players proceed to calculate their final prestige points to determine the winner.