Five Tribes: The Djinns of Naqala

To set up Five Tribes, first shuffle all the tile cards and lay them out randomly in a 6x5 grid. Then, take the meeples from the bag, shake them well, and randomly place three meeples on each tile. Next, place the bid track and turn order track above the tiles. Place the resource cards in a stack, revealing the top nine cards. Place the Djinn cards in a stack, revealing the top three. Create a bank with the Palaces, Palm Trees, and Gold Coins. Each player receives a turn marker and eight camels of their chosen color (if playing with two players, use blue and pink, and each player gets two turn markers and eleven camels). Finally, each player starts with 50 gold (nine 5-gold coins and five 1-gold coins), which should be kept face down so opponents cannot see the exact amount.

The main objective of Five Tribes is to accumulate the most victory points by the end of the game. Players earn points through various means, including collecting gold coins, acquiring Djinns with their unique scoring conditions, having Elders and Viziers, controlling tiles with Palaces and Palm Trees, and selling sets of merchandise cards. Strategic planning and adapting to the changing board state are crucial to maximizing your score and outmaneuvering opponents.

Each round begins with players bidding for turn order. Players place their turn markers on the bid track, paying gold to secure an earlier turn. The earlier the position, the higher the cost. Once the bidding is complete, players take turns in the established order. On a player's turn, they first move their turn marker back to the leftmost available space on the bid track. Then, they choose a tile with meeples, pick up all meeples from that tile, and distribute them one by one to adjacent tiles (not diagonally, and not back to the tile they started from). The last meeple dropped must land on a tile that already contains at least one meeple of the same color. After placing the last meeple, the player collects all meeples of that color from the final tile. If the tile is now empty, the player places one of their camels on it, claiming ownership. Finally, the player performs the action associated with the tile where their last meeple was placed.

Victory points are calculated at the end of the game. Players receive 1 point for each gold coin they possess. Viziers are worth 1 point each, and the player with the most Viziers receives an additional 10 points for each opponent who has fewer Viziers than them. Elders are worth 2 points each. Djinns provide points as indicated on their cards, and some offer special abilities. Palm Trees are worth 3 points each, and Palaces are worth 5 points each. Camels placed on tiles contribute points based on the value printed on the tile. Resource cards can be sold to the bank for gold, with increasing value for selling more different types of cards simultaneously. The score sheet helps track all these different point sources.

The game concludes in one of two ways: either a player places their last camel on a tile, or there are no more legal moves possible on the board (meaning no player can pick up meeples from a tile and distribute them according to the rules). In either case, all players complete the current round so that everyone has had an equal number of turns. After this, final scoring takes place, and the player with the highest total victory points wins the game. Players should keep an eye on these end-game triggers to ensure they are in the best possible position when the game concludes.