Harmonies

To set up Harmonies, place the central board with the 2-4 player side face-up (or the solo side for single-player games). Take all 120 tokens (23 blue for water, 23 gray for mountains, 21 brown for trees, 19 green for tree crowns, 19 yellow for fields, and 15 red for buildings) and put them in the cloth bag, then place the bag next to the central board. Fill each of the five spaces on the central board with three random tokens drawn from the bag. Shuffle the 32 animal cards and place five face-up next to the central board, forming a row; the remaining cards form a draw pile. Place the 66 animal cubes (brown) within reach of all players. Each player takes a player board and a reminder card, ensuring the reminder card matches the chosen side of their player board (players must agree on which side of the player board to use, and all must use the same side). The player who last saw a magnificent landscape is the first player, and they point the central board's arrow towards themselves.

In Harmonies, the primary objective is to strategically construct territories and habitats on your player board using colored tokens to attract various animals. These animals, represented by animal cards and cubes, will then contribute to your final score. The player who accumulates the most points by the end of the game wins, requiring careful planning of token placement and animal attraction to maximize scoring opportunities.

Starting with the first player and proceeding clockwise, each player takes a turn. During their turn, players can freely choose the order of actions, but one action is mandatory, and two are optional. The mandatory action is to choose and place three tokens from the central board onto their player board, following specific placement rules. Optionally, players can take an animal card from the central display (once per turn) and/or place animal cubes onto their player board (multiple times per turn). After completing their actions, players draw three new tokens from the bag to refill the central board and replenish the row of animal cards if needed, ensuring five cards are always face-up.

At the end of the game, points are calculated in two main phases. First, points are awarded for the tokens on your player board: trees score based on their height (0, 1, 3, or 7 points for 1-4 tokens high), mountains score based on their height (0, 1, 3, or 7 points for 1-4 tokens high) but only if connected to another mountain, fields score 5 points if formed by two or more adjacent yellow tokens, buildings score 5 points if surrounded by at least three different colored tokens (including red), and water scores based on the length of the longest river (0, 2, 5, 8, 11, 15 points for 1-6+ tokens) or 5 points per isolated island of water. Second, points are awarded for animal cards: each completed or uncompleted animal card gives points indicated by the highest unoccupied space for animal cubes on the card. A card with all animal cubes still on it scores 0 points. Spirit of Nature cards also contribute points based on their specific criteria.

The game concludes in one of two ways. The first trigger is when the bag of tokens is empty, and the central board cannot be refilled with three tokens for a player's mandatory action. The second trigger occurs if, at the end of a player's turn, their player board has two or fewer empty spaces. In either case, the current round is completed so that all players have taken an equal number of turns. After the final round, players proceed to calculate their scores. The player with the highest total score wins. In case of a tie, the player who placed the most animal cubes wins. If the tie persists, the tied players share the victory.