431 BC. The Aegean is a scatter of proud city-states, and the long war between Athens and Sparta has begun. You take the helm of one Polis and steer its fate across eleven years — founding trade, raising armies, conquering rival cities, and minting the coins that will outlast you all.

AEGEAPOLIS is a competitive strategy game. Trade is not required, but it is rewarded: each faction's home city is stronger in some resources than in others, so players are drawn toward trading. The art is knowing how far to cooperate before you hand a rival the win.

You play the leader of one of four factions, each with its own character and special strength:

• Athens — Athene (blue) · strength: discovering Poleis and expanding
• Sparta — Leonidas (black) · strength: conquering Poleis
• Corinth — Sisyphos (terracotta) · strength: economy and security
• Thebes — Phix (cream) · strength: decisive local superiority and economy

The goal: be the player with the most victory points (VP) when the game ends. You earn VP mainly by controlling Poleis, by committing coins at scoring, and by completing Mission Cards. These are not three separate races: the board is what bridges the path of conquest and the path of coins — every city you hold feeds both.

In the spring of every odd year (431, 429, 427, 425, 423 BC — never 421), every Polis you control pays out to your supply. What a Polis pays depends only on the resources printed on its tile. Being a Mint adds nothing to the payout — a Mint pays exactly what its tile prints, like any other Polis, and is never a source of extra coins (a Mint counts only for the Mint ranking in scoring).

Every coin paid out is drawn blind from the coin bag — reach in without looking and take one coin; do not search by touch for a particular shape. Even Corinth, which is a Mint, simply draws a random coin.

Place a new Polis tile on an empty space next to a Polis you control (horizontally, vertically, or diagonally). Name the space first, then take the tile. The tile comes from one of two sources:

• Polis deck — draw a face-down tile and place it face up.
• Discard pile — take the top, face-up tile (only the top tile is available).

You may spend FP to extend the action:

• Standard (free): place 1 tile (from deck or discard).
• Choice (+1 FP): draw a second tile for the same position (from either source). Keep one, place it; the other goes face up on the discard pile.

  Double-discard: during Choice, if you like neither tile, place both face up on the discard pile (you choose the order) and place nothing this turn.

• Trade link (+1 FP): also build a trade link to the new Polis as part of the action.

The two upgrades stack — maximum action cost 2 FP (Choice + Trade link).

Spend Fleet Points (FP) to move Phalanxes (and Heroes) out of one Polis. If a destination is not yours, combat follows (see page 20).

Cost: count all the units you move, then divide by 4 (round up) and multiply by the distance to the farthest destination — that many Fleet Points. Movement may be horizontal, vertical, or diagonal, and may pass over empty spaces. No trade links are needed to move.

Spread movement. A move sends units from one starting Polis to up to three destinations. Key rules:

• No picking up on the way — every unit starts at the same Polis and ends at one of the (up to three) destinations.
• One cost for the whole spread. Count all the units leaving the starting Polis, divide by 4 (round up), then multiply by the distance to the farthest destination. That is the whole cost — there is no path-by-path comparison. Spreading out is rewarded: reaching up to three destinations still costs only that single farthest distance.
• The King and Builder never count toward the units-per-4 cost (they move for free).
• Builders may split to different destinations in a spread move — each Builder must travel with at least 1 Phalanx (it cannot move alone).
• Each Navigator in the moving force reduces the total FP cost by 1 — applied last, after any Convergence (minimum 0).
• If the move triggers several combats, the attacker chooses the order of the battles.

Combat happens when you move units into a Polis held by another player or a neutral Polis. If the target has no Phalanxes, you conquer the Polis automatically. A Fortification alone does not defend it — you take the Polis without a fight and inherit the Fortification intact. If at least one Phalanx defends, you fight the battle across one or more combat rounds. A Fortification helps only when a Phalanx defends with it.

When you conquer a Polis, you take all Unminted Coins lying on it behind your screen.

Terms: a combat is the whole fight · a combat round is one side firing · a combat-round roll uses at most 4 dice — a larger army still fires only 4 this combat round, then the other side goes.

Sequence — defender first, then attacker, alternating:

1. Each side rolls one die per Phalanx, at most 4 dice per combat round. A 3, 4, 5, or 6 is a hit. With more than 4 Phalanxes you still roll only 4 dice this combat round; then the other side goes next.
2. Each hit removes 1 hit point from an enemy unit. A Phalanx has 1 hit point; when it loses its last, it returns to the supply. A Fortification on the tile takes the attacker's hits first; beyond that, the player who is hit chooses which Phalanxes they lose.
3. Losses are removed immediately after each roll. The next combat round follows the same way.
4. Combat ends when one side has no Phalanxes left on the tile. Because the defender fires first, an attacker reduced to 0 in the defender's combat round never fires back — the defender keeps the Polis.

At the end of every even year (430, 428, 426, 424, 422 BC) and after the final year (421 BC), the winter scoring runs in a fixed order:

1. Before scoring — players may redeem winter Mission Cards that act first: Monopoly, Coin multiplier, Coin combos & flushes, and Extra scoring.
2. The three rankings — Poleis, then Coins, then Mint.
3. After scoring — the Second-coin-scoring cards resolve.

Each player may redeem at most one winter Mission Card per scoring (see Reference Book, page 3).

For each ranking, places are scored from the top down — 1st = 3 VP, 2nd = 2 VP, 3rd = 1 VP, one rank per player (a 4th place scores 0; in the Coin and Mint rankings, only players who commit coins are ranked). With 2 players, only the top two ranks apply — 3 VP / 2 VP. Ties share the better rank.

Every winter, each pressured player is reinforced. In a scoring year, the board is checked only after the scoring is complete: if one or more rivals have Phalanxes on any Polis next to your Native Polis, you receive a flat 6 Phalanxes in your Native Polis — once, regardless of how many rival armies or adjacent tiles are involved.

The trigger is the same in every case: it does not matter why the rival is there (trade-route control, a wealthy neighbor, simple aggression). The adjacent presence of enemy Phalanxes is the whole trigger — no more. The reinforcement is a flat 6 Phalanxes, independent of your government.

Corinth has an 8th action: recruit a Builder. This costs only the action — no AP, FP, or coins. The Builder appears in Corinth's Native Polis and then moves together with a Corinth army (it cannot move alone, and rides free). Outside Corinth's Native Polis, a Builder must always stand together with at least 1 Phalanx. Maximum 5 Builders in play — the cap counts Builders currently in play, so a lost Builder frees its slot and another may be recruited.

• In winter, every Builder in play automatically erects one Fortification where it stands (not in the Native Polis). No extra cost or decision.
• A Fortification has 3 hit points. It is the first target in any attack on its tile. Each hit places one marker; at 3 markers it is destroyed. If it survives a combat damaged, it is fully repaired at the end of that combat.
• Fortifications stack — several can sit on one Polis. Hits fill one Fortification at a time: they pile onto a single Fortification until it is destroyed (3 hits), then spill onto the next; once the last Fortification falls, further hits carry over to the Phalanxes. No hit is wasted.
• If a Polis with Fortifications changes owner (by conquest or by handover), the new controller inherits them. A Builder, however, dies permanently with its army — but the Fortifications it has already built remain on the board.

1. Wildcard for 1 FP or 1 AP, at 1 : 1, any time — for movement, recruiting, building, and combat AP. (It is worth more than 1 FP/AP, so spend it this way only when short — see the box.)
2. Counts as a full coin in the regular Coin ranking — but not in the Mint ranking (it bears no design).
3. Fills coin combos on the Combo and Flush cards, lowering the card's VP the more "blanks" you use. It then leaves you together with the card's other coins.
4. Trade & transactions — a valid item in transactions; generated by neutral trade (where it blocks a group) and by Democracy.