The Great River

Frequently Asked Questions

Adversaries

• When playing with against France, what happens to Towns that end up somewhere other than on the island (e.g., on the Great River panel)?
  They go back into the pool of available Towns for France's loss condition, like if they were removed/destroyed. If the Towns would be used for tracking elsewhere, track that thing with another component. (e.g., swap them for 2 Explorers on the panel for Ocean's Hungry Grasp or use Scenario Markers to represent Towns that escaped in the Great River scenario.)

  The intent of France's Town pool is to track how many Towns are on the island; it's just considerably easier to do this with a limited Town pool than by counting the number on the board every time one gets added. In cases where the Towns permanently leave play, it's appropriate to return them to the supply to keep that count correct, even if they'd otherwise be removed from the game entirely (e.g., by the leather sack in Powers Long Forgotten).
  Tags: The Great River, Kingdom of France, Ocean In Play (Ocean's Hungry Grasp), Ocean's Hungry Grasp, 1 more...

Effect Rules

• If an effect happens after a particular step of the Invader Phase (e.g., "after the Build Step") and there are multiple Invader cards in the corresponding space, does it happen after resolving each card?
  No, resolve the triggered action(s) after the entire step is over, once you've finished resolving every card in that step. If the triggered action references the corresponding cards, it refers to all of those cards.

  So, for example, when up against Habsburg Monarchy (Livestock Colony) Level 1+ and have both a "Jungles" card and a "Mountains+Wetlands" card in the Build Space, then (in order):

  • The Invaders build in Jungles;
  • The Invaders build in Mountains and Wetlands;
  • "Migratory Herders" triggers, gathering Towns from Sands into each Jungle, Mountain, and Wetland.
    Tags: Ordering, Invader deck, Triggered Actions, Habsburg Monarchy (Livestock Colony), 9 more...
• What does moving pieces towards or away from something mean? (e.g., Pushing pieces towards the nearest Ocean with "Sweep Into the Sea.") What if you move a piece Inland?
  Move the piece in a way that either decreases or increases (respectively) its Range from the key location. All game notions of "nearer" and "further" in effect text use Range – you never need a ruler, and a land that looks physically closer might not actually be at shorter Range!

  When you Push towards the Ocean with "Sweep Into the Sea," the land you Push to must be closer to the nearest Ocean than the land they're currently in. So, e.g., a land 2 away from its nearest Ocean could only Push to lands 1 away from that Ocean (Coastal to it). As with all ambiguous cases, if multiple Oceans are closest, you decide which one to consider "nearest".

  Similarly if you move a piece Inland, you move it further away from the Oceans collectively: each land it moves through must be further from the nearest Ocean than the land it came from. The piece can't move e.g., from a Coastal land on one board to a Coastal land on another board; even thought it's increasing its Range from the Ocean it was originally closest to (from Range 1 to Range 2), it's still just as close to an Ocean (Range 1).

  The routes most directly towards or away from something are an objective trait of the board layout and not affected by Isolate (just like how Isolate doesn't change which lands are Coastal), though the routes can be altered by something that changes the board topology for all purposes, like "Weave Together the Fabric of Place." Isolate can still stop Invader pieces from moving if they can't make progress on any of the shortest routes towards or away from something. Specific movement effects can overrule these restrictions, such as Isolate affecting which routes Thieves attempt to take to the coasts in the Despicable Theft scenario.
  (Discussion elsewhere)  Tags: Range, Move, Isolate, Sweep into the Sea, 9 more...

General Play

• When dividing pieces evenly between multiple lands (e.g., when moving Towns in The Great River) or Energy evenly between Spirits, do you account for existing pieces in those lands / Energy of those Spirits?
  No and no. "Evenly" is checked on the things to be divided, not the result after the division.

  As an example, consider 4 Towns being divided evenly between a land with 0 Towns and a land with 3 Towns. Dividing 4 Towns evenly across two lands means 2 Towns for each land, for a final result of 2 Towns and 5 Towns. While a result of 3 Towns and 4 Towns gets the Town totals closer together, that requires an uneven division of the Towns—either 3 & 1 or 4 & 0, depending on which land ends up with 4 Towns.

  In some cases (like The Great River), there's a tiebreaker condition if a perfectly even distribution isn't possible. In all other cases, players break ties, as usual.
  Tags: Energy, The Great River, Volcano Looming High, Numinous Crisis, 4 more...

Power Cards

• For Dream of the Untouched Land, what orientation should the new board be placed in? Can it use Archipelago rules?
  It's not specified, so you choose any orientation that would be legal during setup and fully interlocks with a side of the target board. You may not use Archipelago rules, as that is not "next to".

  If all three interlockable edges of target board are accounted for (e.g., if target board is the "face" of the standard 5-player "crab" layout), then you can use any legal interlocking position that has a corner-to-corner adjacency with target board, even though that's not strictly "next to" target board. In the rare case even that isn't possible due to setup restrictions (e.g., Oceans being aligned during The Great River scenario, thematic boards all having only one possible position and orientation), you fail to add the new board and probably should have used the Power somewhere else.
  (Discussion elsewhere)  Tags: Player-convenience choices, Archipelago, Thematic map, Dream of the Untouched Land, 1 more...

Scenarios

• How does Isolate interact with The Great River scenario?
  Ignore Isolate when determining which land are more or less Inland that each other – where a Town "wants" to go (usually to a set of more-Inland lands or off the eastern edge) is unaffected by Isolate.

  Isolate does still (optionally) block Towns' ability to move into those lands or off the island. The Towns divide themselves evenly among the destinations they have access to. If Isolate blocks them from reaching any of their desired destinations, the players choose for each Town whether to pay 1 Energy to stop the Town from moving at all or let the Town ignore Isolate when moving.

  For a concrete example, if Board A is the "northernmost" board, the lands adjacent to A1 are A2, A4, A5, and A6, with A2 being equally Inland and the other three being more Inland. If there are 5 Towns in A1, then:

  • If Isolate blocks the boundary between A1 and A5, the Towns can still move Inland to A4 and A6. They divide themselves evenly between those to lands, with the 5th Town ending up in A6 because A6 is further "north" than A4.
  • If Isolate blocks the boundaries between A1 and all of A4, A5, & A6 and the Spirits pay 3 Energy, then 3 Towns stay in A1 and the remaining 2 Towns ignore the Isolate effects to divide themselves evenly among the three destination lands, moving to A6 and A5. (The Towns left in A1 don't move to A2, despite not being able to move Inland, since there were further-Inland lands they could have moved to if Isolate effect hadn't blocked them.)
    Tags: Isolate, The Great River
• Does The Great River scenario modify the initial Explore?
  No, the initial Explore happens as normal.
  (Discussion elsewhere)  Tags: The Great River
• When playing with an extra board, do any Scenarios need adjusting?
  Yes, a number of previously-printed Scenarios need to change "per player" to "per board":

  • Powers Long Forgotten: Make the "per player" setup instructions "per board" instead. (So you have enough tokens for all the boards, if playing on balanced. )
  • Blitz - Setup - "an additional Blight per player" should be "per board". Rule Changes - "1 less Blight per player" should be "per board".
  • Second Wave - After the First Game - the "per player" measurements should be "per board" (though the tokens saved do not need to be exactly 1 per board - eg, in a 2p, 3-board game, you could save 3 Beasts across the whole island, not limited to precisely 1 per board). Second Game Setup - "2 Blight per player" should be "2 Blight per board".
  • The Great River - Additional Loss Conditions - the per-player measurement should be per-board (but you can't just substitute "per board" because that implies it matters which board they escape from, so something like "If more than (3 x # of boards) Towns escape...")
  • Ward the Shores - Setup Changes - "4 Markers per player" should be "4 Markers per board"

  Note: an extra board may synergize very painfully with some Scenarios - most notably those which involve controlling / affecting territory, like The Great River, Despicable Theft, Ward the Shores and perhaps Powers Long Forgotten. If you want to avoid the extra Difficulty boost caused by this, you can opt to have some or all of the Scenario effects skip one board. (eg: The Great River could skip just Population Spills Across the River on one board, or all Rule Changes.) This will, of course, dilute the feel of the Scenario a bit.
  (Discussion elsewhere)  Tags: Extra Island Board, Powers Long Forgotten, Blitz, Second Wave, 3 more...
• When are Scenario Markers / Element Markers considered pieces?
  Nearly anytime they're placed on the board. The only exception is if they're purely a visual reminder, like in The Great River, or if used to mark Inner Lands for Guard The Isle's Heart. (JE p. 35, "Piece")

  This might be revisited if future content results in weird situations, as some of the cases are kind of borderline (eg: Rituals of the Destroying Flame), but for now the simplicity of "always" wins out.

  Element Markers placed on the board for Elemental Invocation are not considered "pieces" - the first printings of Jagged Earth considered them as pieces that were basically non-interactable (since they're not in any land); it's cleaner to just not count them as pieces at all.
  Tags: Element markers, Pieces, Changed rulings, Despicable Theft, 9 more...
• In the Great River Scenario, if a Town with a Health bonus and 2 Damage taken moves off the island due to Relentless Migration Eastwards, is it Destroyed or does it remain on the Scenario Card?
  It remains on the Scenario Card. The Scenario checks if it successfully exited the island, not what state it would be in after the move if it ended up in a place where it didn’t have a Health bonus.
  Tags: Durable, The Great River, Habsburg Monarchy (Livestock Colony)
• If an effect specifically happens in the Slow Phase, but isn't a Slow Power, how does it work in the Blitz Scenario?
  Exactly as written. Blitz still has a Slow Phase, even if nothing usually happens in it because all Slow Powers are Fast.
  Tags: Speed (Fast/Slow), Blitz, Absolute Stasis (Fractured Days Split the Sky), The Great River, 3 more...