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...

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

• 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)
• 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...
• 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...
• 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...
• Does The Great River scenario modify the initial Explore?
  No, the initial Explore happens as normal.
  (Discussion elsewhere)  Tags: The Great River