edge of the playing area where there is no coast). Provinces may be of any size, large or small. A newly created province need not be immediately (or ever) occupied and could be later occupied by any player during his own turn.
A province should have (but need not) at least one symbol space. Otherwise, it is worthless, as it cannot be occupied. It is possible to create a province that is just a single symbol space. For such a province, the tax levy will be zero and it is unlikely that such a province will be useful.
Profit: the value of a province is determined by the number of open
When a player moves Alexander, he should do so to try to create provinces with high open to symbol space ratios, so he can then occupy them. The more open spaces, the more valuable a province is and the fewer symbol spaces, the less it costs to occupy. Of course, more valuable provinces will be ripe for takeovers from avaricious opponents.
Occupy an empty province:
The players try to occupy provinces so they can use them to levy taxes and earn the points needed to win the game.
To occupy an unoccupied province (one not occupied by any player), a player must place at least one of his guards on any one of the symbol spaces in the province. For each other symbol space in the province, the player must pay (place
If a player does not have the cards required to occupy a province (or does not want to use the cards he has), he may use additional guards in place of the missing cards. In fact, he may use as many of his guards as he wants (and has left) to occupy a province. He places each guard on a symbol space in the province and the pays cards (as above) for any remaining symbol spaces (if any) in the province. Such a move should be reserved for special cases, as when a player has a chance to occupy a very valuable province, but is missing a required card. Without guards, a player will be unable to occupy further provinces. Also, a player cannot levy taxes or score points for a province with more than one guard.
Figure 7: red occupies a large province with 6 symbol spaces and 9 open spaces by placing two guards in the province (on a temple space and a horse space) and playing 4 cards matching the other symbol spaces in the province: amphora, lyre, temple, and soldier. If he had a horse card or another temple card, he could have used one of these
cards instead of the extra guard.
A province may be divided when moving Alexander.
In figure 8, yellow has just conquered an huge province, worth 11 points, hoping to keep it until next
turn when he is plans to levy taxes, but the other players may try to divide this province by moving Alexander inside it.
For example, on red's turn, the player may decide to move Alexander toward one of the 5 spaces indicated with a white/red dot in figure 10 (that means 14 different points).
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