The Game

Zenith is tug-of-war style game, where you and your opponent fight for control the 5 planets and compete to be first to achieve one of the three victory conditions:

1. Absolute Victory: Gain 3 influence tokens from the same planet.
2. Democratic Victory: Gain 4 influence tokens from different planets.
3. Popular Victory: Gain 5 influence tokens from any combination of planets.

Winning

Play ends immediately when a player achieves one of these win conditions.

Influence

In the game, gaining influence on a planet means moving that planet's influence token towards you by the number of spaces equal to the amount of influence gained. If you move a planet's influence token to your edge of the board you keep that influence token and a new token is placed on the planet. Excess influence when arriving at the edge of the board is lost.

Planets

The planets and their respective colours are:

• Mercury = Purple
• Venus = Orange
• Terra = Blue
• Mars = Red
• Jupiter = Green

Beginning of the Game

Player 1 is decided randomly. Player 2 gains 1 Terra influence. Both players start with a hand of 4 cards.

Turn Structure

Select a card from your hand to use for one of three actions:

1. Diplomacy Action

Discard the card to gain the Leader Badge, plus the diplomacy bonus for the faction of the card you are discarding (Animod, Human or Robot). If gaining the Leader Badge, take it on the silver side. If you already have the Leader Badge on the silver side, turn it to the gold side. Each side of the Leader Badge increases your hand size by one; silver = 5 cards, gold = 6 cards. If you already have the Leader Badge on the gold side you only gain the diplomacy faction bonus, your hand size remains as 6.

2. Influence Action

Spend the credit cost of a card (grey resource value shown in the top left) to play that card to your stack and carry out the card's effects, from left to right. All cards provide 1 influence in its planet, plus some other effects written on the card. Effects range from gaining more influence in the same or other planets, gaining new cards to your stacks, removing cards from your opponent's stacks or even stealing cards from your opponent's stacks into your stacks.

Credit Discount

For each card previously placed in your stack for that planet, you reduce the card's credit cost by 1. For example, if your Mercury stack has 5 purple cards in it, a purple card with a credit cost of 8 would cost you 3 credits to play (8-5). If you have equal or more cards in your stack than the cost of a card, that card is free to play. You cannot gain credits for a larger stack size then the card's credit cost.

3. Technology Action

Discard the card to progress your technology marker (grey or black) on the technology track for the faction of the card (Animod, Human or Robot). To carry out this action you have to spend the required Zenithium (gold resource) to pay for the next level on the respective technology track (ranging in value from 1 to 5). When your technology marker progresses to the next level you gain the effect of that level PLUS all previous levels on that faction's track. Markers can only move one level per turn.

Technology track row bonus

When you develop all three technology tracks to one of the first three levels you gain influence on a planet of your choice. The number of influence gained matches the technology level; developing all three technology tracks to level 1 gains you 1 influence, developing all three technology tracks to level 2 gains you 2 influence and developing all three technology tracks to level 3 gains you 3 influence. This is a one-time bonus and doesn't apply to levels 4 and 5.

Bonus tokens

There are 16 bonus tokens in the game; 8 face you and 8 face down in a draw pile. The face up tokens are on each planet and on each technology track level 2 space. When a player is first to gain an influence token for a planet, or first to arrive at level 2 on a technology track they gain the effect of the respective face up bonus token. The face down tokens can also be achieved in other ways, giving a random, unknown bonus. These bonus tokens provide a one-time bonus and once they've been claimed they are removed and not replaced. These tokens provide a variety of bonus from gaining extra credits, Zenithium or cards, and even stealing resources or cards from your opponent.

End of Turn

Draw new cards back up to your current hand size; default hand size of 4, hand size of 5 if you have the Leader Badge on the silver side or hand size of 6 if you have the Leader Badge on the gold side. If you already have a larger hand than your current allowed hand size you will not draw new cards but you will keep all your cards and will not lose any excess. Play then passes to your opponent.