Space Colony Cheeses

The colonization of space is going smoothly. Spaceships fly on schedule from colony to colony, bearing the imports and exports of dozens of planets. But most of the trade is centered on necessities. There's no way to send a tasteful Christmas gift of assorted cheeses and beef sausages to a loved one on another planet. You've been assigned to change all that.

You are in charge of colonizing a newly discovered world, Bos III. Your task is to build a thriving, profitable dairy colony. You must choose when, where and how to expand. You'll have to balance the need for money-making modules against the need for energy production. If you can afford it, you may want to expand into other dairy products, increase your storage capacity, or just harass the competition with endless lawsuits. The choices, and the responsibility, are yours.

Space Colony Cheeses is a light-hearted, non-violent game for 2-4 players. The game includes a map, score sheets and game counters; all you provide is one or two six-sided dice.

I. Introduction & Set-Up

The ultimate goal of the game is to make money, or $. You do this by adding modules to your colony. Some modules generate $, and some don't, but all can be useful to the colony. Each player begins the game with $100 to start his/her colony.

Roll to see who goes first. Every colony must begin with a Start-Up Module. A colony cannot be started within 5 hexes of another colony's modules. A player may not start multiple colonies.

II. The Map

This map is unlike most maps you've seen. There are two kinds of map spaces, squares and octagons. A square space has only four neighbors, while an octagon has eight adjacent spaces. This can be important when arranging your modules. Use two maps side by side if you're playing with three or four players.

The map has two kinds of features, Fault Lines and Lush Pastures. Fault Lines are the brown lines on the map; these are the only places you can build a Geothermal Plant. Lush Pastures have a green symbol, and give a bonus to Barn modules built on them.

III. Building Colonies

Bos III is an anomaly; Earth-type plants grow well there, but the atmosphere does not retain oxygen. Thus, there's plenty of grassland for your cattle to munch on, but everything must be enclosed in modular domes with artificial atmospheres.

All modules must be connected to each other; only the Start-Up module can stand alone. Each module requires 1 energy unit per turn. Modules that are energy-short cannot function and produce nothing. (You can build a module with no energy source, and add an energy-producer later.) Food is no problem for your colony, since food is what you're producing.

As your colony makes products, you keep track of them with sliders on the scoring sheet. You must keep track of your score in $ on the score sheet, and the eight different kinds of cattle-oriented products you can produce on the commodities sheet.

IV. Game Sequence

  1. Colonies with a Construction Module can move one module.
  2. Each player can add 1-3 modules to his/her colony, if he/she has enough $ and space on the map.
  3. For each player, if a die roll comes up 1, a new disease has started in your herds. Put a "Sick" counter on one Barn module; that Barn cannot produce anything until the disease is cured. A player cannot have more than 4 diseases at once; ignore any others that crop up. If you have four diseases, you cannot sell anything except Leather and Manure.
  4. Each player adds up the energy produced by his/her energy-producing modules, minus the needs of all the other modules. If there isn't enough energy to go around, turn modules upside-down (denoting an energy shortage) until there's enough energy to power all the right-side-up modules. You may not put an energy-producing module in energy-shortage status. Any excess energy is lost.
  5. Each player computes Dairy Output production from each Barn next to a Processing Plant, and allocates it to the eight products -- Milk, Cream, Butter, Ice Cream, Cheese, Beef, Leather, and/or Manure. You cannot make more of a particular product than you have storage for. If you have no storage for a product, you can't make that product.
  6. Each player rolls on the Random Events Table and does what it says. If you get a change in a product price, apply that change in Step 8. Prices can fall to 0, but never lower.
  7. For each player, if your colony has a functional Space Port, a Catalog Store, and at least one stored unit each of Cheese and Beef, you can sell gift boxes (see "Catalog Store"). Reduce your stored amounts of Cheese and Beef accordingly.
  8. One player rolls a die for each commodity to set the price for the current turn. Each player with a functional Space Port can sell as many of that commodity as he/she wants, adjusting the price by the results of his/her random-event roll as needed. Adjust your $ accordingly.
  9. Add income from Start-Ups, Cheese Labs, and Sausage Labs. Law Offices file lawsuits.
  10. For each diseased Barn or Mega-barn, if a die roll comes up 5 or 6, the disease has been cured. Roll twice if your colony has a Veterinary module. If the disease is cured, remove the "Sick" counter.
  11. Reset all stored products, except Leather and Manure, to zero.

V. Colony Modules

  • Start-Up Module must be the first module you build. Because it generates its own energy, as well as small amounts of $, it is quite expensive.
  • Solar Panels are your least expensive, and least powerful, energy source.
  • Geothermal Plant produces more energy than solar panels. But you can build them only on fault-line spaces.
  • Hub Module is a special connector. Any module adjacent to a Hub is considered adjacent to any modules the Hub is next to. Hub Modules use no energy.
  • Milk Storage stores up to 10 units of Milk. You can sell this, and the other dairy products, at a Space Port. All product storage modules must be adjacent to a Processing Plant. Be aware that, at the end of each turn, any remaining stored products spoil and must be discarded, and your inventory drops to 0.
  • Cream Storage stores up to 10 units of Cream.
  • Butter Storage stores up to 10 units of Butter.
  • Ice Cream Storage stores up to 10 units of Ice Cream.
  • Cheese Storage stores up to 10 units of Cheese.
  • Beef Storage stores up to 10 units of Beef.
  • Leather Storage stores up to 10 units of Leather. Leather does not spoil at the end of each turn.
  • Manure Storage stores up to 10 units of Manure. Manure does not spoil at the end of each turn.
  • Barn Module supports one herd of dairy cattle, plus feeding and milking equipment. It produces 5 units of Dairy Output per turn, or 7 if it is built on a Lush Pasture space. Barns must be adjacent to a Processing Plant.
  • Mega-Barn Module counts as two Barn Modules for dairy output, and as one module for energy usage.
  • Pasture Dome is an enclosed grazing area which must be adjacent to a Barn or a Mega-Barn. Bad things can happen if you don't have at least one Pasture Dome for each 3 Barns' worth of cattle (count one Mega-Barn as two Barns), and good things can happen if you do have enough.
  • Processing Plant turns your herds' output into Milk, Cream, Butter, Ice Cream, Cheese, Beef, Leather, and/or Manure. There is no limit on how many units of each product a Processing Plant can make, except that there must be room in your Storage Modules for everything. Anything that won't fit in storage is lost. A Processing Plant requires 2 units of energy per turn, not the usual 1.
  • Habitation Module is living space for your colony's workers. You must have a Habitation module in order for your colony to exceed 12 modules; in other words, your 13th module must be a Habitation module. Should this module be deprived of energy, you cannot add any more modules until the Habitation is functional again.
  • Veterinary Module gives your colony a second chance to overcome diseases.
  • Construction Module reduces the cost of new construction by 1 per module, and it lets you move one existing module per turn to another location, at a cost of half the unmodified purchase price (drop fractions). You can't knock down a building and rebuild it in the same place for half price; you have to actually move it.
  • Cheese Lab generates $4 each turn through research into new flavors of cheese. This lab will earn $ whether you have a functional Space Port or not.
  • Sausage Lab generates $4 each turn through research into new flavors of sausage. This lab will earn $ whether you have a functional Space Port or not.
  • Catalog Store lets you sell taseful gift boxes of assorted cheeses, beef sausages, and flavorless crackers, usually at higher prices than the cheese and beef alone would fetch. A Catalog Store cannot function unless you have a working Space Port and at least one stored unit each of Cheese and Beef. Gift boxes are made of one cheese and one beef unit each, and usually sell for $10.
  • Space Port is required in order to trade with the rest of the galaxy. Prices of the eight products are different each turn, and for each player. Each price is determined by a roll of the die. The price of Leather can never be higher than 3; if the price roll is 4 or higher, subtract 3. The price of Manure is always 1. Random Events can overrule any of these limits.
  • Law Office is full of corporate lawyers who are eager to sue the udders off your competition. Each turn, you can choose to file suit against one other player for infringement of grazing rights, contract violations, a strawberry tort, or whatever else the legal eagles can think of. Roll a die. If it comes up 1-4, multiply by 10 and that's how many $ you take from that player and add to your own score. If it comes up 5, the suit was dismissed, and a 6 means the court found for the other player, and you must give him/her $25. You can't sue a player who has less than $50.

    VI. Winning the Game

    The player with the most $ at the end of 15 turns is the winner. If it's a tie, shake hands and call it even.