1. DISTRIBUTE ONE HOME SYSTEM PER PLAYER RANDOMLY

​

• (HOUSERULE) Distribute 2 Home Systems to each player from which they will pick one to play with for the game.

• Each player, in turn chooses his starting place in the galaxy and places their HOME SYSTEM (see SETTING UP THE GALAXY.)

• Distribute RACE SETS.

• Each player then chooses a COLOR SET.

• Place starting units on HOME SYSTEMS, starting technologies face-up in player’s play area and 2 Strategy Allocation, 3 Fleet Supply and 3 Command Pool on race sheet.

• Have each player place 1 Control Marker on the Victory Point Track @ the zero mark.

• Each player receives two Political Cards and 1 Action Card

​

* Political Intrigue - Draw the top two Political Cards and place them faceup in the play area.

​

2. DETERMINE SPEAKER RANDOMLY

​

3. CREATE THE OBJECTIVE DECK

• Distribute 1 Preliminary Objective/Player.

• Decide to use base or variant agressive OBJECTIVE decks.

• Shuffle the SECRET OBJECTIVE deck and place into play area.

• Shuffle and draw 6 Stage I Objectives.

• Draw 3 random Stage II Objectives + Imperium REX. Shuffle and place these facedown under the Stage I Objectives.

• If playing with the variant Strategy Cards, add 1 stage II objective card. Once the Objectives deck is built, reveal the first Stage I objective.

​

GAME OPTION :: THE LONG WAR

Draw 8 Stage I and 5 Stage II + Imperium Rex objectives. Use the flip side of the 10 VP regular track and play to 14 Victory Points.

​

GAME OPTION :: AGE OF EMPIRE

After creating the Objective Deck, reveal all Public Objectives in order until the Imperium Rex objective is revealed. Discard the others. During the game players may qualify for any of the Public Objectives from Turn One. After the end of each Status Phase move a Turn Token by one objective to the right, starting at the first objective. When the Token reaches the Imperium Rex objective, the game is over. During the first 3 rounds, only Stage 1 objectives can be claimed.

​

GAME OPTION :: NO IMPERIUM REX (HOUSERULE)

Replace Imperium Rex with an extra Stage II objective for a guaranteed 10 VP game (14 VPs if playing The Long War optional rule.)

​

4. Begin play with the STRATEGY PHASE