Four Gardens
The goal of Four Gardens is to accumulate the most points on the score board by completing landscape cards and finishing sets. Each finished set creates a panoramic view of a garden, and these sets are called (no surprise) panoramas.
Players can finish panoramas by first laying groundwork cards, acquiring resources by turning the 3D pagoda, and allocating those resources to satisfy the requirements of each groundwork card. Once satisfied, a groundwork card becomes a landscape card. Multiple landscape cards laid in the correct order create a panorama. Each God has their own satisfaction meter which expresses their goodwill towards the gardens and their builders. Players try to please the Gods by completing landscape cards and finishing panoramas.
Number of players: 2 - 4
Game duration: 45 mn
Complexity: 2 / 5
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Play Four Gardens and 930 other games online.
No download necessary - play directly from your web browser.
With your friends and thousands of players from the whole world.
Free.
Rules summary
Overview
Play cards to build Panoramas and please the Gods
Turn
Each turn, you have 3 action points to spend on the same or different actions, which also come with a card cost (either play or discard depending on the action). After which, draw back up to 5 cards from either the seen or unseen supply.
Lay Groundwork - For this action, choose a card in your hand and play it faceup (groundwork side). When choosing what to play, you cannot play a card if it is the same colour AND panorama number as another card in your display (e.g. you have a blue 2nd, you can play an orange 2nd, but not another blue 2nd). The Panorama number is the shaded circle on the group of circles in top left, e.g. if the second circle is shaded, this is the 2nd in its panorama. At this point, the sequence does NOT matter, e.g. you can play blue 2nd prior to playing blue 1st. Your Groundwork area can hold at most 3 Groundwork cards at any one point.
Rotate and Collect - For this action, choose a card in hand with the Pagoda symbol (a stack of 4 floors with one shaded). The shaded floor tells you which floor will be rotated by this card, and this will also rotate all floors above it too (but not the lower ones). The rotation is 90 degrees in a direction of your choosing. Once rotated, check the card again, this shows whether your are performing an upwards or downwards collection. Collect all resources shown on the side of the Pagoda now facing you in the direction indicated (up or down) until either they have all been collected or your Planning Area is full, this may mean you do not get the resources you wanted as you CANNOT skip unwanted resources
Take a Wild - For this action, discard a card in your hand showing four resources and an arrow to a card, after which take a resource of your choosing and either add it to an active groundwork card or to your Planning Area if space is available
Reallocate Resources - For this action, discard a card with the Handcart symbol on it, this allows you to move any and all of your resources in the following manners: From Planning Area to Active Groundwork card, From one Active Groundwork Card to a different Active Groundwork card, From your Planning Area back to the General Supply (this is how to get rid of unwanted resources)
Landscape Completion
If you have resources on an Active Groundwork card which match the ones asked for in its lower box, it is now completed and flipped before being moved to the Panorama area
Move forward a single space on the God track associated with the card
If this was not the first card in the set, take the rewards of all previous cards from the same set
Some cards have the Wild God symbol, for this you can choose which God to advance on, and can change this choice every time the card is activated by the set bonus
If you reach the end of a God track and would progress on that God again, instead move ALL opponent markers on that God track backwards one step
If moving a player's marker backwards knocks it off that God track, it is removed and can no longer advance on that God track
If multiple Groundworks are completed at the same time, pick one to fully resolve before resolving another
Bonuses
If you complete a Panorama, take a bonus tile of your choice, you cannot repeat the same Bonus tile
Planning Tile Expansion - This increases the storage capacity of your Planning Area by 1
Take Wilds - Take the highest value still available, and this value determines a number of bonus Take Wild actions you can immediately take and resolve at that point, you cannot save some for later
Extra Rewards - Take the highest value still available, this is raw points at game end
Game End
The game end is triggered when a player completes 8/9/10 Groundwork Cards in 4/3/2 players, finish the current round in full
Gain points for your position on each of the God Tracks
Gain points shown on Extra Rewards tile if collected
The player with the most points, wins!
If tied, the player with the most completed Groundwork cards wins!
If still tied, the player with the largest completed Panorama wins!
