Charterstone Hints & Tips – Post Campaign Play

Continued from Charterstone Hints & Tips – Game 12

**This post is an aid for playing a Charterstone Campaign, and is meant to be read after you have played Game 12 but before you play a Post Campaign Game. In it I may talk candidly about things revealed in the 12 Games of the Campaign. You have been warned.**

Campaign Wrap Up

The Campaign will have been concluded, and final Campaign scores added up to pick the overall winner. One of you will have bragging rights, but all of you will have the shared memory of how the Campaign unfolded, and what went into making the Board your own. But those first 12 games are just the beginning. There will be lots more chance of personalisation in the Post Campaign Games.

There will be Buildings left to construct, and if you had a low player count in the Campaign, there is probably still Crates left to open, and maybe even a Rule or two left to add to the Chronicle. In short, the game play of a post Campaign game is going to be pretty close to a Campaign game. So let’s have a closer look at what makes it different.

Setting Up You Charter

Firstly, Charters are assigned randomly to each Player. You roll the Charterstone, and that will be your Charter, unless it has already been assigned to another Player. In which case roll again.

All the Sky Island Tiles from the game are shuffled together, and 4 are randomly dealt to each Player. Everyone chooses 2 of those 4 Sky Islands to cover Plots in their Charter, and as usual, you may not cover the Basic Resource Building. The other 2 Sky Islands are returned to the box. If you have played the Campaign with any Inactive Charters then you will have some blank Sky Island Tiles. These can be chosen, to give you the opportunity to construct Buildings on them.

After all the Charters have been set up, Peril is added to the Buildings, in the usual way.

Personas

All Personas revealed during the Campaign, except for the original 6 (which had no special ability) are shuffled together into a deck. This includes all Personas that might have been archived at the end of Game 9, the setup of Game 11 and the Loyal & Rebel Personas that were not chosen at the end of Game 11. These all form a communal Persona Deck, that will be used by everyone in the Post Campaign games. 3 Personas are dealt to each player, and one will be chosen by each Player. The unused Personas are shuffled into the deck and the deck remains next to the game, so that extra Personas can be dealt off the top of the deck, when Buildings or Treasure cards allow you to gain one.

If you are playing a game with Crates to unlock, then each Persona gained in this way is given to the Player that unlocks the Crate, and they get that ability for the rest of the game.

Your Personal Supply

There are no Resources or Minions held over in your Charter Chest any more, and you do not gain bonuses from completed rows of Glory. But once you have set up your Charter and selected a Persona, in reverse Player order, you select 2 bonuses before you start:

• A Minion or an Advancement Card (chosen from the Advancement Mat)
• $2 or 3VP

Then you’re ready to play.

Automa

You might find a need, or desire, to use Automa in a Post Campaign game, when you have not used them previously. It is easy enough to set it up. Cards 158 to 162 contain the stickers used to adjust the Automa Rule book during the Campaign. Extract them all now and add them to their assigned spaces.

Automa Personas are Cards 393 to 398. Randomly choose one for each Automa in the game.

Cards 377 to 392 make up the Automa Deck. The Rules of how they work are pretty straight forward, but you can read more about them at the start of This Post.

Aim of the Game & Adjusted Rules

The aim of the Game now revolves exclusively around earning VP. These are earned in the same way as during the Campaign, with a slight variation added to Rules 18 & 19, regarding unlocking Crates and constructing Buildings. You may now pay the Resources to gain VP and advance the Progress token, even if you don’t have a Crate to open, or a Building to construct.

Unofficial Variant

The main thing that is conspicuously missing, is the Guide Post for the game. This was a fun, side goal, that Players could aim for to gain an extra Glory, worth 10 VP in the final Campaign Score. So, maybe one could be randomly chosen at the beginning of the game, to give a bonus 10VP to those that achieve it. The Guideposts were:

• Have the Most Coins & Resources – Game 2
• Score the Fewest Objectives – Game 3
• Have the most Buildings – Game 4
• Have the most Persona Cards – Game 5 – T. Rule: Small worker can’t bump big worker.
• Most Tokens on Quota Track – Game 6 – T. Rule: Roll Dice, and gain a VP if it matches your Charters.
• Most Tokens on Reputation Track – Game 7 – T. Rule: Building Costs go to Players
• Have the Most Peril – Game 8
• The Candle Doesn’t Burn Out on Your Turn – Game 9 – T. Rule: Set hidden timer for random time between 50 & 70 minutes.
• Have the Most Minions – Game 10 – T. Rule: Minions not used. Place 18 Minions according to the Location Cards.
• Have the Most Advancement Cards – Game 11 – T. Rule: Cannot place workers in own Charter, only Minions.
• Have the Fewest Advancement Cards – Game 11 – T. Rule: You must first spend an Influence to gain access to other Charters.
• Have the Fewest Influence Tokens – Game 12 – T. Rule: Only you may use your Sky Islands.

Cards 412 & 413, the Guideposts for Game 12, have the same Objective and Temporary Rule, so only 1 of them is needed in the “Guidepost Deck”. There are two Objectives for Game 11, and they have different Temporary Rules, so even though you only would have used one of them in the Campaign, add both cards to the Guidepost Deck.

The other Guideposts are a matter of personal taste. Perhaps “Have the Most Persona Cards” might not suit because you have no Buildings in play that will give you that Bonus (and only 2 Treasure Cards in that large Advancement Deck can give you an extra Persona). Maybe you are playing with 6 players, and you don’t want to give 5 of them a bonus with the Candle Guidepost. But if you choose to add them, shuffle the ones you want to use together and randomly deal one out. It could be done any time during set up, but to mirror game play during the Campaign, it should be the first thing you do, before you choose Sky Islands, Personas and Resources.

Oh … and don’t forget … that game board is double sided, and a Recharge Pack can be picked up from most Online Retailers and your Friendly Local Game Store.