The Rules

Purpose of the game

Objective

Score the greatest total value in your personal holdings after five years. Your holdings consist of your face-up Plot and face-down Cellar. Every surviving card scores its printed rank.

Players cooperate to complete fields, but rewards belong to individual players and failed fields expose private holdings to requisition.

What you need

Components

• 52 crop cards: Wheat, Sunflower, Potato, and Beet, ranked Ace through King.
• 1 Saboteur card, ranked 0 and marked with all four crops.
• 4 Medal cards.
• 1 double-sided Central Planner reference card.
• This rule leaflet or the rules on this page.

52 crop cards

0 Saboteur

1 Saboteur

Trick ★ Medal

4 Medals

P ☷ Central PlannerDealer & reference

1 Planner

Before Year 1

Setup

1. For each crop, set aside its Ace, 2, 3, and 4. Randomly add one hidden card of that crop ranked 5 through King. Shuffle these five cards into a face-down reward pile beside that crop’s field.
2. Shuffle every remaining ordinary crop card together with the Saboteur to form the Workers Deck.
3. Give each player space for a face-up Plot and a face-down Cellar. Only a Cellar’s owner may inspect its cards.
4. Reserve a public area called the North. Cards sent there remain face-up and out of play.
5. Place all four Medal cards beside the play area.
6. Choose the first Central Planner by agreement or at random. Give that player the Planner card.

Three players use the full deck. Do not remove any additional Worker or reward cards.

Wheat pile

Sunflower pile

Potato pile

Beet pile

One round

The yearly sequence

1. Deal and reveal the year’s four rewards.
2. Determine trump and resolve optional swaps.
3. Play four tricks—or three tricks in Year 5.
4. After each trick, assign every card and check for completed fields.
5. Bank the final card in each player’s hand.
6. Resolve requisition.
7. Clean up and pass the Central Planner left.

Start of a year

Planning

Years 1–4

1. The Planner deals five cards face-down to each player.
2. Reveal the top card of each crop’s reward pile beside its field.
3. The Planner chooses one crop as trump for the current year.

Swapping in Years 2–5

Beginning in Year 2, each player may make exactly one optional swap before the first trick. Exchange one card from your hand with one card in your own Plot or Cellar.

• You may inspect your own Cellar before choosing.
• A hand card replacing a Plot card is placed face-up.
• A hand card replacing a Cellar card is placed face-down.
• The card taken from the Plot or Cellar joins your hand and may be played normally.

Four times per full year

Trick-taking

1. The player to the Planner’s left leads the first trick.
2. Each other player must follow the led crop if able.
3. A player unable to follow may play any card, including trump.
4. The highest trump wins. If no trump was played, the highest card of the led crop wins.
5. The winner becomes the Brigadier, takes one Medal, and assigns the trick.
6. After assignment, that Brigadier leads the next trick.

After every trick

Assigning Workers

The Brigadier assigns every card from the completed trick, one at a time. A card may go to any field whose crop appeared anywhere in that trick.

• A card does not have to be assigned to its own crop.
• Cards in one trick may be split across several legal fields.
• Cards remain assigned until the end of the year.
• Previously completed fields remain legal assignment targets.

→

Wheat

Beet

Crossing the threshold

Completing fields

Add the printed ranks of all cards assigned to each field. A field completes as soon as it reaches its quota: 40 hours with four players or 32 hours with three.

The Brigadier whose assignment crosses the quota immediately takes that field’s visible reward and places it face-up in their Plot. Each field pays at most one reward per year.

The field stays open for later assignments. Reaching quota does not protect it from a Saboteur assigned later in the same year.

40Quota met

Rank 0 · all four crops

The Saboteur

Following and winning tricks

• The Saboteur counts as every crop and is therefore always able to follow suit.
• It is a rank-0 trump regardless of the chosen trump crop.
• It beats every nontrump card.
• Every ordinary card of the chosen trump crop beats it.
• If the Saboteur is led, there is no ordinary lead crop; every player may play any card.

Assignment and field failure

• Because it matches every crop, its trick makes all four fields legal targets.
• It contributes 0 work hours wherever it is assigned.
• Any field containing it fails during requisition, even if that field reached quota and already paid its reward.

0 Saboteur

→

Wheat

Sunflower

Potato

Beet

After the last trick

Banking

After four tricks, every player has one card remaining in hand. In Year 5, every player also has one card after the third trick. Place that card face-down in your Cellar.

The State collects

Requisition

1. Identify failed fields

A field fails if either condition is true:

• Its assigned work total is below the applicable quota.
• It contains the Saboteur.

Let N equal the number of failed fields.

2. Identify inspected players

Every player holding one or more Medals is inspected. The number of Medals does not change how many cards that player loses.

3. Build each player’s eligible pool

Resolve inspected players separately. Pool every card in that player’s Plot and Cellar whose crop matches at least one failed field.

• Face-up rewards in the Plot are eligible.
• Face-down Workers in the Cellar are eligible.
• The Saboteur matches every failed crop and is eligible at rank 0.

4. Send cards North

Sort the pool by printed rank and send the player’s highest N eligible cards North. If the player has fewer than N eligible cards, send all eligible cards. The owner chooses between equal-ranked cards tied at the cutoff.

The confiscated cards do not need to represent different failed crops. If the two highest eligible cards are both Wheat, both are taken.

→

North

Years 1–4

End-of-year cleanup

1. Return all four Medals to the shared supply.
2. Send every unclaimed visible reward North.
3. Reshuffle every assigned and undealt Worker, including the Saboteur if it remains available, to form the next year’s Workers Deck.
4. Do not reshuffle cards in Plots, Cellars, or the North. Claimed rewards and banked Workers remain with their owners.
5. Pass the Central Planner card to the player on the left.

Famine

Year 5

1. Flip the Central Planner card to its Year 5 side.
2. Deal four cards to each player.
3. Reveal one reward for each crop.
4. Reveal the top remaining Worker and immediately send it North.
5. The revealed Worker’s crop becomes trump. If it is the Saboteur, there is no trump for Year 5.
6. Each player may make the usual optional swap.
7. Play three tricks, then bank the remaining card and resolve requisition normally.

5

Famine

Reveal a Worker for trump

+

After Year 5 requisition

Final scoring

1. Add the printed ranks of every card remaining in your Plot and Cellar, including claimed rewards. The Saboteur scores 0.
2. The player with the highest total wins.
3. If tied, the tied player with more total cards in their Plot and Cellar wins.
4. If score and card count are both tied, those players share the victory.

Keep this visible

Quick reference

Saboteur: rank-0 all-suit trump; every ordinary trump beats it; makes every field legal; contributes 0 hours; its field fails.

Digital rules note

The app

The digital game currently has four seats and therefore always uses the 40-hour quota. Its rules engine automates the same default sequence and edge cases described above.